Southern Pacific SD40R 7342 Los Angeles CA 1-11-1981 by Cody White
Via Flickr:
Here's a shot of Southern Pacific SD40R 7342 at Taylor Yard in Los Angeles January 1981. This is an interesting variation of the SP paint scheme that needs a lot of explaining. The 7342 was built in April 1966 as SP 8470 and was rebuilt in the SP M-99(GRIP II) program at Sacramento in December 1980. The 8470 emerged as SD40R 7342 in the paint scheme seen above. The paint scheme was a variation of SP's famous "Daylight" orange and red scheme. Both sides of the 7342 were different in paint separation lines and lettering color. The engineer side had gray near the top of the hood and on top of the cab. The other side was entirely orange and the separation between the gray and orange was on top of the hood, unseen from the ground. Management didn't like this and it was quickly repainted with the gray on the fireman side as well. The lettering was white on the engineer side while the fireman side was red. The nose wings had feathers on the engineers side and solid on the fireman side. In November 1981, an SD45 was rebuilt(SP 8837, BLT 9/66) and emerged as SD44R 7399 in another variation of Daylight orange and red. This unit had a solid red nose, white lettering on both sides in a single line(not stacked like the 7342) and the sides of the long hood were predominately red instead of orange. The 7342 was repainted to match the 7399 in November 1981 but the lettering remained stacked, although both sides were now white. Both units were eventually repainted into other schemes. The 7342 was repainted into standard SP gray and red in 1989 while the 7399 went into the Kodachrome scheme, then to the standard SP scheme. The 7342 was retired by the UP in July 1997 and was not assigned a UP number. Los Angeles, CA January 11, 1981. Unknown Photographer Duplicate Slide from my Collection.
