U36C
8736	8739	8741	8744	8746	8749	8750	8752	8753	8755
photos contributed by: Richard Sugg, Evan Werkema

Twenty seven Santa Fe U36C's, 8736-8762, were not converted to SF30C's because they were leased rather than owned by the railroad. Of these, 10 received SPSF paint, as modeled by 8752 at Belen in 1986.

Santa Fe allowed the leases to expire on these U36C's, whereupon they were returned to the lessor and sent to scrap in 1992. Many had apparently been in storage for several years prior, since at least one, 8744, is known to have gone to scrap in SPSF paint (all active Santa Fe kodachromes were supposedly back in blue and yellow by the end of 1990.) The U36C's were presumably all cut up, though, which disqualifies them from being true SPSF escapees.

Half Breed?

A colorblind, or perhaps just careless, shop employee attached an SPSF red and yellow battery box cover to otherwise blue and yellow U36C 8758, resulting in this odd "hybrid" appearance. Such occurances fortunately were very rare (but see the C30-7 escapees page for another example).