The "Beep"

The "Beep" Santa Fe's SWBLW

History
One of Santa Fe's most interesting, enduring, and endearing exercises in life sized "kit-bashing" was a curious creation that rolled out of the railroad's Cleburne, TX shop in December 1970. Officially dubbed an SWBLW, it had a cab whose contours clearly said "Baldwin" and frame to match, but that was about all that matched. Perched atop the frame was an EMD GP7-style long hood with a 16-567BC engine chanting away inside. Crammed beneath the frame were a pair of EMD Blomberg trucks, occupying space that was only meant to accomodate Type-A switcher trucks. As David Lustig so aptly put it in a sidebar to his article The Creatures from Cleburne (reference 4), the locomotive looked like five quarts of water in a four quart container. Various monikers have been applied to it over the years. At various times it has carried the numbers 2450, 1160, and 1460, and it has been called everything from a VO1000u to an SW7. The name most commonly heard in railfan circles, and the name that just seems to fit somehow, is the "Beep," a contraction of Baldwin Geep. The story of the Beep goes back to 1969, when Santa Fe's Cleburne, TX shops were revived from semi-dormancy for the CF7 program. The program converted worn out F3, F7, and F9 cab units into like-new GP7-style roadswitchers dubbed CF7's. The capital rebuild program saved the railroad considerable amounts of money compared to buying new locomotives. The CF7 program was so successful that 233 were built before the Santa Fe literally ran out of F-units. Meanwhile, Santa Fe's fleet of end-cab switcher locomotives was also rapidly nearing retirement. Although Santa Fe's road power of the 40's and 50's had been overwhelmingly EMD, the switcher fleet was a varied assortment of models from EMD, Alco, Baldwin, and FM. By 1970, only EMD was still in the locomotive business, so an in-kind rebuild of most of the switchers would have been an expensive and unrealistic proposition. In the spirit of the CF7 conversions, the railroad decided to see if remanufacturing its non-EMD switchers with EMD powerplants could be a viable alternative. Santa Fe VO1000 #2220, a July 1943 graduate of the Baldwin Locomotive Works' Eddystone, PA plant, was selected as the guinea pig for the program. The Baldwin hood, engine, electrical and control gear, and switcher trucks were discarded. In their place, the folks at Cleburne put a GP7-style hood (fabricated from scratch in-house), an EMD 16-567BC engine rated at 1500 hp, generator, controls, and Blomberg trucks. If that doesn't sound easy, it wasn't. A considerable amount of modification was required to make the cast Baldwin frame accept the EMD engine and trucks, and this is the main reason the resulting locomotive was a one-off. Santa Fe had set aside a pair of FM H10-44's and a few other locomotives for rebuilding if the Baldwin rebuild proved economical, but they were ultimately scrapped instead. The re-engined switcher was a success, if its three decades of subsequent service are any indication, but it took too much work to produce. Those who have attempted to build scale models of the unit can attest to the challenges (see references 1 and 2). The finished product emerged from the Cleburne shops in December 1970. The strange looking locomotive was numbered 2450, a safe distance below the "2500-class" CF7's that were being numbered downward from 2649 as Cleburne churned them out. Still bearing one of its original Baldwin builder's plates, the 2450 was quickly dubbed a "Beep," or sometimes a "Bleep," by railfans. Santa Fe's official model designation for the unit, at least in later years, was SWBLW, apparently from Switcher, Baldwin Locomotive Works. Whatever its designation, locomotive 2450 soon found a nitch for itself in south Texas. Crews appreciated the superior riding qualities of the Blomberg trucks compared to the Type-A switcher trucks under most other switchers. The locomotive was also several tons heavier than a typical GP7, giving it more tractive effort for switching long cuts of cars. For many years, 2450 was leased to the Port Terminal Railroad Association in Houston, a switching road jointly owned by several of the railroads serving the area. By late 1974, the CF7 program had reached number 2500 and kept right on going down into the 2400's. Santa Fe renumbered the Beep to 1160 in August 1974 to get it out of the way (the CF7 program would ultimately reach 2450 in 1977, and conclude at 2417 the following year). In January 1977, Santa Fe renumbered its dwindling supply of unrebuilt EMD switchers into the 1400-series. The Beep was also included in the renumbering, becoming the 1460. By the mid-1980's, 1460 was assigned to Cleburne as the shop switcher. In 1985, the unit received a number of external modifications. An air conditioner was fitted to the cab, and the rear cab windows were modified from their original Baldwin pattern to a new arrangement featuring three panes of glass per side (see photos below). This allowed the use of standard sized window glass common to many EMD locomotives. The switcher received a fresh coat of blue and yellow paint at the same time. Mercifully, the paint shop did not attempt to fit a blue and yellow warbonnet to the unit, but merely repainted it in the same old obsolete (but in this case better looking) 1960's version of the blue and yellow freight scheme. In 1987, Santa Fe's last standard EMD switcher, SW900 #1453, was retired, leaving the 1460 as the only example of an end cab switcher on the entire roster. The Beep continued to work at Cleburne until the shops closed at the end of 1987. It was then ferried north to Kansas and put to work as the shop switcher at the Argentine shops in Kansas City, KS. The unit bounced back and forth between Argentine and Topeka, serving as the shop switcher at either location, for the next decade. At some point in the early 1990's, remote control equipment was added so that the 1460 could be operated by a person on the ground. Externally, this modification manifested itself as a set of colored lights on the side of the cab. How frequently the unit was used in remote mode is not known. The Beep survived the BNSF merger, and was one of only three blue and yellow units not slated to receive a new number in the sweeping renumbering program that followed. The June 2001 photo by Tony Kimmel in the Beep Shots section below shows the unit has received BNSF sublettering, as well as a four-stack exhaust manifold, since the merger. There have been occasional rumors of the unit's imminent demise, but as of early 2006, the 1460 was still at Topeka. The locomotive's three decades of service make it easily the longest lived Santa Fe rebuilt locomotive still working for BNSF. The contemporary CF7's were far more numerous, but few stayed on the Santa Fe roster longer than 15 years.

