Original buyers for General Electric’s (GE) U36B diesel locomotive were few. Seaboard Coast Line bought the majority of the 125 examples produced by GE with a fleet of 108 on the SCL. Auto-Train had an unlucky 13 and would have owned 17 had bankruptcy not arrived before delivery of four new fully painted U36B diesels that never worked for the carrier, but sold to Conrail.

Auto Train
No. 622 -1974 release
No. 642 -1975 release

Canadian National
No. 628

Chessie System
No. 626 -1974 release
No. 41-640-09 -1982 release

Conrail
No. 624 -1978 release

CP Rail
No. 621 -Powered -1975 release
No. 641 -Dummy -1975 release

Made for the Canadian market, the CP Rail U36B does not appear in Bachmann’s annual product catalogs.  The CP Rail example was offered in the U.S. as an exclusive offering from a mail order hobby shop, SMC located in California.  SMC lists the CP Rail U36B and a few other Canadian Bachmann offerings as exclusive items in a mid-1976 advertisement.

Illinois Central Gulf
No. 621 -Powered -1975 release
No. 641 -Dummy -1975 release

Rock Island
No. 623 -1978 release
No. 41-640-08 -1982 release

Santa Fe (red-and-yellow Warbonnet)
No. 632 -1978 release
No. 41-640-02 -1982 release

Santa Fe (red-and-chrome Warbonnet)
No. 633 -1978 release

Southern Pacific
No. 634 -1981 release
No. 41-640-07 -1982 release

The Southern Pacific U36B is listed as NEW in Bachmann’s 1979 catalog.  The SP U-boat had an $18.00 retail price for its debut year.  Bachmann’s paint scheme appears to be inspired by Southern Pacific’s experimental “Daylight” paint scheme applied to the four U25B rebuilds that out shopped in the late 1970s by Morrison-Knudsen with Swiss Sulzer engines known as TE70-4S models.  In addition to this Southern Pacific U36B, Bachmann applied a similar SP “Daylight” paint scheme to its GP40 and F9 models.

Union Pacific
No. 625

Zenith
No. 41-640-C7 -1982 release

This uncatalogued U36B diesel model came as part of a promotional train set offering from Zenith in the early 1980s.

This is Bachmann’s original 8-wheel drive found in early U36B examples. Below is the mid-1970s introduced single-truck powered drive.