Southern Pacific's West Colton Yard opened in 1972, and for use on the hump the railroad purchased six SD38-2s to be mated with slugs built from retired Alco C-628s and C-630s. But the SP kept experimenting, too, with other power for the yard, including creating braking sleds from four of the Fairbanks-Morse H24-66 "Trainmasters" formerly assigned to commuter trains in the Bay Area. Only one of these, SP MW9100 (ex-SP H24-66 3027, originally SP 4807), was actually completed, and is seen here mated with C-630 3147 (ex-SP 7805). The tests apparently didn’t deliver the desired results, as this was the only braking sled completed, and the other three "Trainmasters" set aside for this project (SP 3034, 3025 and 3032) we later scrapped rather than rebuilt. (Colton, California – March 2, 1975)
Not
just heritage schemes, not just commemorative schemes - this album is devoted to some of the world's most interesting paint schemes, past or present.
