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The Santa Fe CF7 is an EMD F-unit railroad locomotive that has had its streamlined carbody removed and replaced with a custom-made, "general purpose" body in order to adapt the unit for switching duty. All of the conversions were performed by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway's Cleburne, Texas, workshops between February 1970 and 1978. [1] [2] This was Santa Fe's most notable remanufacturing project, with 233 completed between 1970 - March 1978. [3] The program was initiated in response to a system-wide need for more than 200 additional four-axle diesel road switchers to meet projected motive power demands on branch lines and secondary main lines.
Santa Fe's aging fleet of F7 units were approaching retirement age in 1970. These units were remanufactured into switchers and named CF7. Santa Fe used them for a decade and sold many of them to short lines around the states. Many of those were still being used as of 2003. [4]
The CF7s worked within all segments of the Santa Fe system. While most saw action switching cars and transporting local freight, others could be found in multiple unit consists hauling mainline drags. The units distinguished themselves working on potash trains between Clovis and Carlsbad, New Mexico; Nos. 2612–2625, all equipped with remote control equipment (RCE), were typically "mated" to road slugs (converted cabless F-units). CF7s also powered grain trains across the Plains Division.
The Santa Fe had planned in the mid-1980s to renumber its CF7 fleet from 2649–2417 to 1131–1000 and repaint the units in the new Kodachrome paint scheme, all in preparation for the planned Southern Pacific Santa Fe Railroad merger. However, the Interstate Commerce Commission subsequently denied the merger application, and no CF7s were decorated in the new livery. Amtrak used some of them, with mixed results.
Changing philosophies regarding motive power expenditures led the Santa Fe to begin trimming its CF7 roster in 1984. The majority of the locomotives were sold for as little as $20,000 to short-line and regional railroads such as the Rail Link, Inc., the York Railway, and the Maryland & Delaware Railroad (6 were involved in wrecks and 3 others sent directly to the scrap yards), though Amtrak and GE Transportation were among the major initial purchasers. By 1987, the company had divested itself of all of its CF7s. These locomotives have well withstood the test of time, and have long outlived their projected service lives, two times, both as original F-units and as rebuilds. As of 2017, all CF7s still in service are over 60 years old.
Several CF7s are preserved and operational on many tourist and local trains. Among them are: #2546 at the Kentucky Railway Museum, [5] and #2571 at the Oklahoma Railway Museum, [6]
The EMD FP45 is a cowl unit type of C-C diesel locomotive produced in the United States by General Motors Electro-Motive Division (EMD). It was produced beginning in 1967 at the request of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, which did not want its prestigious Super Chief/El Capitan and other passenger trains pulled by freight style hood unit locomotives, which have external walkways.
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison and Topeka, Kansas, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. The railroad reached the Kansas–Colorado border in 1873 and Pueblo, Colorado, in 1876. To create a demand for its services, the railroad set up real estate offices and sold farmland from the land grants that it was awarded by Congress.
The California State Railroad Museum is a museum in the state park system of California, United States, interpreting the role of railroads in connecting California to the rest of the nation. It is located in Old Sacramento State Historic Park at 111 I Street, Sacramento.
The Super Chief was one of the named passenger trains and the flagship of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. The then-modern streamliner was touted in its heyday as "The Train of the Stars" because it often carried celebrities between Chicago, Illinois, and Los Angeles, California.
The EMD GP30 is a 2,250 hp (1,680 kW) four-axle diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division of La Grange, Illinois between July 1961 and November 1963. A total of 948 units were built for railroads in the United States and Canada, including 40 cabless B units for the Union Pacific Railroad.
Electro-Motive Corporation produced five 1800 hp B-B experimental passenger train-hauling diesel locomotives in 1935; two company-owned demonstrators, #511 and #512, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's #50, and two units for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, Diesel Locomotive #1. The twin engine power unit layout and multiple unit control systems developed with the B-B locomotives were soon adopted for other locomotives such as the Burlington Route's Zephyr locomotives built by the Budd Company in 1936 and EMC's own EMD E-units introduced in 1937. The B-B locomotives worked as proof-of-concept demonstrators for diesel power with the service loads of full size trains, breaking out of its niche powering the smaller custom Streamliners.
