Western Railroad Discussion > SP 7868

Somebody give me a little history on this unit -- I saw it at Elko a few weeks back and it still looked to be in fairly good shape. Is it a 3000 hp unit or something smaller? When was it built? Sure was a tiny little bugger!

The SP started to receive them in 1978 and I believe they are 3000 HP, four axles. The SP began purchasing a lot of four axle power after 1978. They tested a CN GP-40-2 and liked the tractive effort that locomotive put out. Also, the SP had had it with the SD-45T2 with its crank shafts going out. They did receive SD-40T2 in 8200 and 8500 series, but also got GP-40-2s and these 'baby boats'. Many of these four axles went to work on the Sunset and later Golden State lines after 1979.
It's interesting to read Biaggini's quote in Frailey's BSM book about the SD-45..
" We had more than anyone else and they were not a very good locomotive".. DUH, Ben. The buck stops at your desk. If they were not very good, then why did your Mechanical people purchase so many between 1967 and 1975 and you approved the spending. A great quote. The other in the book is the one where he said " we got a little behind on our locomotive maintenance.." A little???? How about rebuilding or repairing nothing.. all for the sake of the stockholder's quarterly check. The beginning of the end for the SP..

SP 7868 was wrecked at Tyler, TX in July 1983 and scrapped; so you got the number wrong. But the SP-SSW 7700-7800 series are GE B30-7's (with a few B36-7's at 3600 hp) rated at 3000hp. They are rapidly being retired by UP; but some have been renumberd to the UP 7700-7800 series (some keeping their same numbers. The new Withers Publishing "Union Pacific 2002-2003 Locomotive Directory" is a good source for this information.

Peter Arnold

To WAF and Pismopete, thanks. Peter, I'm sure that was the number but will check on it to re-verify; it was still in the SP paint and did not have a UP number on it. Hmmm...we may have a mystery on our hands here...

From WAF's reply, I did not realize the SD45s were so troublesome and unreliable; I take it that the regular version had the same problems as the tunnel variety. ATSF seemed to have pretty good luck with the bunch they had...

Given the SP's rush to get units on the road, they never got TLC and those 20 cycliners were a problem to the SP

My mistake, unit was the 7848, not the 7868.