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Santa Fe had quite a few recently shopped steam engines in storage after 1957, but they never turned a wheel. Santa Fe kept a few of the modern 2-10-4 steamers around for a anticipated wheat rush but it never materialized to be strong enough to demand that the steam locos be pulled out of storage. New diesels were being delivered in large numbers and the call for duty never came. Several other railroads kept up their steam power to the end so lots of great locomotives with many miles left in them went to the scrapper. Some steam locomotives were not even ten years old when they were scrapped. Just imagine a 1995 diesel being scrapped today. That's what happened to 100's of steamers. Santa Fe ordered several sets of 325 class F7 dual service passenger diesels. They worked equally well on freight or passenger trains. As passenger service declined even the regular passenger locos found their way powering freight trains in Texas and the San Joaquin Valley of California. They were too old to power the fast trains of the double track main, but they saw plenty of service in lesser trains around the system. Even the big AlCo PA diesels saw freight service. As the F7 passenger engines were used up on local trains they begin to be rebuilt into the CF-7 locomotives, basically cannabilized for all the parts and frame structure that the shop needed for the new CF7, with the rest scrapped. There are numerous pictures in the Morning Sun book series of color pictures on Santa Fe diesels showing the warbonnet locomotives in freight service. Some power consists include up to ten engines at one time, a mixture of warbonnet and blue/yellow paint. Some of the Redwarbonnet engines became Bluebonnet engines with the red changed to blue, and some even became Yellowbonnets with the red changed into yellow. Santa Fe tried several schemes to make the passenger engines fit into the freight style, but for the most part the red and silver stayed on the engines until they were scrapped or rebuilt into CF-7's.. So you can very well mix and match just any of these first generation EMD diesels into consists of GP-9's, other F7's,. early ALCo's etc.
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