I photographed DLMX #644 on the Albany & Eastern in Lebanon, Oregon, on September 6, 2006.
This locomotive was originally built by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors in August 1974 as Amtrak #644, one of a total of 150 3,000-horsepower SDP40F locomotive built between June 1973 and August 1974 numbered from #500 to #649.
Between 1974 and 1976, Amtrak SDP40Fs were involved in 13 minor derailments resulting from a combination of the truck design, lateral motion from the steam generator water tanks, harmonic vibrations between the heavy locomotives and lightweight baggage cars, and track conditions. As a result, several railroads imposed speed restrictions on the SDP40Fs, and some others banned the SDP40Fs from their rails entirely.
Between 1977 and 1987 Amtrak traded in 132 of the SDP40Fs back to EMD for four-axle F40PH locomotives. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe never had any problems with them, and was willing to accept 18 SDP40Fs in trade for 25 CF7 road switchers and 8 SSB1200 switchers for use at Amtrak stations in September 1984. This locomotive was part of the trade.
In May 1985, it was repainted and renumbered to ATSF #5266 as an SDF40-2. In late 1988 the nose and pilot were modified to create at front platform with standard stepwells.
The locomotive’s maintenance was transferred to Morrison-Knudsen in April 1994. Following the merger of the Burlington Northern and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe on September 22, 1995, this locomotive became Burlington Northern Santa Fe #6976 on April 12, 1998.
After being retired in May 2002, it was painted light blue and silver for Maersk Sealand and posed with matching Norfolk Southern SD40-2 #3329 for a promotional photo shoot in late 2002.
Subsequently sold for scrap in Illinois, in 2003 it was acquired by Chris Fussell and the Northwest Rail Museum and returned to operating condition and to its original road number.
In addition to the photos, I also recorded some video footage of this locomotive in operation. This was some of my first railroad video footage.
These pictures were taken while railfanning at the Amtrak depot in Vancouver, Washington, in July of 1999. The first I saw was a southbound Amtrak Cascades train with an interesting locomotive on the head end.
Amtrak #458 is a 3,200-horsepower F59PHI that was built in July 1998 by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors with final assembly by Super Steel Schenectady of Schenectady, Pennsylvania. The Amtrak Cascades trains are usually powered by F59PHIs that are painted to match the green, brown, and white colors of the train, but this one is silver and blue.
This particular F59PHI is painted in Amtrak's Surfliner colors for service in California. The Surfliner locomotives occasionally substituted on the Cascades when one of the Cascades F59PHIs had to go south to California for maintenance.
Leading the eastbound Portland section of the Empire Builder is Amtrak #354, a 3,000-horsepower F40PH that was built by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors in November 1980. It is painted in the colors of the Florida Fun Train, a short-lived venture that briefly leased three F40PHs (#354, #358, & #374) from Amtrak.
The six-car Florida Fun Train made its inaugural run on October 15, 1997, on a 200-mile route between Fort Lauderdale and Orlando. On the inaugural run of a new route between Tampa and central Florida on August 1, 1998, the train was involved in a fatal collision with a tow truck. After losing $9.9 million in the first half of 1998, the Florida Fun Train shut down on September 16, 1998. The three locomotives were returned to Amtrak and were put back in regular service without being repainted.
As we left Vancouver, we found a Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight train was waiting on the Sixth Street Viaduct. This train had just come westbound down the north bank of the Columbia River Gorge with a lot of motive power.
Leading this freight train was Burlington Northern Santa Fe #739, a 4,400-horsepower Dash 9-44CW that was built by General Electric in August 1997. It was painted in Burlington Northern Santa Fe's newest paint scheme.
The second locomotive was Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe #5814, a 3,600-horsepower SD45-2 that was built by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors in May of 1972 as Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe #5650. In May 1986, it was rebuilt at Santa Fe's shops in San Bernardino, California as an SD45-2u; at the time the Santa Fe was planning to merge with the Southern Pacific, so it was renumbered to 7214 in accordance with the proposed numbering system for the merged railroads, and was painted in the red-and-yellow "Kodachrome" merger paint scheme. After the merger was denied by the Interstate Commerce Commission, it was renumbered to 5814 and repainted in Santa Fe's standard blue-and-yellow paint scheme.
