RailNews

F45 Could Be Restored to SPSF ‘Kodachrome’

Ex-Santa Fe 5989 is currently in Albia, Iowa, and will soon be repainted for Southern Pacific Santa Fe.

F45 Could Be Restored to SPSF ‘Kodachrome’

By Eric Berger

While plenty of locomotives have been restored to their original appearance — and some to represent examples of units long scrapped on other railroads — few have been restored into the scheme of a railroad that never was. But that is exactly what Dieselmotive Company said it hopes to do recently. The California-based company said it recently purchased a former Santa Fe F45 and plans on painting it into the “Kodachrome” scheme of the failed Southern Pacific Santa Fe, according to Diselmotive’s Noah McCann. 

While the locomotive is ex-Santa Fe (specifically ATSF 5989), McCann is an SP fan and plans to paint it in the short-lived SPSF merger scheme. Between 1983, when the merger was announced, and 1986, when the Interstate Commerce Commission torpedoed it, the two railroads painted about 400 units. After the merger failed, most of the locomotives were repainted back into ATSF or SP colors. 

Santa Fe 5989 has seen several paint schemes since its 1968 delivery as ATSF 1939 in blue with yellow stripes. Just two years later, it received the blue and yellow Warbonnet freight scheme that was common on Santa Fe in the 1970s and 1980s. The Kodachrome scheme was applied around late 1985, but the blue paint was back by 1991. Following retirement in 1994, ownership passed to Morrison-Knudson, Boise Locomotive and MotivePower Inc., as that rebuilder morphed and eventually merged with Westinghouse Air Brake to form Wabtec in 1999. It served many years in Idaho as an engine test bed prior to being moved to Albia, Iowa, in 2021, where it currently resides. McCann hopes to bring the locomotive to a museum in the future. 

This article was posted on: March 21, 2023