| During the 1980 Christmas Season, Amtrak regularly leased Southern Pacific SD40T-2 units to assist pairs of SDP40F's on very long SUNSETS, and here is SP 8564 - along with Amtrak 511 and 518 - accelerating a westbound train out of Avondale Yard. By this time, most of the other western long-distance trains had been re-equipped with SUPERLINERS; so Amtrak was able to run 15-car SUNSETS, which was still steam heated, using some of the cars released from these other trains. Within a few months, the SUNSET itself would also receive SUPERLINERS, and it would never again operate with this many cars unless something REALLY special was going on! |