GN Fs were painted BSB from 1967-1970. Several of the BSB ones survived the great F-Unit purge of the 1970s and made it the 1980s. Unfortunately, they were scrapped, and the only Great Northern Fs that survive wore Simplified and Classic EB. GN 274B wore Simplified, GN 364A (Now Wabash 1950) wore Simplified, GN 454A (Now NP 454) was the last F-Unit in Empire Builder to my knowledge. It was repainted into cascade green in 1976. And GN 464A wore simplified
A large number of ex-BN F's and NW-2's/NW-5's /SW-1 appeared in Denver circa 1982 after being sold to Gary Flander's disaster called Northern Railcar/ Colorado & Eastern RR. In that group, BN 716 and 752 plus a B-unit wound up on nearby Cadillac and Lake City. A few of the NW-2's were in Frisco paint, but the majority were in Cascade green and stored in the stockyards or at CRIP Airlawn. BN came back to reposses the units after Flander's little house-of-cards empire collapsed and found most of the units were stripped bare and could never possibly run again. A few of that group managed to survive. The oddball NW-5s and F3's in that group were especially interesting.
From my hubby's books if early Amtrak was using F45s as protection power they more than likely would have used Santa Fe ones. Some of them were geared for passenger speed and had the pass thru lines for steam heat and signal lines.
All of the GN and GN-ordered cowl units were F45's. An F45 at CUS was probably protection power.
I remember in the early summer of 1972 seeing a cowl unit (FP45?) in GN blue in CHI Union Station, although who knows it it was Amtrak owned or borrowed.
Probably.
Amtrak got a dozen or so E8's from Burlington Northern, so I imagine some passenger F units also joined the roster.
Edit: Looks like they got 15 F units from BN. Mostly F7 A and B models, with a couple of F3B's tossed in.
Also, according to this particular roster it looks like the E unit total actually is 21 (Not the dozen I said).
https://www.thedieselshop.us/Amtrak%20all-time%20roster1.txt
While a side track from what the topic is about, I wonder if that E unit total also explains the late retirement date of some of Burlington Northern's E7's. 10 BN E7's hung around a full year after Amtrak's creation before retirement.
Perhaps they didn't have enough E8 and 9's left on BN's roster to cover Chicago commuter assignments and Amtrak relief power assignments when the Morrison Knudsen rebuild program for BN's commuter fleet was underway?
Then when that finished and all the E units were back home, the remaining E7's were left without a job and finally were retired?
Leo_AmesNot as high of a percentage of F units in blue/white as I expected judging by pictures of the early months of Burlington Northern, but perhaps that's because many of these were early retirements.
It could be too that GN tried to repaint it's passenger F's more quickly than it's freight F's...and I would have to look it up but I assume at least some of BN's former GN passenger F's went to Amtrak in 1971, so weren't on the BN roster very long.
It could also be that, being a newer scheme, more railfans chose to photograph the BSB units they saw, while passing up the "run of the mill" green and orange ones - particularly in the 1960s simplified scheme.
CSSHEGEWISCHThere was an article in TRAINS in 1969 or so regarding the FT's.
As I recall the story, this was the last operating FT the authors saw running. And ISTR a subsequent discussion about this being an example of the 'Trains jinx'.
from:
http://www.hosam.com/roads/gn.html
"The Georgia Northern was aquired by the Southern Railway in 1966. Also included were the affiliated Georgia, Ashburn, Sylvester & Camilla and Albany & Northern Railroads. All three roads operated with a motley collection of 70 Tonners, 2 FT's, a Baldwin switcher and an SW8 which all retained their paint schemes until 1969 when Southern retired all units except for the SW8."
It would thus appear that these FT's were retired ahead of the NP/BN ones.
Ed
The shortlines in question were Georgia Northern and Georgia, Ashburn, Sylvester & Camilla. They were Pidcock shortlines that were purchased by Southern. There was an article in TRAINS in 1969 or so regarding the FT's.
