One of the 2 engines I chose to be certified on was the GP9. This is a rather small (by todays standards) road engine. This was the highlight of the entire trip. I drove the engine around the yard in Portola for about 1 hour. My instructor, Ken Iverson was the nicest, most knowledgeable guy I have met in a long time, after showing me how to control the engine which took about 5 minutes, he handed over the controls to me the entire time, said I was a natural, haha. You can definitely feel as you drive one of those engines that you are in something extremely powerful and extremely heavy. Handling was great, though, slow. You are able to achieve very slow speeds, controls were very precise. Surprisingly enough, the engine is extremely quiet in the cab, you'd never be able to tell that because they are so noise on the outside! All in all it was a great experience, plus, now I have my certification!
