Western Railroad Discussion > SD45E ; no such thing !

This is to correct an earlier thread "SD45 vs SD45E" that is getting lost at the bottom of the list.

SP started to rebuild their GP9 and SD9 fleet in 1970 by retiring them and selling them to the SP Equipment Trust (thus the "E"). They were then rebuilt and leased back as a tax savings. This tax law went away in 1977; so anything rebuilt after that date was still owned by SP and was given the "R" suffix. The "R" was applied to the last of the GP9's and SD9's and most of the GP20's and EVERYTHING after that which included all of the GP35's, SD40's, SD45's and SD45T-2's. All of the "E" and "R" units are listed in the 1995 SP Motive Power Annual by Four Ways West. Don Strack also recently covered the same subject in the discussion group LocoNotes II.

Peter Arnold