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Penn Central Diesel Roster: All-Time

Last revised: September 23, 2026

By: Adam Burns

Penn Central’s diesel fleet was three railroads’ locomotives under one numbering plan, plus what the company still managed to buy. The Pennsylvania was the surviving corporation on February 1, 1968, so the classes are Pennsylvania classes. The New York Central’s road numbers were kept where they did not collide, and moved where they did. The New Haven’s units came in with the railroad on January 1, 1969. First-generation cabs, RS3s, and Train Masters were still on the road when the company was already in court. The new power was GP38s, GP38-2s, GP40s, SD40s, SD45s, U23Bs, U33Bs, U33Cs, and a last Alco order of C636s that arrived already painted Penn Central.

A former-number cell that is wider than the Penn Central block is the predecessor series those units came from. It is not a claim that every predecessor number survived. Construction numbers for inherited Pennsylvania units are on the Pennsylvania diesel roster. Serials below are filled for locomotives Penn Central bought new, and for the C636s delivered after the merger. The company is Penn Central. What Conrail did with the same engines is the Conrail diesel roster.

Former Pennsylvania U25Cs, led by #6502 and #6501, at Richmond, Indiana, about 1969. The line is the old Panhandle main to St. Louis. Fred Byerly photo. American-Rails.com collection.

On this page: At a glance · How a class reads · Switchers · Freight cabs · First-generation four-axle · First-generation six-axle · Second-generation four-axle · New four-axle orders · Second-generation six-axle · Passenger cabs · Electrics · Sources

At a glance

Inherited blocks follow the live Penn Central roster where the columns were already straight. New-order serials are the sources at the bottom. Information compiled September 23, 2026.

How a class reads

A Pennsylvania diesel class is a short code, not a builder’s model name. The first letter is the builder: E Electro-Motive, A Alco, B Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton, F Fairbanks-Morse, G General Electric, L Lima. The next letters are the kind of service: S switcher, F freight cab, RS road switcher, P passenger. The number is horsepower in hundreds, so an ES10 is a 1,000-horsepower EMD switcher and an EF30 is a 3,000-horsepower EMD freight unit. A trailing a, m, or s marks a variation: modified, or a six-motor unit when the same model also existed on four axles. Penn Central kept that system. An SD40 and a GP40 can share a horsepower figure and still carry different suffixes. An EF20 on this page is a GP38. An EF20 on the same horsepower that was built from 1972 on is a GP38-2. The class did not change when EMD added the dash.

Switchers

The yard fleet is where the two railroads showed. Baldwin switchers are almost all Pennsylvania. Alco S-1s, S-2s, S-3s, and S-4s are mostly Central, with New Haven blocks in the 9400s and 9800s. EMD switchers run from SW1s in the 8400s through the SW1500s Penn Central bought new. A "(2nd)" is a number used again after the first unit left it. Parentheses on 9216–9221 mean the units were built against Penn Central numbers and went to the Indiana Harbor Belt instead of staying on the roster.

The new SW1500s, 9500–9583, are with the other new orders below. They are class ES15m.

Freight cabs

Freight cabs were already old on merger day. Pennsylvania F3s and F7s, Central F3s and F7s, a handful of Alco FA and FB units from the Central and the New Haven, and two Rio Grande F7 sets that had come onto the Central. Penn Central renumbered the Pennsylvania cabs into the 1400s, 1900s, and 3500s, and the Central’s own 1600s and 1800s mostly stayed put. No. 1905 is the one Pennsylvania F7A in this block that is recorded in Penn Central paint. The rest of 1900–1906 often worked out their time in the old Brunswick green.

Penn Central GP30 #2238, from the ex-Pennsylvania 2200s, in the snow. The file arrived without a location or a photographer.

First-generation four-axle road units

This is the everyday freight locomotive of the first Penn Central years: GP7s and GP9s from both parents, Alco RS2s and RS3s, RS1s, Baldwin road switchers, and Fairbanks-Morse H16-44s. GP9B boosters 3800–3839 are the Pennsylvania’s cabless Geeps, the only units in this block with no cab. Six-axle first-generation units that used to sit in this list are in the next section. Second-generation four-axle units, GP20s and everything newer, follow them.

First-generation six-axle road units

These were filed with the four-axle Geeps on the old page because they share the same generation. They are six-motor locomotives: Train Masters, Alco RSD road switchers, EMD SD7s and SD9s, and Baldwin AS616s. The nine H24-66 Train Masters became 6700–6708. Those numbers were used again, after the Train Masters were gone, for U23Cs.

Penn Central U25B #2615, formerly Pennsylvania #2515, at 59th Street Yard in Chicago on April 9, 1970. The Pennsylvania 2500s were renumbered into the 2600s so they would not sit on top of the Central’s own U25Bs. Roger Puta photo.

