The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad's #5371 was built in 1975 as a General Motors model SD40T-2 diesel-electric freight locomotive. One of 73 engines of this type delivered to the D&RGW by the Electro-Motive Division of GM, it used a Southern Pacific Railroad-inspired cooling radiator designed to prevent overheating in long tunnels and snowsheds. Its large grilled air intake was placed at the rear of the locomotive at catwalk level rather than near the top of the long hood as on conventional units of the era, preventing hot gases from being drawn into the cooling radiators while operating at low speeds. For years, #5371 hauled heavy unit coal trains and priority fast freight across the Rio Grande system between Ogden and Denver, and later served in local and helper duty at Helper, Utah, before being retired in 2008.