History

One of Santa Fe's most interesting, enduring, and endearing exercises in life sized "kit-bashing" was a curious creation that rolled out of the railroad's Cleburne, TX shop in December 1970. Officially dubbed an SWBLW, it had a cab whose contours clearly said "Baldwin" and frame to match, but that was about all that matched. Perched atop the frame was an EMD GP7-style long hood with a 16-567BC engine chanting away inside. Crammed beneath the frame were a pair of EMD Blomberg trucks, occupying space that was only meant to accomodate Type-A switcher trucks. As David Lustig so aptly put it in a sidebar to his article The Creatures from Cleburne (reference 4), the locomotive looked like five quarts of water in a four quart container. Various monikers have been applied to it over the years. At various times it has carried the numbers 2450, 1160, and 1460, and it has been called everything from a VO1000u to an SW7. The name most commonly heard in railfan circles, and the name that just seems to fit somehow, is the "Beep," a contraction of Baldwin Geep.

The story of the Beep goes back to 1969, when Santa Fe's Cleburne, TX shops were revived from semi-dormancy for the CF7 program. The program converted worn out F3, F7, and F9 cab units into like-new GP7-style roadswitchers dubbed CF7's. The capital rebuild program saved the railroad considerable amounts of money compared to buying new locomotives. The CF7 program was so successful that 233 were built before the Santa Fe literally ran out of F-units. Meanwhile, Santa Fe's fleet of end-cab switcher locomotives was also rapidly nearing retirement. Although Santa Fe's road power of the 40's and 50's had been overwhelmingly EMD, the switcher fleet was a varied assortment of models from EMD, Alco, Baldwin, and FM. By 1970, only EMD was still in the locomotive business, so an in-kind rebuild of most of the switchers would have been an expensive and unrealistic proposition. In the spirit of the CF7 conversions, the railroad decided to see if remanufacturing its non-EMD switchers with EMD powerplants could be a viable alternative.

Santa Fe VO1000 #2220, a July 1943 graduate of the Baldwin Locomotive Works' Eddystone, PA plant, was selected as the guinea pig for the program. The Baldwin hood, engine, electrical and control gear, and switcher trucks were discarded. In their place, the folks at Cleburne put a GP7-style hood (fabricated from scratch in-house), an EMD 16-567BC engine rated at 1500 hp, generator, controls, and Blomberg trucks. If that doesn't sound easy, it wasn't. A considerable amount of modification was required to make the cast Baldwin frame accept the EMD engine and trucks, and this is the main reason the resulting locomotive was a one-off. Santa Fe had set aside a pair of FM H10-44's and a few other locomotives for rebuilding if the Baldwin rebuild proved economical, but they were ultimately scrapped instead. The re-engined switcher was a success, if its three decades of subsequent service are any indication, but it took too much work to produce. Those who have attempted to build scale models of the unit can attest to the challenges (see references 1 and 2).

The finished product emerged from the Cleburne shops in December 1970. The strange looking locomotive was numbered 2450, a safe distance below the "2500-class" CF7's that were being numbered downward from 2649 as Cleburne churned them out. Still bearing one of its original Baldwin builder's plates, the 2450 was quickly dubbed a "Beep," or sometimes a "Bleep," by railfans. Santa Fe's official model designation for the unit, at least in later years, was SWBLW, apparently from Switcher, Baldwin Locomotive Works.