Second-generation four-axle road units

From the GP20 forward, the fleet is what the three railroads had bought in the 1960s, before anyone added the units in the next table. Pennsylvania GP30s 2200–2249 kept those numbers. Pennsylvania 2250 and 2251, which would have collided with the GP35s, moved down to 2198 and 2199. The same kind of shuffle put Pennsylvania GP35s 2309 and 2310 onto 2250 and 2251. Central U25Bs stayed 2500–2569. Pennsylvania U25Bs, 2500–2548 and 2649–2658, became 2600–2658. New Haven U25Bs became 2660–2685. One C424, 2415, is the Pennsylvania’s rebuilt Alco RS27 demonstrator. The C425s are the AF25s, 2416–2446 and the New Haven’s 2450–2459.

An A-B-A set of former Pennsylvania F units, FP7 #4334 closest, between assignments at Toledo, Ohio, in September 1968. Photographer unknown. Warren Calloway collection.

New four-axle orders

These are the locomotives Penn Central purchased, or that were delivered onto Penn Central numbers. The GP38s are the largest single model on the roster, 265 units in 7675–7939, and they are not one factory order. The GP38-2s begin at 7940. The old table called 7940–8162 GP38s. They are dash-2s, built in 1972 and 1973, and their serials are the order number plus the unit. Class EF20 was printed for both groups and is kept.

Second-generation six-axle road units

Pennsylvania six-motor road units came across with their numbers: SD35s 6000–6039, SD40s 6040–6104, SD45s 6105–6234, C628s 6300–6314, C630s 6315–6329, U25Cs 6500–6519, U28Cs 6520–6534, and U30Cs 6535–6539. The U28C class on the old table was printed GP28a. The builder letter for General Electric in this system is G. The class is GF28a.

What Penn Central added, and the C636s that the Pennsylvania had ordered and Penn Central received, are these. No. 6540 was the first U33C General Electric built.

Passenger cabs

Passenger power is E7s and E8s from both the Central and the Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania FP7s, a small group of F7B boosters rebuilt or reassigned to passenger heating, and the New Haven’s FL9s. The FL9 is a diesel that can also take third-rail power into Grand Central. Their own page is the FL9. Amtrak took the intercity trains on May 1, 1971. Commuter E-units and the FL9s stayed longer.

New York Central E8A #4046 and Penn Central E8A #4044 have Empire Service train #82 at Albany, New York, in August 1969. A year and a half after the merger, one unit is still in Central paint. Roger Puta collection.

Electrics

Penn Central inherited two electric railroads and a piece of a third. The Pennsylvania’s GG1s and E44s worked the Northeast Corridor and the freight side of the electrification. The New Haven’s eleven E33s, built as Virginian EL-Cs, and the EP-5 "Jets" that became E40s, came with that railroad. The Central’s own motors, the P-2s, T motors, and S motors, were a smaller and older group on the Hudson and Harlem third rail and on the electric freight west of New York. Shop goats and experimentals that still had a Pennsylvania number in the card file are at the bottom. They are not road freight.

The GG1 block is not every number from 4800 to 4938. No. 4817 was retired in March 1967, before the merger, and never carried a Penn Central number. Other units inside 4801–4814 and 4818–4938 were already off the roster. The class page has all 139 locomotives, the builders, and the later Amtrak numbers. No. 4800 is Old Rivets, the riveted prototype.

Sources

• The live Penn Central all-time roster on this page, for the inherited number blocks, classes, and second numbers. Column swaps at 8600–8627, 9704–9705, and 4622 are repaired. The U28C class is corrected from GP28a to GF28a.
• The Diesel Shop, Penn Central roster, for the Rock Island cancellation behind U33B 2956–2970, the U33C and U23C serials, SD45 6235–6239 serials 34277–34281, and the count of B-1s.
• EMD order list compiled at trainweb.us/emdloco, for SD40 order 7290, SD38 order 7264 serials 36406–36440, and SW1500 order 7292 serials 37058–37067. Orders 7355 and 73622 are from the same list. Their serial cells were blank.
• GP38 production table on this site, for orders 7191, 7202, 7265, 7291, and 7299, and for PRSL order 7281, serials 36801–36805, numbered Penn Central 2010–2014.
• Pennsylvania diesel roster, for C636 order 3499, serials 3499-01 through 3499-15, delivered March–April 1968 in Penn Central colors, and for C424 2415.
• GP38-2 order-unit serials: 7940 is 7354-1, and 8040 is 72627-1, as carried on the photo-archive locomotive lines. The 1972–73 split of 7940–8039, 8040–8153, and 8154–8162 matches the Conrail GP38-2 chronology.
• Classic Trains, Summer 2009, GG1 roster. No. 4817, built May 1935, retired March 1967, with no Penn Central owner line.

Related reading

• Penn Central · Pennsylvania Railroad · Pennsylvania diesel roster
• New York Central · New Haven · FL9 · GG1
• Conrail · Conrail diesel roster

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