From the Whodawhatsithuh Department:

[sirenwerks]

Thumbing through a shiny Morning Sun book to relax, GN Lines West In Color 1... I know Morning Sun is tres loosey goosey with their editing. Usually when I flip through one of their books, I wonder why I'm unemployed - they obviously need me to edit for them.

So I hit page 73 and see a nice nighttime Spokane depot shot of a.... FP3? I keep telling myself that EMD never made a FP3, but I don't believe myself. I'm right, right? Or is it one of those Johny Eck-type locos, like F2s? Only one made? Crept around in the dark of night thing?

Now I'll never get to sleep...

[bicknell]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_F3 shows several listed as "passenger" units.  Googing for FP3 turns up few results, but a few Western Pacific units are listed as FP-3's in pictures.

Note also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_FP7 states that several roads used F3's in passenger service, but problems with water capacity lead to the FP7.  I could see some roads calling F3's w/steam generators FP3's to differentiate them from F3's without.  However, it is emphatic that:

F3s, F7s, and F9s equipped for passenger service are not FP-series locomotives, which although similar in appearance have distinctive differences, including but not limited to the greater body length.

So, officially, from EMD, probably no such thing.  To some roads or railfans, maybe.

[sirenwerks]

I know the WP ran F3s, ran them on the Cali Zephyr until they got the FP7s, but I never heard or read of them referred to as FP3s on the WP. Maybe it's a Great Northern thing.

[Nato]

  The F-2 (dash between F & number was used ) was the direct replacement for the FT. Some roads IE: B&M that had further orders for FT's recieved F-2's. They had the same horsepower as the FT but used the Phase I F-3 carbody with three portholes on sides, side mounted number boards and F-3 type dynamic brakes. Burlington had some, Rock Island who  never rostered F-3's had some. Their use was wide spread. Some fanzees (buffs) and maybe (hard to pin down)some roads may have referred to steam generator equiped F-3's as FP3. A.T.S.F. had them ,generators on B Units only, ditto for Rio Grande. They were always referred to as F-3's. Like wise UP and as far as I know WP. I know WP mixed their FP7's and passenger F-7 B Units with their F-3's. Some roads like NP dissatisfied with water tank capacity, had water baggage cars with water tank and pump to transferr extra water to units enroute. I do not know if the Lakawana referred to their F-3's used in passenger service as FP3's all I know is that they were transferred fairly quickly to freight work and replaced by E-8's. Nate Goodman (Nato).

[Iain]

Atlantic and East Carolina of all roads had a pair of F2s.  I have heard that these were the only F2s without steam generators, but I'm not so sure.

Did not Kato at one point make a phase 1 F3?  I would certainly love to have a pair to complete my A&EC roster.

[sirenwerks]

...Some roads like NP dissatisfied with water tank capacity, had water baggage cars with water tank and pump to transferr extra water to units enroute...

Same for WP, who had two ex-FEC Mountain tenders they had painted in orange & silver for non-stop Royal Gorge service between Oakland and Salt Lake City. BUt they definitely did not refer to their passenger unit F3sas FP3s.

[Mark5]

FP3 is surely something someone made up ...

[Bruce Bird]

EMD never made an SD20, GP8, GP10 or GP11.  IC(G) nomenclature but still common descriptors for locomotive types.  I would guess tha GN called them FP3s to differentiate between freight and passenger units.

bruce

[jmlaboda - RIP]

Builder designation and owners designation typically were two different things and a lot of roads did this to denote a difference somehow.

[Andrew Hutchinson]

You'll often see them referred to as P3-7 or P-3-7. As has been mentioned It is just the GN passenger class designation. They had a lot of variation unit to unit. There was a lot of renumbering through to the early sixties and again in 1969 where some units  swapped pools but for the most part the designation meant they had larger tanks, elevated carbody filter, dual headlights and a waterfill hatch.

Most of the P3s had bullet hatches at one point or another. There seemed to be a couple of variations of these. P7s generally got the more common form of winterization hatch with either straight or rounded corners. There were a couple of P3As that lost their chicken wire. Part of what makes them fun to model was the fan swapping. More often than not they ended up with an up down up down arrangement.

Andrew Hutchinson