Nostalgia & History > Santa Fe GP30

On a warm July morning 1982, a twenty year old GP30 sits at Victorville, CA. The depot fell victim to “railroad lightening” the following month, if I remember correctly. The 3220 was rebuilt the following year and renumbered the 2720, last reported as BNSF 2420. The longevity of these units is amazing.

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Nice shot, Mac, of a sweet locomotive. Thanks for posting it.

Greg

Nice shot in V'ville, Mac.

I thought I might chime in with the first and last units.

Here's a shot of the 2700 at Ash Hill; following that will be a shot of the 3284 at Redondo......

Thanks for sharing your fine work,

Bob

ATSF100WEST......Out

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I'm not too sure what "railroad lightning" refers to, but the Victorville depot burned douwn in September 1983 according to Gustafson & Serpico in "Coast Lines Depots, Los Angeles Division."

JohnSweetser Wrote:
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> I'm not too sure what "railroad lightning" refers
> to, but the Victorville depot burned douwn in
> September 1983 according to Gustafson &
> Serpico in "Coast Lines Depots, Los Angeles
> Division."

“Railroad Lightening” refers to unexplained or unsolved acts of arson. The term has been used elsewhere and in other forms, e.g., “Jewish Lightening.” Thanks for that corrected date, I had it as late August early September of ’82. The memory is really going fast here.

I started taking pictures early enough to have a few of the GP30's in their pre-remanufactured form, ala MacBeau's 3220 and ATSF100WEST's 3284. Most of my experience with Santa Fe's GP30's, though, is post-rebuild. Lots of folks dislike what Santa Fe did to their GP30's when they rebuilt them, taking the point out of the windshield on most of them, and adding an odd assortment of scrapmetal to the stylish cab roof. For those of us who grew up with that look, though, a Santa Fe GP30 looks bald without all that junk. The photo below illustrates the before and after. Second unit 3203 is an unrebuilt GP30, with just a beacon and soup can antenna on the rooftop, and the split Leslie S-3L airhorn hunkered down in the notches of the cab roof. Lead unit 2722, on the other hand, represents nearly the pinnacle of Santa Fe's "junkyard on the cab roof" phase: beacon front and center, a cab air conditioner, elevated airhorn on a single bracket, snowshields and smoke deflectors, and somewhere up there, a Sinclair antenna on a raised ground plane. A few years later, a FRED antenna would complete the collection of junk. Santa Fe would eventually do away with the shields and deflectors, lower the headlight, and move the horn back on the long hood.

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Here's your combined U-boat and GP30 fix: U36C 8715 and GP30 2721 have just arrived at Belen, NM in January 1983 with the local from Albuquerque. Power for this train was usually a pair of 4-axle units, so catching 8715 was a rare treat.

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The image of Santa Fe intermodal in July 1989 must surely be that of a pair of freshly repainted Superfleet FP45's scaling Cajon Pass with an endless string of UPS trailers. The full story, however, includes some less iconic scenes, such as lone GP30 2768 doing its best to make 30 mph as it drags the Belen - Albuquerque local up the Rio Grande Valley at the Desert Rd. crossing. Up front is TOFC business destined for Albuquerque's Kachina Lift facility.

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