Western Railroad Discussion > SP 343 is No More

As of today, July 29, 2016, SP AC4400CW 343 has officially been renumbered to UP 6308. It was the last locomotive working on the UP with SP reporting marks. Currently it is still in the Jenks Shop at North Little Rock, AR, but it should be back out on the road within a few weeks wearing a new coat of Armour Yellow. There are around 100 ex-SP locomotives still on the UP roster that have avoided UP paint thus far with only a patch renumbering. The numbers of the "patches" have been dropping fast lately, with a long overdue repainting push by the UP currently in progress. In the end, it has taken a little short of 20 years for the last SP lettered locomotive to become a UP lettered locomotive. I wonder how much longer it will take before the last ex-SP gray & red patch becomes yellow?

​Also worth noting, the two unpatched C&NW C44-9Ws, 8646 & 8701, are still on the UP roster, albeit stored out of service at this point at the Illinois Railroad Museum in Union, IL. They must still have a friend in a high place on the UP ;-)

ble692 Wrote:
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> ​Also worth noting, the two unpatched C&NW
> C44-9Ws, 8646 & 8701, are still on the UP roster,
> albeit stored out of service at this point at the
> Illinois Railroad Museum in Union, IL. They must
> still have a friend in a high place on the UP .

Gee, I wonder who that can be?  :-)
JB - Omaha

It's not like the ex-CNW Dash 9s are needed at this point. The AC motors, on the other hand, still have a place in bulk service.

Thanks for pointing this out. I hadn't realized we were down to a single SP unit.
Just curious...when was the last SSW unit repainted?
What about D&RGW?

Ryan Wilkerson
Fair Oaks, CA

Playing TAPS....  tears in eyes... 

Heard on radio the other day UP 6340 SP patch was headed to NLR for paint.  I thank a lot of patch jobs are disapearring too.

RyanWilkerson Wrote:
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> Thanks for pointing this out. I hadn't realized we
> were down to a single SP unit.
> Just curious...when was the last SSW unit
> repainted?
> What about D&RGW?

What about WP?

I think one of the GP60 s is still in DRGW paint.

RyanWilkerson Wrote:
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> Thanks for pointing this out. I hadn't realized we
> were down to a single SP unit.
> Just curious...when was the last SSW unit
> repainted?

I don't recall where I saw it but I did see a SSW Geep either on my trip to Denver or in the Sacramentoa area the last couple of week.

Stinks!   That was one long, wonder era of SP!!!    Now the next chapter will be SP-painted locos.    Couple more years I'd say and that will be it.

Definitely a sad day.

I really don't like the UP!

Posted from Android

The last Cotton Belt locomotive was patched or repainted early this year. If I remember correctly, UP agreed not to patch the last Rio Grande locomotive. It was retired as a DRGW locomotive.

Last DRGW one was 5371.. In Utah now..

Mike Keithly
Kimball, NE

Kinda sounds like when business is down or slower than usual they have the time to catch up on some of these re-markings and re-paint jobs.

Jim
Hatboro, PA

in denver @ 36st a lot of mow activity was done in the yard during our slowdown

Thanks ble692 and others who kept TO members informed throughout the years on the fate of the scarlet & grey units. I got the hint, and chased the remaining ones as much as possible, so no regrets. It makes up for my missing the UP merger era in the mid-to-late 1990s when I was not railfanning.

A scarlet and grey heritage unit would go a long way to tickle the morale of current generation UP employees, many of whom have already adopted the SP spirit. Omaha needs to get over the "between the lines hostility" toward anything SP I sensed when I attended the shareholders meeting in SLC few years ago.

(and since PHall mentioned it, WP, too) :-)

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