Talk:EMD SD7

As of 2005, the Hartwell Railroad (a shortline in Georgia) was still operating one (non-preserved!) ex-B&LE SD7. Is this engine still operational? SpaceCaptain 16:18, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

"Special Duty"
Rather than sweeping statements about whether it still counts as special duty, it'd be more useful to know what EMD's intended use for this locomotive family was, and how it differed from the intended use of the GP family... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.254.202.225 (talk) 01:13, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

infobox, ref
Dorin (72) page 114 has C&NWRy drawings and spec sheets for #1660, that’s where most of this comes from.


 * "The extra powered axles made them ideal for heavy-haul freights as they were less likely to slip...heavy freight running at slow speeds for many miles"

Ross (03) p. 281: "Greater tractive effort with lower axle loading...With its heavily graded profile, Southern Pacific" Sammy D III (talk) 22:56, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

SD7's in current use
Removed the gibberish from user 199.80.250.131 on 28 May 2019 about some still serving on Class 1's as switchers. The last SD7 on a Class 1 was Union Pacific's former Southern Pacific #1534. She was sold to Midwest Metalics on August 27th 1999 (presumably a scrapper with a name like that that), with a formal retirement date of August 31st, 1999.

https://utahrails.net/up-diesel-roster/up-x-sp-1.php#sd7-sp1503

I also slightly altered the sentence or two stating how many SD7's remain in use on shortlines or such, changing "many" to instead read "some". The list of active survivors in commercial service is quite small these days and is set to get even smaller now that the Genesee & Wyoming has agreed to disable dozens of their locomotives as part of a settlement with the EPA for non-compliance with emission standards. Portland & Western's #1501 is on the list and is a former SP SD7 and one of the last active ones out there (Also going are several SD9's and GP9's with similar SP ancestry on the PNWR). 2603:7081:C02:5700:99E7:F387:3F16:EB3A (talk) 01:52, 15 March 2023 (UTC)