You Sure Do Clean Up Good…

I’ve always liked the SP’s little GE’s, particularly the B30-7’s. They were common throughout the eastern part of the SP system, yet they could, and would, show up just about anywhere.

SP B30-7 7848 at the PTRA's Manchester Yard in Houston on Jan. 13, 1991

The 7848 was built in March of 1979. 13 years of tough service on the SP have taken a toll, yet the factory paint is still fairly intact. Shortly after this picture was taken, the SP contracted  Conrail to overhaul its 7700 and 7800 series GE’s, with the work done at Conrail’s Enola, PA shop complex.

The 7848, fresh from overhaul, at Englewood Yard in Houston on Oct. 31, 1993

An SP purist can take issue with the white frame stripe and the “too fat” cab numbers, but you have to admit that the grimy unit in the first picture sure did clean up good…

PS- The 7848 was retired on April 19, 2004. Normally, that would be the end of the story, as most retired GE’s are scrapped. But in this case, the 7848 was used as the core for UPY 2671, a RailPower RP20GE genset.

As I finished this post, I wondered where the 7848 / UPY 2671 might be today. A trace of the UPY 2671 tells me that it’s at Englewood yard, the same place  I photographed it over 16 years ago.