Santa Fe or S.P. Kodak Painted Engines

Not sure about K-Line, but Lionel and MTH have made multiple engines over the years in a variety of models with the Kodachrome scheme, with both SP and SF logos.

Weaver also made some engines in that scheme. I have an SD40-2 lettered for Santa Fe. 

I painted a lot of those in HO many years ago. It's actually a pretty easy scheme to do. Microscale used to sell the decals for the curved portion of the hood. Just blow it up and use it as a template.

Strange thing about the Kodachrome scheme, since the AT&SF and S.P. merger never happened, the scheme never really developed.

Bada-Bing.

Here's a Williams diesel in Kodachrome.

 

 

I have the Lionel GP9 version. Very nice engine. Looks like the Williams one pictured above.

There's also a matching caboose, which has the new style lettering but not the color scheme. It's basic freight car red with SP or SF letters. Atlas made it in SF; I'm not sure if anybody did one in SP or not. 

Some more (among others):

 

Atlas O SD35

 

 

Lionel SD40T-2

 

Lionel GP-9

 

 

 

 

The Lionel GP-9 seems to have the "SPSF" paint scheme lettering out of order?

 

http://www.wig-wag-trains.com/...SD45s/SPSF_Proto.jpg

I am pretty sure Lionel did it in the MPC era as well...

 

Marty

MIKE - WHAT SANTA FE MODEL IS THAT?

MTH did a Rail King Scale SD9 in Proto2 (early 5V) powered and dummy in Kodachrome. Both road numbers were correct on top of that (SP had four total).

MTH also did a Proto-1 SD45 in Santa Fe in the Kodachrome paint.

 

As I recall, Weaver did an SD40-2 in Santa Fe Kodachrome as well.

 

One thing Atlas did in the aforementioned SD35 (correct road number, too as SP only had one SD35R in that scheme) is correctly place the "SP" on the long hood. MTH placed them improperly on the Kodachrome units as the initial plan was to insert the missing letters after the merger, so the "SP" should be towards the rear on the engineer side of the long hood and the "SF" should be towards the rear on the conductor side of the long hood. MTH (and apparently Lionel and Williams too based on the above photos) had the "SP" or "SF" next to the cab on both sides. Who says you have to be a 2-rail guy to count rivets.

 

 

Have the Lionel TMCC GP9.  Cool engine.  Just something about it.  Awesome sounds and a great runner

No, the Lionel GP Kodachromes came later. In any case, the attempted merger hadn't taken place yet back in the MPC years.

Lionel actually made two of the these traditional Kodachrome GP-9s, with different road numbers. They're sharp looking engines. I have the set and run them with this Santa Fe baywindow caboose, which matches the engines perfectly. Lionel made these Pennsy and SF cabooses which are equipped with full RailSounds, and among other features, the cabooses can talk back and forth with the RailSounds in the engines. Very cool effect.

 

Lionel GP-9 was from the very late 1990's if I recall correctly. Nice engine with Magnatraction.

 MTH made a merger scheme SP bay window caboose, I converted one to 2 rail use years ago.....DaveB

Right. The two Kodachrome GP-9s were cataloged in 1999.

Don't forget what SPSF ended up meaning:  Shouldn't Paint So Fast!

 

Stuart

 

 

That's for sure. Did any of the equipment get all four letters before the ICC stepped in and ruined everything?

Matt loves the Kodachrome units, one day a fellow ran a Kodachrome engine on the AGHR layout, he was in heaven, a little droll out of the side of the mouth.

 

Matt:

You may have been upset the SP - Santa Fe merger didn't go through but, as a customer of both back in the day, the ICC did us all a favor.  Had this merger gone through, I suspect it would have turned into "Penn Central west".

Curt

In hindsight I think you're absolutely right. Had to give them kudos for picking a merger paint scheme as it respected both railroads and would have been easy to complete just by adding another pair of letters to each locomotive.

 

After the ICC decision, DRGW took the SP railroad (remember the "Speed Lettering" era). Santa Fe Pacific took the pipelines and real estate holdings. Turns out the SP railroad itself was "Suffering Pacific" and the railroad operation was problematic, losing several customers and abandoning several lines (many were old PE routes). This makes me wonder about the SPSF designation as it looks like Santa Fe was benefiting from the merger.

