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BN 6596

GN 330 was the fifth of eight SDP45's built by EMD in 7/67 for the Great Northern Railway. All of the SDP45's were delivered in Big Sky Blue and became regular power on the Empire Builder. I first saw the GN 330 at Seattle's Interbay facility on 8-20-69 with GN 329.

I also discovered an interesting sighting of the GN 330 on a Northern Pacific station OS page at Easton, WA 7-3-68 when the eastbound GN Empire Builder was detoured over the NP after a derailment of a GN freight train on the Stevens Pass line. Here is the OS page that shows the GN 330 passing through Easton at 7:14 pm on its way to Spokane.

After the 1970 BN merger the GN 330 became BN 9860 and kept the sky blue paint for awhile. It was on 8-16-70 that I first saw the BN 9860, again at Interbay between assignments. On 10-31-70 I noted BN #32, the Empire Builder with units 9860/9747 at Skykomish, WA heading east. Fittingly both units were sky blue on the ex-GN line over Stevens Pass. Sometime before 1974 the 9860 was painted BN green as there is a photo of the BN 9860 at Denver, CO in the 1973 BN Annual wearing BN green taken 4-10-73.

With the advent of Amtrak BN quickly took the ex-GN SDP's out of passenger service and renumbered them the the 6500 series after the freight series SD45's. The BN 9860 became BN 6596 on 4-15-74 according to the Great Northern Empire website.

First time I saw the 6596 was on 7-19-74 leaving Interbay on BN #82 with units 6403/6440/6507/6596 at 11:15 PM with 11 cars! All four units were Cascade green (with the 6440 and 6596 being ex-GN) According to my notes I rode #82 on this night as far as Snohomish, WA. Most of the time was spent in the 6403 (it was former NP 3603 after all) but my notes say I also rode in the 6596 part of the way which now makes me wonder if I realized the significance of my riding the 6596 that night, a former Great Northern SDP45 that once pulled the Empire Builder over that same line!

On 3-10-81 I took this photo of the BN 6596 at the ex-GN Interbay yard in north Seattle.

This was the only decent shot of the 6596 I managed to get but it was photographed by others:

http://archive.trainpix.com/BN/EMDORIG/SDP45/6596.HTM

The 6596 was retired on 12/86 and sadly went to scrap.