my ESPEE MODELERS ARCHIVE

California's Railroad to the U.S. 1861 - 1996

Southern Pacific C-628

29 units delivered

delivered as SP 4870 to 4873 in 1964 re#'d 7100 to 7103 in 1965.

delivered as SP 4845 to 4869 in 1965 re#'d 7104 to 7128 in 1965.

Twenty-seven of SP's 29 ALCo C628's were rebuilt during 1973/74 at Houston Shops for yard service, and re#'d #3110-3136
except 7121 and 7115 which were converted to slugs 1000 and 1001.

SP 4870 to 4873 were originally ALCo Demonstrators 628-1 to 628-4

from Don Jewell:
The 4870-4873 were demo units purchased by SP and ran for some time after acquisition in ALCo demo colors of gold/black with the SP number in white on the cab and a gray rectangle on the long hood with stacked "SOUTHERN PACIFIC" covering the "ALCO" name. These units had a few spotting features different from the 25 production units for SP.

from Stan Rothwell:
The units rebuilt for yard service were renumbered 3120-3146. I believe that the capability for series to parallel transition was removed, limiting them to 25 MPH max. Many of these units were stored at Aurant along with the RSD-12s and numerous GE's, where they were heavily vandalized as well.

Between January and April/May of 1970 all 29 C-628's were leased to the Louisville and Nashville. Burlington Northern then leased 12 of them, returning them from June until August. November '70 to January 1971 saw 19 various C-628's being leased again by the L&N until May 1971 when they were all back on SP soil. While on the L&N, 7121 was wrecked and repaired at a GE workshop with a GE cab, with L&N picking up the repair bill.

References:

• Diesel Locomotive Cyc #2 Page 144 - C-628 Plans, Proto photo of SP4850
• SP Historic Diesels Vol.8 Also Roadswitchers by Joe Strapac

Roster information courtesy Bruce Conklin.
Rebuild number corrections from Don Jewell.