my ESPEE MODELERS ARCHIVE

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

	Cotton Belt GP35

760 - 781

6501 - 6519, 6680, 6681

22 units delivered

see SSW GP35 Roster for details

Cotton Belt received its first order of GP35's in 1964, followup orders continued until 1965 when a total of twenty were on the roster. Numbering was continuous with the GP30's.

For reasons unknown another two were diverted from a Southern Pacific order, #7762-7763 were delivered to Cotton Belt as #780-781.

Beginning with the GP35's, Cotton Belt locos were built with the same gearing as Southern Pacific units, 62:15, as well as extended range dynamic braking. Previous Cotton Belt road units had faster gearing to take advantage of Cotton Belt's flatter track profiles.

#760-779 were all delivered in standard Blood Nose paint except that all handrails, stanchions and grabs? were painted yellow. SP's 5-light package was applied to the front only, and only #780-781 had snowplows, as these were built for SP rather than SSW.

In the 1965 renumbering, the original 20 became #6500-6519, the last exSP two became #6680-6681.

References:

• SP Dieselization by John Bonds Garmany
• Cotton Belt Locomotives (Book) by Joe Strapac - recently reprinted
• 1995 Southern Pacific Motive Power Annual - by Bill Shippen
• Southern Pacific Rails - a motive power finale by Peter Limas
• Southern Pacific Historic Diesels Vol.13 by Joe Strapac

Additional N Scale Model Info supplied by John Barnhill