my ESPEE MODELERS ARCHIVE

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

Southern Pacific U28C

7150 - 7159

10 units delivered

Delivered 1966 - Retired 1979.

© Stan Rothwell - Southern Pacific U28C's 7153 and 7152 at Taylor Yard, 26 Feb 1985.

Stan Rothwell has kindly contributed this addition, thanks Stan, more contributions like this welcomed.

These units were numbered 7150-7159, and were almost exclusively assigned to the Kaiser Steel Ore Trains, which hauled iron ore from Ferrum (on the north shore of the Salton Sea; junction with the Kaiser Steel Eagle Mountain Railway) to the steel mill in Fontana (now closed).

What is interesting about these units is, although they were all built to the same order, there were two different types of trucks used (I believe Commonwealth and GSC, but don't hold me to that). Some of these units wound up in storage at Aurant as well. - Stan Rothwell

Yes in fact four U28C's were fitted with Adirondack type sideframes, #7150, 7154, 7157 and 7159. The others had GSC sideframes. In later years some ran around with one of each, as they are interchangeable.

Prototype References:

• Southern Pacific Motive Power Annual 1971 - GE the Pioneer Builder.
• Southern Pacific Historic Diesels, Volume 5, GE U Series Locomotives - by Joe Strapac.

Additional Information on this Page contributed by Bruce Conklin.