my ESPEE MODELERS ARCHIVE

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

Southern Pacific GP9/E/R

switchers

32 units reclassed

Only one unit 2873, was painted in the Kodachrome scheme.

In 1978 SP renumbered and reclassified some 32 GP's into 'switcher' status. This was done to provide 'heavy' yard switchers - remember this was 1978, when a GP9 was likely to be considered 'heavy'...
It would also have put them into a less demanding service schedule.

The units came from various backgrounds some rebuilt under either of two schemes and some never rebuilt at all.

6 units were still active in 1990, after that...

see the SP GP9 Overview for Magazine/Book References and available models.