Nostalgia & History > Roster Riddle - Which Railroad Owned 4 GP7s wi Torpedo Tubes?

One railroad owned a total of four EMD GP7s with “torpedo tubes”, rooftop air reservoirs. These units were originally equipped with steam generators but not with dynamic brakes.
Can you name the railroad and the road numbers of the four units?
ALLEN

SP had a few GP-7 or 9 's used for passenger service which had the torpedo tube air tanks on the roof, I believe. Later they were numbered in the 3000 series.

Norm

Norman Orfall
Helendale, CA
TIOGA PASS, a private railcar

SP's were GP9s. Wabash 479-482?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/18/17 00:52 by clem.

Northern Pacific 555-559

Central of Georgia nos. 120-123

NC&StL 706-709?

NKP - Nickel Plate Road -

NYC&STL - New York Chicago and St. Louis

GP-9's - 477 to 485 Look like GP-7's but are GP-9's

Eddie Durnwald
Fostoria, Ohio

Richmond Fredericksburg and Potomac 101-104 were, I believe, originally built with torpedo tubes but latest lost them.

Z

The Lackawanna is out. They had 5.

TJY

Georgia RR?

ATSF?

MKT 120-123

Edit: 120-123 were the 2nd MKT numbers- orignal delivery were 1761-1764



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/18/17 17:20 by ssw.

My apologies for the delay in getting back to everyone, today ended up being crazy.
The participation of all is appreciated.

Actually, it turns out two roads, CofG and MKT, had four GP7 units equipped with torpedo tubes. In my research, I had somehow overlooked the Katy.

Member ts1457 correctly identified CofG as meeting the criteria with their GP7s #120 - #123. These units were renumbered into the Southern’s system in the early 1970s as #8217 - #8220. Regrettably, I never had the opportunity to photograph any of these four units.

Member ssw also correctly identified MKT as meeting the criteria with their GP7s #1761 - #1764. These units were subsequently renumbered #120 - #123.

Wabash had more than four GP7s with torpedo tubes. The book Wabash by Donald J. Heimburger includes photos of #456,#458,#464,&#479. Additionally, the site FallenFlagRailroadPhotos includes photos of #454,#457,&#474. This totals seven units. While I did not determine the number of GP7s with TTs that Wabash owned, it was definitely more than four.

Northern Pacific had a total of twenty GP7s #550 - #569. My understanding is that eight GP7 units #552 - #559 had torpedo tubes. The Book NP Diesel Era 1945-1970 by Lorenz P. Schrenk & Robert L. Frey includes photos of #552,#556,& #559. Additionally, the site FallenFlagRailroadPhotos includes photos of #553,&#554. This totals five units. NP definitely had more than four.

NC&StL did not have any GP7s with dynamic brakes. They had a total of thirty-two freight service units, #700 - #731. These units were plain vanilla freight units built without steam generators and torpedo tubes. Interestingly, #700 - #705 rode on AAR Type A trucks. Thus #706 - #709 were ordinary freight units.
However, NC&StL did have five GP7s equipped for passenger service with steam generators. These five units were numbered #750 - #754. As such, NC&StL had more than four units with torpedo tubes.

The RF&P had three GP7s with torpedo tubes. #101, #103, & #104. Photos posted on RailraodPictureArchives.Net verify this.
Also, photos from 1969 posted on RailraodPictureArchives.Net show #102 without torpedo tubes. According to roster data on The Unofficial EMD Homepage, #102 was built without a steam generator. This corroborates the referenced photos.
As such, RF&P had fewer than four units.

The Georgia Railroad, according to roster data on The Unofficial EMD Homepage, had about twelve GP7s equipped with steam generators. These units all had torpedo tubes.

The Santa Fe, according to roster data on The Unofficial EMD Homepage, had five GP7s equipped with steam generators that did not have dynamic brakes. These units all had torpedo tubes. They were numbered #2650 - #2654. As such, Santa Fe had more than four units with torpedo tubes.

Thanks for your responses.

ALLEN

krm152 Wrote:

> The Santa Fe, according to roster data on The
> Unofficial EMD Homepage, had five GP7s equipped
> with steam generators that did not have dynamic
> brakes. These units all had torpedo tubes. They
> were numbered #2650 - #2654.

Santa Fe had *SIX* GP7's with torpedo tubes, 2650-2654 plus 2848. Photos of 2848 with torpedo tubes appear on p.477 of Iron Horses of the Santa Fe Trail, p.25 of Santa Fe Heritage v.1 and the tenth photo in this old thread:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,2202218,2202222#2202222

Photos of the chopnosed version of this unit, renumbered 2154 but still mounting rooftop air reservoirs, aren't hard to find either:

http://atsf.railfan.net/oddities/sf2154mallory.html
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/locopicture.aspx?id=20524

Thanks to Evan_Werkema for the comprehensive update on the Santa Fe.
ALLEN