Southern Pacific Railroad

Southern Pacific Railroad

The Southern Pacific Transportation Company , earlier Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company, and usually simply called the Southern Pacific or Espee, was an American railroad....

 (SP) locomotive number 5623 is a passenger service-equipped "torpedo boat" version of an EMD GP9

EMD GP9

An EMD GP9 is a four-axle diesel locomotive built by General Motors' Electro-Motive Division in the United States, and General Motors Diesel in Canada between January, 1954, and August, 1963. US production ended in December, 1959, while an additional thirteen units were built in Canada, including...

 diesel locomotive

Diesel locomotive

A diesel locomotive is a type of railroad locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine, a reciprocating engine operating on the Diesel cycle as invented by Dr. Rudolf Diesel...

, built in 1955. SP 5623 featured a steam generator, dual control stands, and was delivered in the "black widow" paint scheme.

SP 5623's first assignments were passenger trains in Oregon

Oregon

Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...

, and then spent the rest of its passenger service career in the San Francisco Bay Area

San Francisco Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...

, pulling such trains as the Senator, Sacramento Daylight, Del Monte, and the SF Peninsula commute trains. SP 5623 was renumbered 3005 and painted into the grey and scarlet "bloody nose" paint scheme in 1966. After Amtrak

Amtrak

The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak , is a government-owned corporation that was organized on May 1, 1971, to provide intercity passenger train service in the United States. "Amtrak" is a portmanteau of the words "America" and "track". It is headquartered at Union...

 assumed intercity passenger train service in 1971, SP 5623 (then numbered 3005) and all other SP passenger locomotives were assigned only to the SF Peninsula commute trains. It was renumbered 3189 in 1977 after being rebuilt as a part of the SP's GRIP program. In 1985, it was displaced by the arrival of Caltrain

Caltrain

Caltrain is a California commuter rail line on the San Francisco Peninsula and in the Santa Clara Valley in the United States. The northern terminus of the rail line is in San Francisco, at 4th and King streets; its southern terminus is in Gilroy...

 equipment. It was then placed into local freight service for the rest of its regular service years.

SP 5623 was retired in 1991, and was purchased from a scrap dealer in 1992 by Errol Ohman and Howard Wise. The pair restored the locomotive and repainted it into its original "black widow" paint scheme and its original number (5623) in 1993. SP 5623 spent most of the 1990s working for the Oakland Terminal Railway

Oakland Terminal Railway

The Oakland Terminal Railway is a terminal railroad in West Oakland, California. The OTR was jointly acquired in 1943 by the Western Pacific Railroad and Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway to take over the Key System's freight railroad known as the Oakland Terminal Railroad. Today, the OTR...

. It traveled to the California State Railroad Museum

California State Railroad Museum

The California State Railroad Museum is a museum in the state park system of California, USA, interpreting the role of the "iron horse" in connecting California to the rest of the nation. It is located in Old Sacramento at 111 I Street....

 in Sacramento, California

Sacramento, California

Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Sacramento County. It is located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River in the northern portion of California's expansive Central Valley. With a population of 466,488 at the 2010 census,...

 for the "Mini-Railfair" in 1995 and appeared in a Shell Gasoline commercial in 1997. It then traveled with steam locomotive Southern Pacific 2467

Southern Pacific 2467

Southern Pacific Railroad 2467 is one of 15 heavy 4-6-2 Pacific type steam locomotives built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1921, designated the P-8 class. 2467 was retired from service in 1956. On July 25th, 1960 the locomotive was donated to Oakland, California. In July 1990 it was acquired by...

 to "Railfair '99" in Sacramento, and in January, 2005, it moved to the Niles Canyon Railway

Niles Canyon Railway

The Niles Canyon Railway is a heritage railway running through Niles Canyon, between Sunol and the Niles district of Fremont in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area, in California, USA. The railway is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Niles Canyon Transcontinental...

 in Sunol, California

Sunol, California

Sunol is an unincorporated census-designated place in Alameda County, California, United States. The population was 913 at the 2010 census....

, where it is used in occasional excursion service.