The Sacramento Northern was a subsidiary of the Western Pacific that began as an electric interurban railroad from Oakland to Chico, California, but by the late 1960s had been dieselized and broken into isolated freight segments, including an important line serving the large steel mill in Pittsburg, California, reached by trackage rights over the Santa Fe Railway from Stockton. Built for the Western Pacific in April 1953 as part of that railroad's second order of this locomotive model, Sacramento Northern 712 was transferred to the Sacramento Northern in July 1971 with sister engine 711, replacing two worn ex-New York Ontario and Western Railway F3A locomotives on the steel mill trains with engines of similar horsepower better suited to switching because they offered better visibility. These locomotives were among the first on the Western Pacific system repainted from silver and orange into Perlman Green after Alfred E. Perlman became president in December 1970. Although owned by the Sacramento Northern, 712 often worked on the Western Pacific itself, and by the time of the Union Pacific merger in December 1982 it was usually assigned in San Jose, California, or on secondary trains on the western end of the Western Pacific. It was the last Sacramento Northern-lettered locomotive still in service, and after Union Pacific retired it in March 1985, the engine was donated to the Western Railway Museum near Fairfield, California; in 2006, the Feather River Rail Society and the Bay Area Electric Railway Association, operator of the museum, traded several pieces of equipment, including 712, to better focus their collections.