It was primarily used by the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad and its successors, although thirteen provided the power for the original Auto Train.

General Electric's "high-horsepower" universal series locomotives were built around improvements to the 16-cylinder GE FDL-16 prime mover.

"[10] GE manufactured the U36B between January 1969 and December 1974, during a period when railroads in the United States moved away from high-horsepower designs.

There were multiple reasons for this change: rising fuel prices because of the 1973 oil crisis, higher locomotive maintenance costs, and poor wheel adhesion, resulting from the primitive state of wheel-slip control at the time.

[13] Seaboard Coast Line #1776(2nd) (locomotive originally built as SCL #1813, it traded numbers with original #1776, which had already been released into service wearing the standard SCL Black with Yellow stripe paint scheme--1776(1st) became 1813(2nd and 1813(1st) became 1776(2nd)) was painted in a red-white-and-blue color scheme to honor the United States Bicentennial and made numerous special trips.