The EMD FT is a 1,350-horsepower (1,010 kW) diesel-electric locomotive that was produced between March 1939 and November 1945, by General Motors' Electro-Motive Corporation (EMC), later known as GM Electro-Motive Division (EMD). The "F" stood for Fourteen Hundred (1400) horsepower and the "T" for Twin, as it came standard in a two-unit set. The design was developed from the TA model built for the C,RI&P in 1937, and was similar in cylinder count, axle count, length, and layout. All told 555 cab-equipped ”A” units were built, along with 541 cabless booster or ”B” units, for a grand total of 1,096 units. The locomotives were all sold to customers in the United States. It was the first model in EMD's very successful F-unit series of cab unit freight diesels and was the locomotive that convinced many U.S. railroads that the diesel-electric freight locomotive was the future. Many rail historians consider the FT one of the most important locomotive models of all time.
EMD F-units are a line of diesel-electric locomotives produced between November 1939 and November 1960 by General Motors Electro-Motive Division and General Motors-Diesel Division. Final assembly for all F-units was at the GM-EMD plant at La Grange, Illinois, and the GMDD plant in London, Ontario. They were sold to railroads throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico, and a few were exported to Saudi Arabia. The term F-unit refers to the model numbers given to each successive type, all of which began with the letter F. The F originally meant "fourteen", as in 1,400 horsepower (1,000 kW), not "freight". Longer EMD E-units for passenger service had twin 900-horsepower (670 kW) diesel engines. The E meant "eighteen" as in 1,800 horsepower (1,300 kW). Similarly, for early model EMD switchers, S meant "six hundred" and N meant "nine hundred horsepower".
The EMD F7 is a model of 1,500-horsepower (1,100 kW) diesel-electric locomotive produced between February 1949 and December 1953 by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors (EMD) and General Motors Diesel (GMD).
The Grand Canyon Railway is a heritage railroad which carries passengers between Williams, Arizona, and the South Rim of Grand Canyon National Park.
The EMD GP7 is a four-axle (B-B) diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division and General Motors Diesel between October 1949 and May 1954.
The EMD SD9 is a model of diesel locomotive built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division between January 1954 and June 1959. An EMD 567C 16-cylinder engine generated 1,750 horsepower (1.30 MW). Externally similar to its predecessor, the SD7, the SD9 was built with the improved and much more maintainable 567C engine.
The EMD SD45-2 is a 6-axle diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division (EMD). EMD built 136 locomotives between 1972 and 1974, primarily for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (ATSF). The SD45-2 was an improved version of the EMD SD45; the primary visual difference is the lack of flared radiators on the SD45-2.
The EMD SDP40F was a six-axle 3,000 hp (2.2 MW) C-C diesel–electric locomotive built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division (EMD) from 1973 to 1974. Based on Santa Fe's EMD FP45, EMD built 150 for Amtrak, the operator of most intercity passenger trains in the United States. Amtrak, a private company but funded by the United States government, had begun operation in 1971 with a fleet of aging diesel locomotives inherited from various private railroads. The SDP40F was the first diesel locomotive built new for Amtrak and for a brief time they formed the backbone of the company's long-distance fleet.
The Santa Cruz, Big Trees and Pacific Railway is operated as a seasonal tourist attraction in Northern California, also referred to as the "Beach Train". Its partner line, the Roaring Camp & Big Trees Narrow Gauge Railroad, is a heritage railroad.
The "Beep" is an individual switcher locomotive built in 1970 by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway at its Cleburne, Texas, workshops. Technically a rebuild, the Beep originally entered service on the Santa Fe as a Baldwin Model VO-1000. Following its successful CF7 capital rebuilding program, the company hoped to determine if remanufacturing its aging, non-EMD end cab switchers by fitting them with new EMD prime movers was an economically viable proposition. The conversion procedure proved too costly and only the one unit was modified. In 2008-2009, this locomotive was retired and stored operational at Topeka, Kansas. In May 2009 the unit was donated to the Western America Railroad Museum in Barstow, California.
The Baldwin VO-1000 is a diesel-electric switcher locomotive built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works between January 1939 and December 1946. These units were powered by a naturally aspirated eight-cylinder diesel engine rated at 1,000 horsepower (746 kW), and rode on a pair of two-axle trucks in a B-B wheel arrangement. These were either the AAR Type-A switcher trucks, or the Batz truck originally developed by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway as a leading truck for steam locomotives. 548 examples of this model were built for American railroads, including examples for the Army and Navy.
The SD26 were EMD SD24 diesel locomotives rebuilt by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway between January 1973 and January 1978. In an effort to spare the cost of purchasing new motive power, the Santa Fe elected to expand on the success of its CF7 and other capital rebuild programs and extend the life of its fleet of 80 aging SD24s by rebuilding them at its San Bernardino, California Shops.
The Great Plains Transportation Museum is a railroad museum in Wichita, Kansas, United States.
The EMD SD45u is a was a rebuild from EMD SD45 diesel locomotives that were originally built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division (EMD) originally for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway.