39 Photos included after text.

In December of 1983, the Santa Fe Rwy and the Southern Pacific announced their intention to merge in to the "Southern Pacific Santa Fe".  While the two railroads waited for the Interstate Commerce Commission approval, the two railroads designed and approved the new paint scheme for the railroad.

So confident that the ICC would approve the merger, both railroads began repainting some of their locomotives into the new proposed paint scheme.  The new paint scheme used the Warbonnet idea of the Santa Fe but with a couple of adaptions. 

The yellow stayed the same, but the blue area on the long hood became a red color with a black portion on the very top of the side and over the roof.  The black area on the roof ended at the edge of the yellow of the Warbonnet thus making the cabs yellow.  A couple of "cigar band" yellow stripes were tested on a couple of units before the three stripe idea was agreed upon.

Both railroads agreed on having large "SPSF" letters on the side of the long hood.  Santa Fe owned locomotives would put only the SF on their engines, and conversely, the Southern Pacific would place only the SP on the side of their engines.  Once the merger was approved, each railroad would simply add the other letters to complete the "SPSF" on each locomotive.

As the locomotives were repainted, they would also be renumbered into the numbers assigned to the unit post-merger.  Originally the letters were to be white but later it was desided to have the letters the same color yellow as the cab and nose.  For just a couple of months, only two engines, Santa Fe SD45 #5394 along with its sister from the Southern Pacific an SD45R #7551 carried the white letters.

The two railroads began repainting their engines at the end of 1985.  Santa Fe started in November, and the Southern Pacific started a couple of months later in January of 1986.  Santa Fe repainted 317 locomotives and the Southern Pacific repainted only 96.  That made a total of 413 locomotives that were repainted by both railroads before the ICC surprised everyone by disapproving the merger in July 1986.

Embarrassed by their own miscalculation, the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific began painting the "Kodachrome" units back to their respective colors almost immediately.  The Santa Fe, being a little better off financially at the time was able to correct the mistake quicker than the Southern Pacific.  In just a couple of short years, almost all the "Kodachromes" had been repainted and are now just a memory of an ill-fated merger that brought on the joke that the "SPSF" actually stood for Shouldn't Paint So Fast.

Personally, I liked the paint scheme, and thought it looked good on every locomotive it was applied to.  I was especially fond of the paint scheme on the F45's and FP45's.