my ESPEE MODELERS ARCHIVE

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

Cotton Belt SD45T-2

248 units delivered

84 units to SSW

If your into nitpicky type details, I have a breakdown of the number series and some relevant features.

Cotton Belt's Tunnel Motors were basically the same as SP's except for the lettering; they were used system wide, and so could show up anywhere not just on Cotton Belt rails.

One special SD45T-2; #9389 was painted in Bicentennial paint, (see links above), and The Bicentennials the special paint lasted until about 1980 when it was repainted into standard scarlet and gray. Later in early 1988 it went through SP's GRIP II rebuild program emerging as SP #6833.

Athearn has announced a Bicentennial model of #9389 in HO scale.

References:

• SP 1987/88 Motive Power Pictorial by Joe.W.Shine, Page 115.
• SP.....into the '90's by Joe.W.Shine, Page 198.- also has photo's of these units.
• Diesel Era May/Jun '91 Vol 2 No.3 Page 8, Usual thorough coverage in 15 pages of T-2's.
• Wesley Fox
• Dave Carr