Bamberger Diesel Locomotives

This page was last updated on June 7, 2016.

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Diesel Locomotives -- 3 units

Road
Number		 Builder
Model		 Builder
Date		 Builder
Number		 Frame
Number		 Date
Retired		 Notes
570 Alco RS-1 May 1943 70820   1959 1
601 EMD SW8 Jun 1952 17229 6443-1 1959 2
602 EMD SW8 Jun 1952 17230 6443-2 Feb 1958 3

General Notes:

  1. Bamberger 570 operating weight was 238,000 pounds
  2. Bamberger 601 and 602 operating weight was 210,000 pounds
  3. Bamberger 570 had Alco order number S-1901.

Notes:

  1. Bamberger 570 was the road's first diesel locomotive, arriving in late July 1943; a builder's photo is available from Alco Historic Photos; sent to EMD to be re-engined after September 2, 1950; rebuild completed in December 1951; sold to UP in 1959, renumbered to UP 1270; retired by UP in February 1972 and traded to EMD on new SD40-2s.
  2. January 1960 -- "New Home For The Hybrid. Union Pacific, a railroad known for variety in motive power, has picked up an odd one: Bamberger Railroad diesel 570, now UP 1270. Bamberger (which folded last year ) got the early road-switcher from Alco-GE in 1943. Although the few units built up to that time had been partly requisitioned for wartime use in Iran, the Utah electric rated One complete with heating boiler (and a trolley pole to throw signals ) for its troop trains. The Alco's silhouette became truly unforgettable in 1951, when upgrading at La Grange gave it an EMD hood." (Trains magazine, January 1960, page 14)
  3. (View a photo of Bamberger 570 as built by Alco)
  4. (View a photo of Bamberger 570 as rebuilt by EMD)
  5. (Read more about Bamberger 570)
  6. Bamberger 601 was sold to Chicago Short Line number 601 in 1959; in about 1968 moved to Cargill number 601 at Gibson City, Illinois; in about 1973 moved to Cargill's facility in Port Allen, Louisiana.
  7. Bamberger 602 was sold to Yreka Western number 602 in February 1958 (photo in Pacific News, March 1979, page 27); then in late 1978 to Kyle's Oregon Pacific & Eastern Railroad at Cottage Grove, Oregon; sold in 1994 to Mollala Western Railway 602 at Canby, Oregon (south of Portland); Mollala Western merged into Oregon Pacific Railroad in 1997, in service as Oregon Pacific 602. (Norm Metcalf confirmed that Oregon Pacific 602 was frame number 6443-2)
  8. By the early 2000s, the 602 was out of service and stored at end of Oregon Pacific's track at Liberal, Oregon. In early 2010, Oregon Pacific traded OPR 602 and 803 to Western Rail (WRIX) for a GMD-1 that would later become OPR 1413. In July 2010 OPR 602 (ex Bamberger 602) was loaded onto a flatcar and was moved to Western Rail's facility in Usk, Washington; still there as of February 2020.
  9. (View the OPR 602 page at Oregon Pacific's web site)

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