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Nostalgia & History > SW1500s - a dying breedDate: 12/11/05 20:58 SW1500s - a dying breed Author: rattenne SP painted only two SW1500s in their ill-fated "Kodachrome" scheme, and 2539 was one of them. The unit often worked at Bayshore Yard and could also be found at SP's Seventh Street engine facility in San Francisco during the mid-1980s. The unit is seen here on December 3, 1986 at San Jose roundhouse. The RH crew managed to keep this unit quite shiny while it wore it's red and yellow coat.
 Date: 12/11/05 21:16 Re: SW1500s - a dying breed Author: ProAmtrak The SW1500s were probably the best switcher EMD ever made! Anyone know a model better than that?
Date: 12/11/05 21:36 Re: SW1500s - a dying breed Author: rattenne SP ordered their SW1500s with mu controls just so they could use them as power in mainline trains. Seen here are four '1500s trailing an SD45 on January 21, 1978, rolling through San Martin.
 Date: 12/11/05 21:42 Re: SW1500s - a dying breed Author: wharfrat In my experience, if you ran them hard backwards for a long time they would overheat as no air would be drawn through the radiators.
Date: 12/11/05 22:27 Re: SW1500s - a dying breed Author: Espee4Ever My records show me 1 in every 3 SW1500's built was for the Souther Pacific and Cotton Belt. They owned 1/3 of the entire production run of that model.
--espee4ever Date: 12/12/05 12:25 Re: SW1500s - a dying breed Author: ProAmtrak Espee4ever, I do remember one time when me and my dad left El monte back in the 80s we hit the 10 and see a Westbound heading up the State St. Line with a switcher sandwiched, nice view, sad part is not chasing it to Taylor because of being on a freeway!
Date: 12/13/05 11:34 Re: SW1500s - a dying breed Author: mwbridgwater I don't know why, but I always loved seeing those things go by MU'd with road power. Still happens occasionally with UP. Something about it just really turns my 12-645 crank! Can't beat that non-turboed sound, either!
Mark Date: 12/13/05 13:37 Re: SW1500s - a dying breed Author: FullService They have to be good on fuel too, on CSX we run ours 3 shifts a day to do industry work and that little 1000/gal tank will last a week. Of course a lot of ours are MP15ac. They also switch direction and load with lightning speed. There's no switching motors in the electrical cabinet, all electro-magnetic.
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