Santa Fe, biggest Fleet of Cowls?

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

Guys,

I was watching my Pentrix Cajon Pass and Tehachapi Loop with my son last night, and a question popped into my mind. As you know the video was shot back in the late '80s in which Santa Fe fleet had a good deal of cowls running. My question is: did Santa Fe have the most Cowls (F45, FP45) out of all the railroads that had Cowls? Does anyone know how many the others had like Great Northern, Milwaukee Road, Burlington Northern and so on?

2

These numbers are close, probably some small errors-

ATSF- 9 FP45, 6 U30CG, 40 F45, 18 SDF40-2 (ex Amtrak) = 73 (?)

GN- 14 F45

BN- 45 F45 (14 ex GN) = 45

CMSP&P 5 FP45 = 5

CP Rail 25 SD40-2F = 25

BC Rail 26 C40-8M = 26 (to CN)

QNS&L 3 C40-8M = 3

Canadian National 20 HR 616, 60 SD50F, 64 SD60F, 55 C40-8M, 26 C40-8M ex BCR = 225

Amtrak had 150 cowls with steam heat designed to be turned into freight engines if it shut down.

3

Mmmm…Cowls !!!

4

Nice shots Chad but I have some too:

5

Sweet !!!

6

Amtrak also had 25 of the GE P30CHs and 210 F40PHs.

7

Hi Ed.

I always try to ignore those and I only like to count freight cowls, while those are purely passenger units and only 4 axels. I’m not sure if Zak only meant freight units (I think he did). Amtrak’s SDP40s are as far as I stretch things, perhaps that’s too far. I wouldn’t count the F40C’s as well, but I want to.

BC Rail’s electric GF6C’s were also freight cowls.

http://www.thedieselshop.us/PrsvdImagesEMD.HTML

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9

BC Rail (now CN) cowles:


Photo taken May 2006 at Lillooet, BC

10

Hmm, I wonder if the units with the Draper Taper actulay count [?]

11

Okay, just for the record as noted in my origional post I stated that I was thinking of the F45 and the FP45. I was refurring to them because those were the ones that the USofA railroads mainly used.

12

Even if you only count six axle cowls, you have to count the SDP40Fs because several worked for ATSF alongside the F45s and FP45s as freight units.

The Metra F40Cs have to be counted, because I believe some of these are moving into lease service as freight units.

If you discount passenger locomotives, you have to ignore all the FP45s on ATSF and CMStP&P which were purchased as passenger units.

Even F40PH units are in freight service now!

But the 150 SDP40Fs with Amtrak are the biggest fleet excluding F40PH units.

M636C

13

How about if the model designation doesn’t start with E or F and it has no handrails, those are cowls. How far back are we going on the wide bodied units?

14

As the original question above asked specifically about F45/FP45 cowls, the answer is AT&SF.

15

ATSF would be the right answer.

16

Wow! Is there a full moon out somewhere?[:P]

17

Thanks for my first big laugh of the day Dale.

18

RailROAD or RailWAY…potaTO or paTATO, toMATO or TAmato, let’s call the whole thing off.

Here in the states we will accept either railroad or railway as meaning the same thing… no big deal.

19

And for tax and accounting reasons they will be alternated every 2-3 decades.

20

Nah, he’s just been reading too many posts by certain members of this forum. By the way, nanaimo, nice shot!!!