The third locomotive was Burlington Northern Santa Fe #6976, which was built by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors in August 1974 as Amtrak #644, a 3,000-horsepower SDP40F passenger locomotive based on the popular SD40-2 freight engine. Amtrak found the SDP40Fs unsatisfactory, and in September 1984 Amtrak traded 18 of them to the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe in exchange for 25 CF7s and 8 SSB1200s for use as terminal switchers.
In May 1985 the former Amtrak #644 was rebuilt at the Santa Fe's shops in San Bernardino, California, as SDF40-2 #5266. In April 1994, the maintenance of all the SDF40-2s was subcontracted to Morrison-Knudsen, of Boise, Idaho. After the Burlington Northern Santa Fe merger, ATSF #5266 was renumbered to BNSF #6976 in April 1998.
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe #5814 has MKM sublettering under the road number on the side of the cab, indicating that the maintenance for this locomotive had been subcontracted to Morrison-Knudsen of Boise, Idaho, in April 1994.
Here is another look an Burlington Northern Santa Fe #739.
This was one of the first locomotives to be painted in BNSF's new "Heritage II" paint scheme in October 1997.
I originally posted these rosters on my old website as Excel spreadsheets on June 22, 2008. I have since updated them.
This page features links to locomotive rosters I have compiled. These are not railroad locomotive rosters; instead, they are rosters of a specific locomotive model. In some cases, I have limited the roster to a single railroad's roster of a particular model, such as Amtrak's F40PHs or the LMX Leasing B39-8Es. I have included all the subsequent owners and disposition information I have been able to find. I made these for my own use, but considering the effort I felt they should be shared. I can't guarantee that this information is 100% accurate and up to date, but it was as reasonably accurate and complete as I could get it.
The SDP40 was a passenger version of the SD40 freight locomotive, equipped with a steam generator and water tanks for heating passenger cars. Only 20 were built: 6 for the Great Northern Railway and 14 for the National Railroad of Mexico. Several of the SDP40s are still in service as freight units today, and one, BNSF #6327 (ex GN #325), has been preserved at the Minnesota Transportation Museum. Some of the FNM SDP40s were renumbered into a 5 digit 13000-series at some point. They may have been rebuilt. At least four carried these numbers; there may have been more. I don't know which they were originally. Three were transferred to Ferromex.
The SDP45 was a passenger version of the SD45 freight locomotive. Unlike the SDP40, which was built on the same length frame as the SD40 it was derived from, the SDP45's frame was several feet longer than that of the SD45, resulting in additional space between the trucks for fuel and/or water tanks. SDP45s for passenger service were built for the Southern Pacific Railroad and the Great Northern Railway. All are now out of service. The Erie Lackawanna also purchased SDP45s, however they purchased them for freight-only service. The Erie Lackawanna wanted the extra-long frame of the SDP45 as it could potentially carry larger fuel tanks than the standard SD45s. As they were intended for freight-only service, the Erie Lackawanna units were not equipped with steam generators or water tanks. The entire space between the trucks was allocated for fuel and the end of the long hood was tapered like a regular freight unit instead of squared off like the other SDP40s and SDP45s. The SDP45s became part of Conrail with the rest of the Erie Lackawanna. Erie Lackawanna's first group of SDP45s were ordered when the railroad was under the control of the Norfolk & Western. They were returned to the N&W's successor Norfolk Southern in 1984. Most were scrapped. One unit had been retired after a wreck, and the remains had been rebuilt into a slug by N&W. Unlike the first order, Erie Lackawanna's second order of SDP45s came through a lessor. After their 15 lease expired, they were returned to the lessor in 1984. Most of them went on to find second careers in lease service, or were rebuilt by Morrison Knudson as SD40M-2s for Southern Pacific (years after all SP's original SDP45s were retired and scrapped) and were later transferred to Union Pacific.
This roster lists all of the EMD F40PH locomotives owned by Amtrak, including their subsequent owners and final disposition, where known and applicable. This roster is based on information from the Unofficial EMD Homepage, On Track On Line and Go By Train. Additional information came from RR Picture Archives.net.
This is a roster of all the SD40T-2 and SD45T-2 Tunnel Motors built by EMD. It includes a complete guide to each locomotive's numbers in the various Union Pacific number series these locomotives were placed in at various points; even if the locomotive never actually wore a number in a particular series, I have managed to figure out what it would have been.
