I see that later in life they were yard/transfer engines. Where were these guys when first placed in service? System wide? Also, when did they go from black widow to the scarlet nose variants?
I love SP's old Cadillacs. I took this photo back in the '80s in San Jose, Ca. I believe, as you said, these were working in transfer service at the time. Unfortunately, I've never seen any SP loco in the Black Widow scheme that I know of. I think member Flash Blackman could answer the question as he is an SP fan.
When the earlier units were initially delivered, most wore the Black Widow scheme (but some wore the Tiger Stripe scheme). They changed over to the grey, I believe, sometime in the early 1960's or late 1950's.
oh wow, did you ask a hard question. First the easy part. The SD7's were origonally painted in a road switcher scheme that had a black hood, silver hood ends and zebra stripes when delivered in 1953-54. Starting in 1955, they were repainted in Black Widow, and starting in 1958, 24 were painted in Holloween (black hoods and orange hood ends) and then into Bloody Nose, at least 2 had gothic lettering. http://espee.railfan.net/nonindex/sd07_photos/5280_sp-sd07-rob_sarberenyi.jpg The SD9's were all delivered in BW, a few made it into Holloween, and starting in 1958, were repainted into Bloody Nose. It was possible to see black widow units last into the late 1960's. OK, service, the SD7's were thrown into the NWP to bump the Baldwins out of mainline work, they were then used everywhere in CA. Starting in the early 70's, they started the rebuilding into heavy switchers, but a few lasted in local service afterwards. While not too common outside of CA, they did go system wide. The SD9's were used to kill steam helpers over the mountains, they were the main road power over Tehatchapi and other passes until the SD35's and SD40's. They were bumped down to locals, and some became heavy switchers after the rebuilds started in the early 1970's... there were at least 13 SD7's and 12 SD9's left when the UP took over
Awesome thanks for the response guys! I was mainly wanting to build one as short lease power to use with some Rock Island equipment around El Paso or Amarillo.
they were never leased out...the ALCO C628's were leased to the L&N, PC and BN in 1971 and 1972 and the C630's were leased to the BN and L&N in 1970 and 1971.
rats. I've seen SD35's, SD40's, SD45's and a couple of other guys on Rock Island trackage before and was hoping SD7/9's were borrowed power at some time or another(which is what I meant to say originally instead of leased).
the SD7's were renumbered into the 2700 series in 1965 and were demoted to switchers then. The SD9's were delivered in 1954-56 and were based in Portland, San Juaquin, Sacramento and Los Angeles, rarely getting east of Indio. A few made it out to Texas before being scattered. The Rock met the SP in Tucumcari, NM which is on the line from El Paso. In later years, they were system wide, but most pictures that I have seen ar in California and Oregon, with a few near Austin and Houston, TX. a picture site on the web turned up 107 pictures of SP SD9's, most in CA and OR, 1 in UT, 1 in NV, 1 in IL (1992) and 2 in TX
Here is a shot from 2008 at Sherwood, OR, of George Lavacot's Caddy restoration. All the real SP fans were upset at the silver trucks, but the rest looks great.
I did manage to find a picture of one of the SD9's out in El Paso in '74. I knew the Rock interchanged in Tucumcari with the SP as well as some transfers between the two in their respective El Paso yards. I did not know that some survived until the Borg though. Thanks for all the info! Yeah that guy looks great despite the truck color! I'll have to get out to California some day!
the ONLY black widow loco that had silver trucks was Trainmaster 4800, when it was painted from FM demo colors into black widow...and only for the first few months
Aahh the memories, SD9's, filthy beyond recognition with Mars lights going past my house back in the 60's and 70's with a trailing Bay Window caboose.