Whatever its designation, locomotive 2450 soon found a nitch for itself in south Texas. Crews appreciated the superior riding qualities of the Blomberg trucks compared to the Type-A switcher trucks under most other switchers. The locomotive was also several tons heavier than a typical GP7, giving it more tractive effort for switching long cuts of cars. For many years, 2450 was leased to the Port Terminal Railroad Association in Houston, a switching road jointly owned by several of the railroads serving the area. By late 1974, the CF7 program had reached number 2500 and kept right on going down into the 2400's. Santa Fe renumbered the Beep to 1160 in August 1974 to get it out of the way (the CF7 program would ultimately reach 2450 in 1977, and conclude at 2417 the following year). In January 1977, Santa Fe renumbered its dwindling supply of unrebuilt EMD switchers into the 1400-series. The Beep was also included in the renumbering, becoming the 1460.

By the mid-1980's, 1460 was assigned to Cleburne as the shop switcher. In 1985, the unit received a number of external modifications. An air conditioner was fitted to the cab, and the rear cab windows were modified from their original Baldwin pattern to a new arrangement featuring three panes of glass per side (see photos below). This allowed the use of standard sized window glass common to many EMD locomotives. The switcher received a fresh coat of blue and yellow paint at the same time. Mercifully, the paint shop did not attempt to fit a blue and yellow warbonnet to the unit, but merely repainted it in the same old obsolete (but in this case better looking) 1960's version of the blue and yellow freight scheme.

In 1987, Santa Fe's last standard EMD switcher, SW900 #1453, was retired, leaving the 1460 as the only example of an end cab switcher on the entire roster. The Beep continued to work at Cleburne until the shops closed at the end of 1987. It was then ferried north to Kansas and put to work as the shop switcher at the Argentine shops in Kansas City, KS. The unit bounced back and forth between Argentine and Topeka, serving as the shop switcher at either location, for the next decade. At some point in the early 1990's, remote control equipment was added so that the 1460 could be operated by a person on the ground. Externally, this modification manifested itself as a set of colored lights on the side of the cab. How frequently the unit was used in remote mode is not known.

The Beep survived the BNSF merger, and was one of only three blue and yellow units not slated to receive a new number in the sweeping renumbering program that followed. The June 2001 photo by Tony Kimmel in the Beep Shots section below shows the unit has received BNSF sublettering, as well as a four-stack exhaust manifold, since the merger. There have been occasional rumors of the unit's imminent demise, but as of early 2006, the 1460 was still at Topeka. The locomotive's three decades of service make it easily the longest lived Santa Fe rebuilt locomotive still working for BNSF. The contemporary CF7's were far more numerous, but few stayed on the Santa Fe roster longer than 15 years.

Beep Shots
July 1975, Cleburne, TX courtesy John Sjolander	ca.1986, Cleburne, TX Courtesy Robert Seale		July 1990, Argentine, Kansas City, KS
July 1992, Topeka, KS courtesy Mike Murray	May 1995, Argentine, Kansas City, KS	May 1995, Argentine, Kansas City, KS	May 1995, Argentine, Kansas City, KS
June 2001 Topeka, KS Courtesy Tony Kimmel	October 2002 Topeka, KS Courtesy John Mallory
If you have a Beep shot you'd like to add, or additional information on this unique locomotive, please drop us a line.

References

1. Bassett, Gordon C., "Modeling the 'Beep,'" The Santa Fe Modeler, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1st Quarter 1991), pp.8-13.

2. Campbell, C. Langdon, "A 'Beep?'" Railroad Model Craftsman, June 1976, pp.33-35.

3. EuDaly, Kevin, Santa Fe 1992 Annual, Hyrail Productions, 1992.

4. Lustig, David, "The Cleburne Baldwin," Railfan & Railroad, Vol. 5, No. 10 (May 1985), p.48.

References
1. Bassett, Gordon C., "Modeling the 'Beep,'" The Santa Fe Modeler, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1st Quarter 1991), pp.8-13.
2. Campbell, C. Langdon, "A 'Beep?'" Railroad Model Craftsman, June 1976, pp.33-35.
3. EuDaly, Kevin, Santa Fe 1992 Annual, Hyrail Productions, 1992.
4. Lustig, David, "The Cleburne Baldwin," Railfan & Railroad, Vol. 5, No. 10 (May 1985), p.48.

Back to Santa Fe Subjects

The "Beep"

Santa Fe's SWBLW

History

Beep Shots

References