St. Lawrence & Atlantic (LLPX) GP40 #3208 in Rainier, Oregon, in the summer of 2005

St. Lawrence & Atlantic #3208 is a 3,000-horsepower GP40 that was built by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors in January 1967 as Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific #375. This was one of a group of seven GP40s that the Rock Island was rebuilding to Dash 2 standards in its Silvis shops when the railroad went bankrupt and shut down in 1980. Before the shutdown it was completed as GP40u #3002. The last two of the seven were unfinished. Chrome Crankshaft acquired all seven locomotives along with the shop in 1981, and finished the remaining two locomotives.

The seven locomotives were sold to Toronto’s GO Transit in 1982. This locomotive became GO Transit #721. As they were not equipped with head-end power generators, they had to operate with HEP cars rebuilt from F-units. In 1994 they were retired and traded in to EMD for new F59PHs. EMD put the locomotives in their lease fleet and this locomotive became EMDX #205. 

In 2001, EMD transferred the locomotive to Locomotive Leasing Partners (LLPX), a partnership with GATX Leasing, and the locomotive was leased to the St. Lawrence & Atlantic as #3208. Despite its St. Lawrence & Atlantic paint scheme, there was a tiny "LLPX" on each side of the cab under the road number. St. Lawrence & Atlantic was taken over by shortline operator Genesee & Wyoming in 2002.

Genessee & Wyoming transferred the locomotive to the Portland & Western Railroad in April 2004, where it was considered a GP40-2, even though it lacks all the Dash 2 external spotting features like the water level sight glass, rear cab overhang, and vertical shock absorbers on the trucks.

This locomotive appeared on the Portland & Western’s Astoria Line in the summer of 2005, where I photographed it parked on the trestle over Fox Creek in Rainier, Oregon. I took several pictures, expecting that it would either leave soon to never be seen again, or be repainted. Soon after these photos were taken, it became Portland & Western #3006, with large P&W heralds applied over the St. Lawrence & Atlantic black and yellow paint, and would remain that way for nearly a decade before finally being repainted in Genesee & Wyoming’s standard orange & black paint scheme in 2013 or 2014. 

 

Incidentally, the St. Lawrence & Atlantic yellow and black paint scheme is not dissimilar to the Pullman green and yellow paint scheme used by the Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway, which operated the Astoria Line prior to the Burlington Northern merger of 1970, and had ordered similar-looking GP38s just before the merger that ended up being delivered in BN Cascade Green. If you don’t look too close, this locomotive is almost a glimpse of what might have been.