Before SP merged with UP did any of their locos make to the east coast either on thru runs or as leases, or did they stay on the western part of the country.
Bruce
At the very least there would have been SP engines newly leaving the factories at Erie and LaGrange back then.
I think run throughs are likely, especially considering the SP and SSW ran through the heart of the south. Probably wouldn’t be to hard to imagine a SP engine wandering offline from there and heading a bit futher east on run through or as a lease.
Now do I have photographic proof of that? No. If you look hard enough I am sure you can find it somewhere.
I remember reading an article in Railfan & Railroad about a guy who was chasing an SP unit on a Conrail train in the early 90s, somewhere around Baltimore.
So yeah…
To the best of my knowledge the furthest eastern run was Chicago, the Golden State. There was a connection at Chicago of the Golden State that continued to the east coast pulled by the Rock Island, the SP Route stopped at Chicago.
The SP Freedom Train GS-4 #4449 might have made it to the east coast for the Bi Centennial 1976 tour.
Mel
My Model Railroad
http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/
Bakersfield, California
I’m beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.
Possible an SP loco was sold to an eastern road and not yet painted. I recall years ago seeing a bright Bessemer F7 on the B&O, and not until recently did I find out the B&O had purchased a few Bessemer units.
Lots of SP loco’s got to at least Chicago as run-thru power on the Rock Island.
I found this picture “just like that”:
http://www.railpictures.net/photo/472944/
You can do it to. Go to railpictures.net. They have a real good search function. Enter “Southern Pacific” for railroad. Pick a state you’re interested in. Pick years you’re interested in.
Press “Find the Photos!”
Shazaam! Graphic evidence of SP power east of the Mississippi. Or Chicago. As the case may be.
Ed
As a visiting Australian, I photographed 4449 in Miami Fla on the very last day of the Freedom Train display from where it was to travel to Birmingham AL about 2 weeks later December 30 '76. I also photographed tunnel motors travelling through Aurora Ill on BN on a freight. I believe they were being trialled rather than run throughs.
I also have seen pictures of Tunnel Motors on trial in a Trains Magazine in a CN yard in Toronto and I think I have seen pictures of D&H units with SP units so in short… you have a number of prototypes!
Cheers from Australia
Trevor
SP/SSW power was often seen on the east coast during the 1970s and 80s. During 1971, I saw a Cotton Belt GP-35 in a Penn Central power consist in the old New Haven South Boston freight yard, 1/4 mile from the waters of Boston harbor and, the Atlantic Ocean. While living in Gulfport, MS during 1973/74, the L&N used to run a freight between New Orleans and Jacksonville, FL with solid consists of SP/SSW or SCL power. The bloody nosed boys were always four axle unit mixes of GP-20, GP-35 and U25Bs. SCL covered their obligations with GP-40/40-2, U30, 33, 36Bs. In 1978, another move put me on the SP’s Sunset Route in Texas. Eastern power seen on SP trains between 1978 and 1986 included, Conrail, WM, B&O, SOU, SCL, L&N, and N&W. To a lesser degree, ICG and GM&O also put in appearances, representing Gulf of Mexico ports. The era of the run-through had arrived and SP power was a regular sight on foreign rails from Boston, down the east coast and across the gulf coast to New Orleans.
i had read that the 1776 freedom train needed to use the Reading T1 because the west coast locomotives couldn’t handle the the tighter northern east coast tracks.
i saw the Freedom train. I thought it was on a siding on the Morristown& Erie.
Nope. It’s because the tighter northern east coast tracks couldn’t handle the west coast locomotives.
Ed
I can recall seeing SP freight locos in Galesburg IL and Hinsdale IL running east to Chicago on the BN in the late 1980s/early 1990s era. I believe it was even a trackage rights matter that was mooted when the UP took over. Whether the SP power proceeded to go further east I do not know, but there was a lot of power sharing back then.
Dave Nelson
There are photos of Southern Pacific locos in the State of New York.
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I saw the Freedom Train in Florida. I was just a little kid, and I really wish I could remember it.
.
-Kevin
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Jan. 14, 1977 over the St. Lucie Canal. Photo by Fred Clark, Jr.
Going home, 1977 by Fred Clark, Jr., on Flickr
Actually pulling an Amtrak Excursion while taking a break from AFT duties.
Cheers, Ed
T1 is a better loco anyway 
–Randy
If it’s a Pennsy T-1… [(-D]
It’s interesting that the GN never got to a T class. In steam, they went from A (0-6-0) to S (4-8-4), skipping I. And in electrics, they started from the other end, and got to W, skipping X.
Ed
SP locomotives (diesel) east of home iron include ALCo C-628 7121 which was wrecked while on lease to the L&N in 1971, destroying the nose and cab. The oddity is, the wrecked nose and cab were replaced with GE components similar to those found on GE’s U series units. Different sources have the work being done by the L&N or, GE’s Apparatus shop in Cleveland OH. The second excursion from home rails involved the 26 GP-35s sent north to Canadian National’s Pointe Saint Charles shops for rebuilding in kind, wearing 6300 series numbers. SP units also went south of the border but, that is another subject.
Southern Pacific,Cotton Belt and Frisco on the Clinchfield and Seaboard Coast Line between Bostic NC and Hamlet NC.