Leo_Ames At least one FT (possibly two), also ex NP, operated in Mexico afterwards. The Sonora Baja California bought an A and a B unit from NP in the 1964. While I'm unsure exactly when their 1st run down in Mexico was completed, they appear to have both been out of service by 1972 and were eventually moved in the mid 1970's to the deadline at Benjamin Hill when repairs didn't happen (traction motor issues for the A unit; unsure about the B). The A unit however was famously resurrected in the early 1990's, albeit with the innards from a donor GP18 and with some parts contributed by the B unit. The B unit's planned restoration that was to follow (using another GP18 as parts donor) seemed to become a casualty of the turmoil going on with Mexico's privatization of their railroads and she was quietly scrapped a decade or so ago, in the same deadline she had sat in since the 70's. The A unit is preserved (And operational) at the National Railroad Museum in Puebla.
At least one FT (possibly two), also ex NP, operated in Mexico afterwards.
The Sonora Baja California bought an A and a B unit from NP in the 1964. While I'm unsure exactly when their 1st run down in Mexico was completed, they appear to have both been out of service by 1972 and were eventually moved in the mid 1970's to the deadline at Benjamin Hill when repairs didn't happen (traction motor issues for the A unit; unsure about the B).
The A unit however was famously resurrected in the early 1990's, albeit with the innards from a donor GP18 and with some parts contributed by the B unit. The B unit's planned restoration that was to follow (using another GP18 as parts donor) seemed to become a casualty of the turmoil going on with Mexico's privatization of their railroads and she was quietly scrapped a decade or so ago, in the same deadline she had sat in since the 70's.
The A unit is preserved (And operational) at the National Railroad Museum in Puebla.
The A, NP 5410D, was traded to GE on 9/64. Sold to Hyman Michaels Co. Resold to Sonora-Baja California RR., Sonora, Mexico to No. 2203A (or perhaps plain old 2203), 1965
The B, NP 5406C, the same, to No. 2203B, 1965.
The only other possible candidates north of Mexico that may have outlasted BN's pair would be on shortlines.
At least two southeastern shortlines utilized ex Southern Railway FT's in the late 1960's, but I don't recall names or know if their used power lasted into the early 1970's. They've briefly seen mentions in the issues of Trains and Classic Trains through the years, but I don't recollect the names of the shortlines to do some checking.
One story I recall had an irate engineer or fireman that didn't like being chased by crazy railfans with cameras, that kept trying to spoil their pictures (not understanding of their interest in his power). I believe an apple was thrown in one of the incidents.
Leo_Ames The A unit is preserved (And operational) at the National Railroad Museum in Puebla.
Along with the only currently operational ALCO PA:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbU5W1XSX04
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
The Sonora Baja California bought an A and a B unit from NP in the 1964. While I'm unsure exactly when their initial operating career down in Mexico was completed, they appear to have both been out of service by 1972 and were eventually moved in the mid 1970's to the deadline at Benjamin Hill when repairs didn't happen (traction motor issues for the A unit; unsure about the B).
CSSHEGEWISCH 7j43k BN operated FT's in the form of NP 5409D and 5404C for a few months. Ed I don't think that they lasted that long, a few weeks at most. At any rate, they were never renumbered BN 798 and 799.
7j43k BN operated FT's in the form of NP 5409D and 5404C for a few months. Ed
BN operated FT's in the form of NP 5409D and 5404C for a few months.
They were retired 06/10/70. Perhaps "operated" is over optimistic. Or not.
Traded in for SD45's. Probably not on a one-for-one basis. Wonder what EMD did with them.
The A was built 1/45, the B was built 8/44.
Anyone know when the last FT pulled a train? Was it the BN ones? There's a shot of the BN FT's doing that in March of 1970.
(Additional comment):
I visited the NP on-line group and found the last working run for these units was VERY likely on April 7, 1970.
And they do appear to be the last working FT's anywhere.
