A year or 2 ago I saw pictures of some older Santa Fe diesels (probably scrapped by now) that had corrugated sides (corrugation running horizontally). I believe they were still running as late as the 70s.
I brought this topic up to some experienced railroaders and they didn’t believe me.
At one time I found pictures of them but the website (linked off the Santa Fe Modeling & Historical Society) site is down and not operating.
Has anyone seen or heard of these diesels and perhaps by chance has a link to pictures? I’ve surfed all over the web to no avail.
The ATSF U30CG’s were not the only corrugated side diesels. Metra’s F40C’s also had corrugated sides. Two still serve with Metra as reserve power. CB&Q’s E5A’s and E5B’s also had side fluting below the windows.
Back in the early 70’s, I used to collect belt buckles that featured railroad related objects- locos, cars, logos, etc. One of these buckles featured a U30CG. I always wondered why the manufacturer selected such a relatively obscure model to put on a buckle but it does make an interesting oddity.
General Electric’s pre-Uboat testbed locomotives, the UM 20B’s had corrugated steel sheets on the side. They looked something like a Fairbanks-Morse C-liner. They were sold to UP after GE was done with them
The 6 U30CGs and 10 U28CGs were retired on 9/16/80 and traded in four months later to GE for 16 new B36-7s. Source The Santa Fe Diesel Volume 2 by Dr. Cinthia Priest. [8D]
