Nostalgia & History > Fresh Paint Friday - SP 8493

At the Rock Island roundhouse in Blue Island, Illinois.
Ken Lanovich photo.  No date but slide has Feb 1978 process date.
No. 23 will have some good power out of 12th St.tonight !

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Oooo...ahhhhh!


NICE!

Gyralites, high mounted horn, L shape windshield, air conditioner, tunnel configuration, overhanging porch on the front, this unit is loaded.

Is this the coolest SD40 of all?     BSB 

Most likely newly delivered, as all the SP/SSW units from EMD were pre-serviced at the Rock Island roundhouse in Blue Island, back in that era.

HotWater Wrote:
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> Most likely newly delivered, as all the SP/SSW
> units from EMD were pre-serviced at the Rock
> Island roundhouse in Blue Island, back in that
> era.

Yes this is just after delivery...the way SP units were meant to look.

Adam

HotWater Wrote:
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> Most likely newly delivered, as all the SP/SSW
> units from EMD were pre-serviced at the Rock
> Island roundhouse in Blue Island, back in that
> era.

Yes and the Rock would use them as power on No. 23 which
started out of 12th St. piggyback yard and filled at B.I.

I have seen everything from new SW1500's to GP40P's on No. 23.

Fresh off the showroom floor.  I hope you SP hoggers didn't put too
many dents and scrapes on it !  A man would not be ashamed to be
seen in that ride.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/15 12:07 by Englewood.

I think it was mentioned in the Strapac books that the delivery handover occurred in a State which did not have State sales tax.

Sorry! .... a little Accounting interlude.

Rick

rschonfelder Wrote:
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> I think it was mentioned in the Strapac books that
> the delivery handover occurred in a State which
> did not have State sales tax.
>
> Sorry! .... a little Accounting interlude.
>
> Rick

Up until sometime in the mid to late 1960s, the State of Illinois had a "sales tax" on diesel locomotives. As a result, absolutely NO locomotives were accepted & signed for within the State of Illinois. When that provision of the Illinois State Sales Tax was revised, and eliminated, any and all railroads began taking delivery and legal acceptance of their new EMD units, at various railroad shops around the Chicago area.

The Cadillac of locomotives!

SP 8493 was one of a class of 10 SD40T-2's (8489-8498) that early in life was semi-permanently assigned to the unit coal train serving a power plant at Cochise, AZ.  The train loaded on and pooled power with the Santa Fe.

Evan, the 8489-8498 were orignally assigned to Roseville when they arrived in 1978.
Evan_Werkema Wrote:
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> SP 8493 was one of a class of 10 SD40T-2's
> (8489-8498) that early in life was
> semi-permanently assigned to the unit coal train
> serving a power plant at Cochise, AZ.  The train
> loaded on and pooled power with the Santa Fe.

I bet the Rock hoggers loved getting these for the run down the GS line, of course where it wasn't slow ordered to 10mph and the like.

ClipX Wrote:

> Evan, the 8489-8498 were orignally assigned to
> Roseville when they arrived in 1978.

Any idea when they were reassigned to El Paso?  The Apache Generating Station at Cochise started getting unit coal trains via ATSF/SP in 1979, and I have some (awful, crooked, overexposed, Instamatic) pictures of 8490-series SD40T-2's in Belen, NM on a unit train of AZEX-lettered coal hoppers in October of that year.  One year old still counts as "early in life," right? 

Evan, the first coal train to Cochise was on September 4, 1978.  The first train had SD-26's, RCE equiped and SP 8497 and 8490.  Although in Joseph Strapac book SP Historic Diesels states it was the heaviest SD40T-2's built and equiped with pacesetters and that the locomotives was built for the coal plant.  However, in CTC board March, 1978 wrote that Roseville was their home base. 
So, they were only infants when they were reassigned to El Paso.

Evan_Werkema Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ClipX Wrote:
>
> > Evan, the 8489-8498 were orignally assigned to
> > Roseville when they arrived in 1978.
>
> Any idea when they were reassigned to El Paso? 
> The Apache Generating Station at Cochise started
> getting unit coal trains via ATSF/SP in 1979, and
> I have some (awful, crooked, overexposed,
> Instamatic) pictures of 8490-series SD40T-2's in
> Belen, NM on a unit train of AZEX-lettered coal
> hoppers in October of that year.  One year old
> still counts as "early in life," right? 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/02/15 21:29 by ClipX.