4449 was then restored to operation for use in the American Freedom Train, which toured the 48 contiguous United States as part of the nation's 1976 Bicentennial celebration.

4449 was placed into service on May 30, 1941, and spent its early career assigned to the Coast Daylight, Southern Pacific's premier passenger train between San Francisco and Los Angeles, California, but it also pulled many other of the SP's named passenger trains.

4447 pulled a special Railway and Locomotive Historical Society excursion from Los Angeles to Owenyo, California, and return.

4449 was painted black and silver and its side skirting (a streamlining feature of the Daylight steam engines) was removed, as no longer needed due to dieselization of the Coast Daylight in January of that year and also for easier maintenance after steam locomotives prove to be very expensive to maintain.

4449 was semi-retired from service on September 24, 1956, and was kept as an emergency back-up locomotive until it was officially retired on October 2, 1957, and was stored along with several other GS-class engines at Southern Pacific's Bakersfield roundhouse.

4449 was not specifically chosen for static display, rather, it was picked only because it was one of the desired 4000 series locomotives and the first in the deadline and could be removed with the fewest switching moves.

After the evaluators determined that 4449's bearings and rods remained in good condition, they selected the locomotive for that task.

4449 was removed from display on December 13, 1974, and restored at the Burlington Northern Railroad's Hoyt Street roundhouse in Portland.

The locomotive returned to operation on April 21, 1975, wearing a special paint scheme of red, white and blue.

After nearly two years on the road, 4449 was returned to storage in Portland, this time under protective cover and not exposed to the elements.

In 1984, 4449 pulled an all-Daylight-painted train from Portland via Los Angeles to New Orleans, Louisiana and back, to publicize the World's Fair, with UP 8444 there too.

The 7,477-mile (12,033 km) round trip was the longest steam train excursion in the history of the United States.

4449 was approaching Del Rio, Texas, still on its way to New Orleans, when the retention plate that holds the draw-bar pin in place somehow disconnected and fell in between the ties, allowing the tender and the entire consist to uncouple, while the locomotive accelerated all by itself.

[16] On this trip, 4449 carried a member's Star Brass 5 chime whistle off a CB&Q M-4 class locomotive on the fireman's side.

4449 was repainted black and silver for a Burlington Northern Santa Fe employee appreciation special.

4449 was repainted into the American Freedom Train paint scheme again in early 2002, after the events of the September 11 attacks.

On May 18 and May 19, 2007, SP 4449 made another appearance with UP 844 in the Pacific Northwest for the "Puget Sound Excursion", on BNSF Railway tracks from Tacoma to Everett, Washington, round-trip.

Following a two-year hiatus needed to accommodate the locomotive's mandatory 15-year inspection and overhaul, SP 4449 returned to service on November 25, 2015.

[20] In late 2019, the locomotive was scheduled to haul the annual 40-minute round-trip Oregon Rail Heritage Foundation "Holiday Express" fundraiser trains through the Springwater Corridor and along Portland's Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge, along the Willamette River, during November and December of that year.

[21] Due to its long rigid wheelbase and heavy weight, which were determined to cause excessive wear to the Oregon Pacific Railroad tracks being used, No.

700 no longer pull the annual Oregon Rail Heritage Foundation Holiday Express trains.

[25] The Oregon Rail Heritage Foundation, a partnership of non-profit organizations that owned or maintained historic rolling stock at the roundhouse, began a campaign in late 2009 to construct a permanent, publicly-accessible engine house for the City of Portland's steam locomotives.

Upon the closing of the Brooklyn Roundhouse in June 2012, in order to make the yard larger, the 4449 was moved with its stablemates SP&S 700 and OR&N 197 to the Oregon Rail Heritage Center (ORHC), a new restoration facility and public accessible center near the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) in southeast Portland.

In preservation, 4460 has been referred to as the "Forgotten Daylight", due to her not running since the 1950s and seemingly in the shadow of its sister engine.