funit

How sweet it is!

This EMD FT of Santa Fe's 100 class were the very first batch of road freight diesels delivered in 1941. AT&SF would eventually get 80 four unit sets of these first generation diesels and run them into the early to mid-1960's. During WWII these locos were used mainly from Winslow AZ to points west in order to reduce water consumption in the desert. They finished up their service in the less demanding Texas Gulf Coast where my grandfather was a Roadmaster in those days. Childhood memories! Notice the cream yellow color of what is now known as the "catwhisker" paint scheme. In the mid-1950's theis paint scheme was replaced by the "cigar band" scheme which had a darker chrome yellow. The Santa Fe really maintained their engines well including keeping them clean.

#103 shown here was part of the first four sets of FT engines that ATSF purchased from EMD (General Motors) in January 1941. Units #100-104 each consisted of a cab lead engine, two cabless boosters and a trailing cab unit (an "LABC" configuration). A total of 320 FT units were acquired by August 1945. These were used primarily in CA and AZ resulting in total dieselization of "through" freight trains (Winslow, San Bernardino, Bakersfield) when this great photo was taken. After the war, the #103 set was moved to the Argentine-Corwith freight pool on the Illinois-Missouri division of the ATSF (KC-Chicago). #103 lasted until 1960-61 when it was traded back to EMD for a new road switcher. The early nose paint scheme shown here only existed on the #100-104 units. The red striping and SF shield were replaced by the classis yellow "cigar-band" used on all later blue FT/F3/F7 and ATSF passenger engines. www.shorpy.com/node/1747

I do not recall these colors on the Santa Fe. Excellent photo, nonetheless and I like this early style of diesel.

Above we see the team adding stripes and Amtrak graphics to the RTL.

One Flickr user claims three RTL-IIIs (upgraded RTLs) still exist:

Is that cart in front of the F-unit used to jump-start the EMD? Would it be 72 volts?