Interesting article in TRAINS this month about the 21 year old guy who helped save an Amtrak F40PH and is now trying to save an SDP40F as well. Anybody know of any more SDP40F units preserved, or perhaps an F45 or FP45 (I am aware of the one at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, IL, any others?).
Orange Empire Railroad Museum in Perris, CA has a ATSF FP45 #98. Here’s the link…
I understand that a SDP40F (SDF40-2 notch nose version) is being saved by someone. It was the one that was repainted into the Maersk promo scheme.
The Mearsk is being saved along with F40PHR 231 by Chris Fussel of Portland Oregon. http://www.f40phr231.org AT&SF F45 #97 is being preserved at the Age Of Steam Railroad Museum in Dallas, Texas.
Unfortunately, the Illinois Railway Museum Santa Fe FP-45 is in a poor state of preservation. The cab & engine room is accessable to visitors, most of whom treat it with respect, but there are also a bunch of slobs who leave trash strewn about in it. It needs a paint job, and is not likely to operate again. Same old problem - not enough $$ & not enough volunteer workers.
Rich Witt - IRM Assoc. & Diesel Dept. Volunteer
Eolafan,[:D]
It’s nice to see that there are other fans of the EMD cowl units. The FP45 is my favorite. Back in the 70s in Tampa as an amuteur teenage photgrapher, friendly engineers sometimes would allow me to climb inside of the cabs of SDP40fs, take photos and converse until departure time (Wow, I miss those days). These were the Amtrak Silver Meteor & Silver Star trains. Seaboard Coastline Railroad crews were usually warm & friendly if you were polite.
Go to your search engine & type in Superfleet FP45 (or vise versa). This website gives a detailed account of where these cowl units winded up at. Good news is that 7 or 8 the FPs (nicknamed “Big Jacks”) survived and were donated to museums. Most had mechanical wear & tear. Santa Fe only had 9 (one was destroyed in a wreck). On this site you can also click on Santa Fe subjects and find out more details about the other cowl units. Last I read, 17 SDPs were finally retired and awaiting scrapping or selling.
One did go to MAERSK. Was painted but was not in full running condtion. For the publicity photo run, it was placed as the lead engine but was actually pushed by another engine that was coupled behind it. (anyone, please correct me if my facts are wrong)
[:)]On another positive note F40s are alive & well and won’t likely be extinct! There are a small number of F40s running around or being rebuilt. Commuter agencies and tourist lines have discovered that Amtrak has left the high powered generator with HEP equipment on many of these units which would work well for supplying modern passenger cars with electricity. The railroad museum in Tennesse is supposedly getting an ex-Amtrak F40.
Praise God for cowl preservation…however they were hard to see backwards from the cab [;)]