HUTCH --
You have excellent taste in locomotive paint
schemes! My, but that one is superb! You got my
fave Olympic locomotive paint scheme right there.
Too bad she was wrecked not long after the Olympics.

From "my ESPEE MODELERS ARCHIVE":
"As an Official Sponsor for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic
Games, Southern Pacific repainted SD40R 7347 to this
Olympic paint scheme. Not sure of it's use during the
Games, but when they were over, it went back into the
freight pool.

"It was repainted back into Blood Nose paint July 1985,
and was totally destroyed in a head-on collision August 1985.

"#7347 was rebuilt from SD40 #8479, this was from the
second order of SD40's delivered in 1968. The second
order came with the 'L' shaped engineers window and
handbrake on a stand mounted against the rear hood
on the rear porch. For HO Scale there is/was a detai
l
part for this, don't have my Walthers handy at the
moment though... Obviously when rebuilt #7347 lost
its 'L' shaped window, the evidence it had one being
the long engineers window top is the same height as
the next center window. Notice the long fireman's
window top is slightly higher than the center window
next to it."

So she didn't get to stay in that beautiful paint scheme
very long. And lasted for only little more than a year
after the Olympics before being wrecked. :(

HUTCH -- I find it absolutely amazing that
there are some things we actually agree on!
Railfanning is great for bringing people together who would
otherwise never see eye to eye. Will wonders never cease!

Margaret