my ESPEE MODELERS ARCHIVE

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

Southern Pacific unrebuilt GP9

No unrebuilt GP9's appeared in the Kodachrome Scheme.

© 1985, 1997 Stan A. Rothwell. SP GP9 (not rebuilt) 3640 at West Colton, CA on a drizzly 23 June 1985. Note the numberboards on the long hood.

The GP9 rebuilding programs ended in 1979, leaving 24 GP9's not rebuilt.

16 of these can be accounted for, as they were reclassified as switchers and numbered 2868-2899.

The other 8, I cannot be sure of... but I believe the above units listed in the table to be correct.

However, #3640 presents an anomoly, this was renumbered in 1978 to #2896, and reclassified as a switcher.
It later shows up on Rosters, whereas 2896 doesn't.
It may have been re-renumbered back to its original #3640...

#2878 presents another anomoly... while looking at the photo, it looks like it has 4 exhaust stacks. Joe Strapac mentioned this in an update to the GP9 in his Volume 8 SP Historic Diesels series.
This unit was downgraded to heavy switcher status, and I believe was never rebuilt, but has a 4 stack manifold.

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