EMD at 100

IT’S NOT AS IF EMD was ever the only builder of diesel locomotives. But for most of its history, it felt like the only one that really mattered. As will be amply chronicled in these pages, the company born in Cleveland in 1922 as Electro-Motive Corp. has spent much of the ensuing century redefining how modern railroads conducted business. TRAINS magazine long ago celebrated EMD’s FT locomotive as “the diesel that did it” — it, in this case, being providing the proof that diesel propulsion was railroading’s future. But it might be more accurate to say EMD is the company that did it. In relatively few years, and even fewer steps, the company graduated from demonstrating that its gas-electric railcars were ideal for secondary passenger service to becoming the primary…

The TRAINS editor’s meditation on EMD, and the nation, on the occasion of the builder’s 50th anniversary. From September 1972 TRAINS. The story of Electro-Motive, 1922-1972, may offer a wisdom and a lesson that transcend the yard limits of railroading. For this is a season in which the American economy is being tested as it hasn’t been since World War II. Today the United States seeks to come to terms with environmentalists, to avoid an energy crisis, to cope with the Concorde and the Datsun, to resolve the twin and related problems of personnel and plant productivity, and to assess world economic changes ranging from the European Common Market to an emerging China. Is it not conceivable that this might be a useful time in which to reflect on how…

THE HISTORY OF AN INSTITUTION as venerable and influential as Electro-Motive is the product of thousands upon thousands of events. Nevertheless, certain developments stand out as pivotal, symbolic, or just plain interesting. From tentative steps, to inspired leaps, to the careful refinement of solid products, EMD’s timeline is not wanting for memorable accomplishments. Here’s a sampling of some that stand out during this centennial anniversary of the company that, more than any other, changed the face of railroading. 1922: MODEST BEGINNINGS Harold L. Hamilton, a wholesale manager for high-way-truck maker White Co. (and a onetime locomotive fireman), establishes with Paul R. Turner and others the Electro-Motive Engineering Corp. (soon changed to Electro-Motive Co.) in Cleveland to design, sell, and service gasoline-engined, electric-motor-driven railcars for light-density passenger services. 1929: PROTO-STREAMLINER Electro-Motive…

Editor’s note: Written to observe Electro-Motive’s 25th anniversary. The somewhat grudging assessment of the company’s success from a noted steam enthusiast illustrates history is not always written by the winners. Twenty-six years ago, the Electro-Motive Co. consisted of a man with a plan, a small staff, and a modest office in Cleveland, Ohio. That man was ex-Southern Pacific fireman H.L. Hamilton; his plan was a blueprint for a gas-electric railcar designed to slash costs of steam-powered passenger trains in areas of limited traffic. Hamilton gambled his life savings on the idea, farmed out contracts for two such units, and sold them in 1924 to the Chicago Great Western (called the M-300) and the Northern Pacific (the B-3). A year ago last month, Northern Pacific’s veteran railcar was brought back “home”…

QUITE LIKELY, the concept of a locomotive designed specifically for freight service was as old at Electro-Motive as was the idea of the Streamliners. Probably, it was as old as was the concept that had generated the box-cab 511 and 512. In one piece of GM literature, 1933 pops up as the year Electro-Motive conceived the freight diesel. Electro-Motive was in the business of building and selling engines and locomotives. However large was the market for passenger diesels, the market for freight diesels was of course many times larger. But at the time it acknowledged the potential for a freight locomotive, EMC wasn’t in a position to meet any market for such a machine. Among other things, it needed a bigger and better diesel prime mover than the 201A. And…

In the desert southwest, twin ribbons of steel lie across a barren landscape. The flickering lights of distant signals dance in the heat rising up from the rails. Far off a headlight appears, growing larger by the second. In no time, a hot Santa Fe intermodal train slams past at 70 mph. Its mile-long stretch of intermodal cars is led by a quartet of EMD 60-series four-axle diesels wearing Santa Fe’s red-and-silver Super Fleet paint scheme. This scene played out countless times in the 1990s on Santa Fe’s Chicago-to-California main line, both in Santa Fe days and, later, the BNSF era. The train’s locomotive consist was unique to contemporary railroading, set up in a perfect A-B-B-A consist with two GP60Ms on either end and a pair of cabless GP60Bs in…