SW1500

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4 active listings across 2 sources

Source	Listings	Price Range	Avg Price
Model Train Market	3	$37–$59	$46.95
eBay	1	$150–$150	$149.99

Technical Specifics

The EMD SW1500 was a diesel-electric switcher locomotive produced by General Motors' Electro-Motive Division between 1966 and 1974. It entered the EMD product line as a successor to the SW1200, offering railroad customers a more powerful switching option at 1,500 horsepower. Over the course of its production run, EMD built a total of 808 units, making it one of the more successful switcher models of its era. The SW1500 found customers among a wide range of American railroads, which valued its reliability and power output not only for conventional yard switching duties but also for light road freight assignments. This versatility distinguished the model from many of its contemporaries, which were more narrowly suited to terminal and classification yard work. The locomotive's production span of eight years reflected sustained demand across the industry during a period when railroads were continuing to modernize their motive power fleets. Following the end of production in 1974, many SW1500 units enjoyed remarkably long service lives. Shortline railroads, switching and terminal carriers, and locomotive leasing companies kept substantial numbers of the model active well into the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Several preserved examples can be found at railroad museums across the United States, including specimens at the Western Pacific Railroad Museum in Portola, California, the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and the Kentucky Railway Museum in New Haven, Kentucky.

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