EMC 1800 Hp B-B

EMC 1800 Hp B-B

Electro-Motive Corporation (later Electro-Motive Division, General Motors) produced five 1800 hp B-B experimental passenger train-hauling diesel locomotives in 1935; two company-owned demonstrators, #511 and #512, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's #50, and two units for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, Diesel Locomotive #1. In addition, two single power cars and two twin-unit power cars for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad's Zephyr streamliners were built to fundamentally the same design, but clad in Budd Company streamlined stainless steel carbodies. These were #9904 Pegasus and #9905 Zephyrus for the Twin Zephyrs, and #9906A/B Silver King/Silver Queen and #9907A/B Silver Knight/Silver Princess for the Denver Zephyrs.

All were the mechanical ancestors to EMD's successful E-units, with identical pairs of 900 hp Winton 201-A diesel engines, although they ran on AAR type B two-axle trucks instead of the A1A trucks of E-units. When delivered, the units were fitted with shrouding around their trucks, but this did not last long.

The boxy carbodies of all but the Zephyrs were the work of GE's Erie, Pennsylvania works, EMD having not yet developed the ability to produce their own bodywork. Like most boxcabs, they had control cabs at both ends, a feature that would only rarely be repeated in future North American locomotives, although it would become common elsewhere.