Santa Fe switcher in the early 1980th

[faraway]

I am trying to adjust my layout into the early years of the 1980s to overcome some space problems.
My problem is the possible use of Santa Fe engines for switching local industry. I need four engines to utilize all four tracks of the staging yard.
2 * CF7 (Santa Fe, NOT LAJ in the early 1980th) and one GP7u.
The fourth engine could be a GP30 or a GP7 with Billboard color scheme.
My doubt is as follows
a. The GP30 was to new and possible updated to GP30u at that time. I find lots of photos with GP30 running speedy trains over the Cajun pass after 1980. It is unlikely Santa Fe would use such a valuable engine for local switching.
b. The billboard color scheme has been replaced in 1972 with the yellowbonnet scheme. The last photo of a GP7 with the billboard color scheme I could find is dated 1978. The early 1980s might be to late for that old scheme.

What is your advise?
a. use the GP30
b. use the GP7
c. use both
d. use none of them

ps. The time frame of the early 1980s is given by the CF7 and my cars and automobiles. The CF7 fleet got on sale after 1985 and my cars and automobiles do not fit well into e.f. 1970. My be I have to take a compromise and stay with 1978 (CF7 in use and photo of GP7 with billboard scheme found)?

Thanks for your opinion

[FCIN]

Reinhard;

If I understand the question correctly you could certainly use the GP-30. They were produced between July 1961 and November 1963 (total of 908 units built). I know that the L&N purchased quite a few of them when introduced and were the first L&N engines to wear the rebel paint scheme. CSX has since converted a lot of remaining GP-30's to road slugs. Getting off track here, but I see no reason why you couldn't have a GP-30 in use in switching service, circa 1980. After all, they would be old units by then and would no doubt have been replaced in road service by newer, more powerful locomotives.

The information I have about the CF-7 says that ATSF built (re-built) them between Oct 1970 and Mar 1978 and as you are no doubt aware, there are many of them still in daily service on short line and industrial rail operations. So no reason that you couldn't see both of those locomotive models running around together in 1980 or so.

Don't know enough about the ATSF to say what era the GP7u with the billboard paint would fit in to. But my vote would be for (c.) use both. The GP-7u could of course give you a project to repaint should it not be correct for your era.

I'm sure that some of the folks on here that model the ATSF could give you better info, but that's my two cents worth.

[faraway]

Hi Ed, thanks for the answer. I guess my English was not good enough...
The GP7u and CF7 are fine in any case.
In question are a GP30 and a GP7 (without u) in pine strip scheme because
a. the GP30 did certainly run 1980 at Santa Fe. No doubt about that. But was the GP30 in 1980 already demoted down to switcher and local services? The GP30 are today used as local engines in the LA basin but that is 30 years later. I did fund lots of photos with Santa Fe GP30 shot after 1980 where the GP30 is doing high quality line service (e.g. together with GP35 and GP38 on the Cajon pass).
b. the GP7 could certainly be used for local service in 1980-1985. But Santa Fe introduced in 1972 a new paint scheme. The last photo with a GP7 in the old paint scheme dates 1978. Therefor my question if there is some evidence about GP7 in the old paint scheme after 1980.

[FCIN]

Sorry Reinhard. As I said, it will take an ATSF modeler to really answer your question about the GP-30 and the GP-7. Just goes to show that a person shouldn't jump in to things that they're not that familiar with! There were still plenty of GP-7's 9's and 30's running around here in 1980, although many of them were not in very great shape.

[Russ Bellinis]

I think the Gp7 would likely have been painted with the "blue & yellow warbonnet" scheme by 1980. I think the Gp30's were probably used both for local switching as well as some road service by 1980, and I think at that time it would have been rebuilt to a Gp30u. Nothing changed on the outside of the body when they were rebuilt, they just up graded the prime mover to Gp35 specs, so that the Gp30u would be a Gp35 with a
Gp30 body. In the pictures the locomotives on Cajon pass that you thought were Gp38 are probably Gp39-2. The Santa Fe bought over 300 Gp39-2's in every phase, but the only Gp38-2s that they had were the ones that they got when they bought the TP&W. Since the Gp38-2s were not turbocharged and only rated at 2000 hp, I think they were relegated to local service immediately after acquisition. If used at all on mainline freights it would be on the plains between Texas & Chicago, not over Cajon.

[jwb]

Here is a CF7 in local service at Torrance, CA on the Harbor District south of Los Angeles in 1981. CF7s were pretty common in the area, especially on the Harbor District switching aerospace companies, at that time, so they would be perfectly appropriate for the area.
[albumimg]4103[/albumimg]
The GP7s would have been rebuilt with new cabs, looking very much like CF7s, by that time. However, it's worth pointing out that even when they were new, the Santa Fe used GP20s, GP30s, and GP35s in switching and local service out west. I was surprised to see this on the trip I took moving out here in 1968, but there you are.

By the 1980s, the Santa Fe used GP20us, GP30us, GP35us, U23Bs, and B23-7s interchangeably on locals in the Los Angeles area.