Western Railroad Discussion > What Switcher Is This?

This was towed into the Santa Maria Valley yard yesterday afternoon from the Celex plant near Lompoc, CA. Apparently Celex bought a new switcher and after some minor repairs and cleaning this unit will be heading north to who knows where. This is a Canadian EMD build and uses a 645E prime mover. Never saw anything like this before!!!

Second view.

That thing is neat looking! Do you have any more pictures of it? If so email me please! Thanks!
Matt
Morro Bay CA

Looks like a whacked-off SP GP7!

Seems to me I saw a few years back something about the CN taking SW1200RS's and rebuilding them with the long hood off a GP9. This was done so they would have the better radiator secton with AC powered fans. This is kinda like what the UP did to their switchers, but using a GP9 hood instead of the home-made job.

It's an SW1500 with a GP7/9 long hood. That's all I can make out of it.

That is a "Sweep Geep" a rebuild of an SW1200RS, using a GP9 long hood.

Well, Q was the closest. Yes indeed this is a CN rebuild doing just what he said.EMD 653 power assemblies on a SW1200RS frame with a GP hood. There were only a few of these built and it is interesting that they have sold them off.

J.

What industry is Celex?? Is this the old JM plant on the White Hills branch? I can't imagine any other industry off of the Lompoc Branch that would require their own switch engine...

sphogger

pulled this off the HEADSUPCOASTFANS archives...a bit more reliable than the TO one (since I know this was posted here)


From: Robert Cheatham <rca@f...>
Date: Wed Mar 29, 2000 12:41pm
Subject: Celite switcher spotted NB?


At 12:15pm this afternoon, a freight past through Ventura with what may have been CANX 7106. I didn't have time to confirm with my telescope from our hillside Ventura home, but the consist was an SP SD70?, a UP SD70?, and something black and very short that looked like a Baldwin perhaps.
Hope this heads up gives people up the coast a chance to catch it!

Bob in Ventura

wrote:


From: "Karldotcom" <karl....>

**this was posted on the Espee mailer**

As of Friday March 24,2000 the five day a week Lompoc Local will be no more.
Starting Monday March 27, 2000 the branch line will be switched two times a
week by the Guadalupe switcher, these two days being Mondays and
Thursdays.Also as of the 27th the Celite Plant in Lompoc will have their own
switch engine to do their own switching with. The locomotive is some lease
unit from Canada, it is the CANX 7106 now i don't know what type of
locomotive this is I'll find out when it arrives on Friday via the Lompoc
Local or Monday via the Guadalupe Switcher.

This is the unit that the blue Celite SW1500 (ex-Southern) replaced a month or so ago. You can probably pull up the thread using the archive search.

CANX 7106 is scheduled to move to Henderson, NV. The consignee is called "Pioneer America", or something like that. Will move via West Colton whenever it's released.

It's a quasi SW 1200 RS switcher commonly called a "Sweep".
I think we had something like 6 or 7 of them,They were pretty common
around Southern Ontario at the Ford plants at Oakville and Talbotville
where I ran a pair of them nose to nose.
I think CN sold them off to CANAC ( a CN company )in the late 90's
during their purging of switch engines in general,but nobody really
misses these beasts as they were thought to be too weird to use as the
cab door opened out and the home made end of the cab was just awful to
see thru.

The official model designation for this is GP9RM. Seen one of these working in Toronto a few years ago.

The official designation is SW1200RM.

CN's GP9RM are # 4000-4036, 4100-4143, 7000-7083 and 7200-7280, and look like 'real' chop-nosed GP9s.

7106 was built as CN SW1200RS 1257 (class GR-12h around 1957, builder # A1029).

CN got it rebuilt in 1987 as 7106 at its Pointe St-Charles shops in Montréal (now the Alstom plant rebuilding the GCFX SD40-2 for CSX), with a GP9 hood, with a 12V-645E prime mover rated at 1350hp, CN class GS-413a.

Only 8 of these beasts were built, #7100-7101 in 1985 (original # 7300-7301, then renumbered to clear the 7300s for SW1200RSu rebuilts, which retained their original SW1200RS appearance), and 6 more in 1987 as 7102-7107.

CN retired them last year, along most remaining unrebuilt GMD1m and SW1200RS and even some SW1200RSu, and most if not all were transfered to Canac (CANX).

JF