BN 853, former GN 314A, was repainted from BSB to BN green on November 5, 1976.
BN retired their last F's in 1982, most of them being former NP F9's.
The latest Trains Blog talks about some SEPTA ex-Reading FP7's that ran until 1981. And the MetroNorth FL9's ran until 2009, for over 50 years in service.
PC also ran quite a few F-units in northern Ohio and SE Michigan during the mid 70s.
Thank You.
In 1970 I don't think any major F unit user had yet to completely eliminate the type.
The Union Pacific and Southern Pacific when both retired their last F units in 1972 are the first that leap to mind for a major F unit customer retiring their entire fleet (excluding the B units that SP retained as power units for rotary plows). And Lehigh Valley's last F units from their small fleet also went that year for a notable smaller road.
The Burlington sure came close though to doing it even earlier, with just one F unit remaining from their sizeable fleet when Burlington Northern was born in 1970. Had BN been delayed a bit, they'd of surely been the first notable F unit operator to eliminate them entirely later that year.
Soo Line was a relatively late user of F units; a nice touch was none of the A-units had m.u. connections in the nose, so always had to run on the end of a consist...so in the seventies you might see an F7A-GP9-RS27-F7A lashup, with the Fs facing away from each other.
Then again, the next train might have a GP30-F7B-GP9 lashup, since the B-units could run anywhere in the consist.
Overmod ...KCS had cabs with the windows plated over to make them boosters that were in general freight consists as least as late as the mid-Eighties and perhaps into the '90s.
...KCS had cabs with the windows plated over to make them boosters that were in general freight consists as least as late as the mid-Eighties and perhaps into the '90s.
CN had those too:
http://tracksidetreasure.blogspot.com/2017/02/cns-blind-mice-f-units.html
A lot of crews in western Alberta and B.C. preferred having an F-unit leading over a spartan cab Geep or SD40. Better visibility and the round nose was better at pushing debris off the track.
VGN Jess... as I presumed that by 1970 no RR was running 20 year old F7 powered freights...
VGN Jess No, I actually meant GN, as I presumed that by 1970 no RR was running 20 year old F7 powered freights, but if you know that BN did, that answers my question.
No, I actually meant GN, as I presumed that by 1970 no RR was running 20 year old F7 powered freights, but if you know that BN did, that answers my question.
Minor correction to my previous post only 16 F7B units, but one F9B unit also. I mistook 474C for a F7B unit when in fact it was one of five F9B units purchased to turn an A-B-A set into an A-B-B-A set.
Also three Passenger F3 units were painted into Big Sky Blue but did not make it to the BN merger, 1 F3A, and 2 F3B units. In total 183 locomotives were repainted into Big Sky Blue, with the locomotives delivered new in Big Sky Blue, there were 239 locomotives that wore the paint scheme. A significant number considering the scheme first appeared in April 1967, and the merger took place on March 1st, 1970.
So 7 out of 18 F3's and 35 out of 89 F7's were in Great Northern's Big Sky Blue on Burlington Northern's first day. For comparison with a newer model, GN had cycled 1/3rd of the 5 year old U25B's through the paint shop for Big Sky Blue by the end.
Not as high of a percentage of F units in blue/white as I expected judging by pictures of the early months of Burlington Northern, but perhaps that's because many of these were early retirements.
Quite a few were retired during 1970-1972, some probably never operating under BN. And if they typically would repaint a unit after overhaul (I'm not sure if GN practiced that, but that's what many roads do to this day), it makes sense that many of those out running in the early days of BN were those that had been repainted in Big Sky Blue.
Only 2 of the GN's F3's stuck around until the end of the F unit era with the rest retired by the end of 1974. And only 25 of the F7's were retained past those early years.
Were any of the 5 F9B's that made it to BN painted in Big Sky Blue?
BN received 4 F3B, 3 F3A, 18 F7A, 17 F7B painted in Big Sky Blue.
Thank you all for your responses. I had no idea that freight F7's lasted so long past 1970.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.