Sitting outside Southern Pacific Railroad's Roseville Diesel Shops are SP SD35R 6950 (ex-SP SD35 6922, née-SP SD35 4838), along with SP GP40X 7230, which is representing one-quarter of the SP's fleet of these rare Geeps. Not even a year old yet, SP 7230 still features its "as built" elephant ears, designed to improve operations in long tunnels (there are a lot of tunnels and snowsheds on nearby Donner Pass) by drawing in cooler air from the lower portion of these tunnels and snowsheds. These "ears" were removed after a few years, when the four GP40Xs were assigned to southern California, an area fairly devoid of tunnels ... and those it does have are not all that long. (Roseville, California - September 3, 1978)
