Here's another take on the famous Santa Fe "Warbonnet". This is former BNSF SDF40-2 6976, which was also former AT&SF SDF40-2 #5266, and which began life as Amtrak SDP40F #644.

It owes its distinctive color scheme to the 2002 opening of the Maersk Sealand intermodal terminal at the Port of Los Angeles, for which BNSF and Norfolk Southern each painted a locomotive.

It was owned at the time by Ed Immel, a retired Oregon DOT employee and Portland-area railfan. It's shown here stored in Linnton, Ore. along the Portland & Western's former BN Astoria line.

Santa Fe acquired it and 17 other SDPs in 1984 in a locomotive swap which sent groups of SSB1200s and CF7s to Amtrak for switching and MofW work. Santa Fe modified the nose and installed a front platform. It was also on lease to the Portland & Western for road service.

The unit, which was part of the diverse rolling stock collection that had resided at the Brooklyn Yard roundhouse in southeast Portland, was stored pending its move to the new Oregon Rail Heritage Center that houses the city's steam locomotives -- SP 4-8-4 #4449, SP&S 4-8-4 #700, and ORW&N (UP) 4-6-2 #197.

The new facility, along the Oregon Pacific RR East Portland branch near the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, replaced the old roundhouse that UP razed as part of its intermodal yard expansion. The steam locomotives vacated the roundhouse in June 2012 and spent a month out of doors until the new building was ready for them.

Photographed by Thomas McCann, December 20, 2004.
Added to the photo archive by Thomas McCann, December 8, 2006.
Railroad: BNSF.

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