 

Shortly afterward, SP had several high-profile accidents in California which didn't help. There was the trestle derailment on the Shasta River, where some cars string-lined on a curved trestle causing a tank car full of pesticide to fall into the Shasta river and break open, polluting the water and causing a major fish kill. Then there was the derailment in Ventura County where a bearing seized on an articulated spine car, sawing through the axle and causing the rear third of the train to derail everywhere. The worst was the derailment in San Bernardino where a runaway coming down the Cajon grade derailed on a curve and the train landed on a bunch of houses. During the clean-up, a gasoline pipeline was ruptured and leaked gasoline into the ground. 10 days later there was a gas explosion which turned even more of the neighborhood into a vacant lot and burning ruins. I drive past the site every morning on the way to work and they never rebuilt the area. Cost them a lot of money, additional safety investigations, and a shot reputation. They maintained a LOT of older equipment for a long time. They had SD9's and GP20's operating in the system into the 1990's.

 

"Uphill Slow. Downhill Fast. Maximum Load. Safety Last" was a slogan being batted around for a while.

 

I have the Lionel SD40T-2. It's a very nicely done engine. Not only did they go out of their way to make all the details correct, they also went above and beyond by doing see through separate screens and even a spot on recording of a P3 for the horn. I've always wondered why they did that with that engine but not with much else afterward (Dash 9's and current ES44AC's come to mind)

Trevor

 

 

Lionel made a number of mistakes on that model actually.  

 

Biggest one is that the trucks are mounted too far inward on the frame, resulting in a large unprototypical gap between the trucks and pilot steps.

 

Another issue is that they used the same fuel tank for both the SP and Rio Grande versions (Rio Grande had a noticeably smaller tank).  Since the trucks were mounted too far inward, the tank actually looks more appropriate for the Rio Grande version. 

 

The single gyralite above the vertical MARS lights on the front nose constantly flashed.  This light was meant for emergency applications only, and not part of normal operations.

 

On the first release they offered an SP version in the later-period "Speed Lettering" scheme & used a cab number that never wore that scheme.

 

They had the L-shaped windshield for both the early and late-period era versions of this locomotive.  These were phased out starting in the early 1980s, and by the time of the "Speed Lettering" (Rio Grande merger) all tunnel motors had that windshield configuration removed.  Most already had the single gyralite removed by then as well.

 

MTH's SD45T-2 by comparison, pays more attention to those aforementioned variances, including windshield & lighting configurations & horn placements appropriate to era    (exception being all fuel tanks were identical; Rio Grande didn't have any 45T-2s anyway).  The trucks on the MTH model are more closely spaced to the pilot steps (still a bit too far inward) and the earlier releases had anachronistic exposed roller bearings that were found on the later-generation SD50 & SD60 although I noticed the more current releases have the correct-era Hyatt bearing ends.

Here I my guy.  Breezinup, I wasn't aware there were two different models #s made in this scheme.  I thought I had collected every TMCC GP7/9 made.  Do you have a pic of the two together you could share?  That caboose with the sounds would be cool to have. 

I owned, briefly, a Lionel MPC-ish (I'm not an expert on that) tiny GE "U33" in the Kodachrome scheme. Single Pullmor; dead e-unit - wired to go one direction only; "scale" didn't apply. It said "Southern Pacific" in block letters, I think.

 

Why did I buy it? It was cute. I like U-boats, even in characiture. It was 20 bucks at a train show. I think I sold it. For 20 bucks. I sold something for 20 bucks. 

We had an early Weaver SD40 when they came out in the 1990s. Very pretty and I'll see if I can locate a photo...

MTH made an SP GP30. The scaleking C30-7 was the nicest one done IMHO.

 

Here's two I painted. FP45 and SD45T-2:

Lionel never made a MPCish (as you say) Kodachrome UBoat or any other Kodachrome. My guess is you are thinking of the SP U-36 no. 8960 (there was a power and dummy unit) that came with the Southern Pacific Limited set Lionel did in 1979. This was, in fact, one of the paint schemes the SP utilized for awhile, sort of a takeoff on the Daylight scheme, but that was years before the attempted merger was begun.

 

I'll try to get a picture tomorrow. In the meantime, here's the other Kodachrome Geep. This is no. 28501, with cab no. 2924. This was a command-ready version, which I upgraded to full TMCC. (The other one, which you pictured, is no. 28502, cab no. 2925, came with the TMCC.) They look the same except for the different cab numbers.

 

 

Here are some shots of the two engines together, along with the RailSounds caboose. Don't have these on the layout right now. I also sometimes triple head them with the Lionel blue/yellow Santa Fe 8756 U-36B dummy - makes an interesting engine consist.