Southern Pacific 1518

Infobox Locomotive
name=Southern Pacific 1518


caption=1518 in operation at Illinois Railway Museum in 2005
railroad=Southern Pacific Railroad
builder=General Motors Electro-Motive Division (EMD)
buildmodel=SD7
powertype=Diesel
number=1518
currentowner=Illinois Railway Museum
disposition=operates in excursion service
builddate=March 1952
deliverydate=October 1952
railroadclass=DF-116
poweroutput=1500 hp
length=convert|60|ft|8|in|abbr=on
gauge=RailGauge|ussg|lk=on
width=convert|10|ft|8|in|abbr=on
height=convert|14|ft|1|in|abbr=on
cylindercount=16
primemover=645CE
aarwheels=C-C
Southern Pacific Railroad's (SP) number 1518 is an EMD SD7 diesel locomotive. It was built originally as General Motors Electro-Motive Division's (EMD) Demonstrator #990. It was the first "SD" series locomotive ever built. [cite web| publisher=Illinois Railway Museum| url=http://www.irm.org/cgi-bin/rsearch.cgi?diesel=Southern+Pacific=1518| title=IRM Roster - Southern Pacific 1518| accessdate=2008-06-27] It demonstrated on several roads before being sent back to EMD for refurbishing and repainting in SP's "tiger stripe" paint and renumbering as #5308. It was built approx March 1952, acquired by SP in October 1952 and was classified in a one only class as DF-116 as it was slightly different from all the other SD7s.

As delivered, it had dual control stands, a steam boiler, a winterization hatch over the forward fan and two single "blat" horns. SP soon added a large "beer barrel" or "trash can" signal light to the top of the short hood; later, SP repainted it in the "black widow" paint scheme. Since it still had dual control stands, the painted wings were applied to both ends. The second control stand was later removed and the rear wings were painted over. SP renumbered the locomotive #2715 in 1965, painted it in the then standard scarlet and gray "bloody nose" paint scheme; later still it was renumbered #1415 when the EMD SW1500 deliveries approached the 27xx numbers.

The locomotive was rebuilt as an SD7R in 1979/1980 and renumbered to #1518. In this rebuild, it lost the single blat horns and winterization hatch. 1518 was the only SD7 to have wings at both ends denoting two control stands for bi-directional operation, similar to the San Francisco-San Jose, California commute GP9s.

1518 was the only SD7 to have a winterization hatch, a feature that was very rare on SP but not unknown - an SP F7 or two and the odd GP20 also had them.

When Union Pacific Railroad took control of the SP in the mid-1990s, 1518 was sent to the UP's roundhouse in Cheyenne, Wyoming, to be preserved. Instead, Southern Pacific 1518 was donated to the Illinois Railway Museum where it currently resides. It would appear that the UP put their Armour Yellow sunshades on the unit

References

* http://espee.railfan.net