For what it's worth, in mid-December 1968, just a few weeks before I left the SP to go to work for the State of California, I was head brakeman on 356 on the "LA Mug," a slow drag from Fresno to Roseville (almost 10 hours on duty that day). According to my old timebook, we had had 88 cars and I showed that 356 was a "passenger F unit." We probably had one other unit that day (an F or a GP9) but that type of train didn't get much power on our division.

When I worked there on the San Joaquin Division in mid-1968 to early '69, F7's and FP7's were very common, used both on the Westside line (Tracy-Fresno) and on the 177 miles between Fresno and Roseburg. There were also at least a couple of "F9's" that, as I learned later, were upgraded (re-built) F3's from the T.& N.O.