#2753
Santa Fe 1460 Beep
🇺🇸 United States ·built by Baldwin Locomotive Works· from 1943· retired model of diesel-electric locomotive
1 photo from Wikimedia Commons · credits & licences
- 1. USA 2012 0295 - Barstow - Western America Railroad Museum: Klaus Nahr· CC BY-SA 2.0
what is it?
The "Beep" (also referred to as the SWBLW) is an individual switcher locomotive built in 1970 by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway at its Cleburne, Texas, workshops. Technically a rebuild, the Beep (a portmanteau of a B-B wheel arrangement and "Baldwin Geep", whose official designation was derived from "SWitcher, Baldwin Locomotive Works") originally entered service on the Santa Fe as a Baldwin Model VO-1000. Following its successful CF7 capital rebuilding program, the company hoped to determine if remanufacturing its aging, non-EMD end cab switchers by fitting them with new EMD prime movers was an economically viable proposition.
who runs it
base stats
Bars compare against all trains: 600 km/h (maglev), 1,700 seats; power, weight and number built on a log scale up to 20 MW, 1,000 t and 20,000 built.
fun facts
- First built 83 years ago, in 1943.
- 1.1 MW is about 13 family cars (~85 kW each) flat out.
- Weighs about as much as 19 African elephants (~6 t each).
- 14.6 m long: about 3 cars parked nose to tail.
diesel locomotive: A diesel engine on board drives the wheels, usually through a generator (diesel-electric).
spec sheet
- built
- 1943
- retired
- 2008
- status
- retired
- number built
- —
- kind
- Diesel-electric
- traction
- diesel
- origin
- 🇺🇸 United States
- builders
- Baldwin Locomotive Works
- operators
- Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, BNSF Railway
- top speed
- 105 km/h
- power
- 1.1 MW
- gauge
- 1,435 mm standard gauge
- wheel arrangement
- Bo'Bo'
- length
- 14.6 m
- weight
- 115 t
From the Wikipedia infobox and Wikidata. Blank means the sources don't say.
Sources: Wikidata Q4879923, Wikipedia: Santa Fe 1460 Beep (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-25.