History
In the mid-1970s. Amtrak began to look for a successor to the Pennsylvania Railroad GG1 electric locomotive and ordered 26 General Electric E60 units. Unfortunately, the E60s proved unable to safely achieve speeds over 90 MPH leaving Amtrak without a practical replacement for the GG1. Amtrak then turned to existing European high-speed designs. Two European locomotives were brought over for a series of trials in 1977. One was a French CC 21000 class given number X996, and the other was a Swedish Rc4, X995. Amtrak favored the Swedish design, which became the base for the AEM-7. Amtrak first ordered 30 AEM-7s in 1977 (Order Number: 776073), then ordered an additional 17 AEM-7s in 1980 (Order Number: 806004).
Read more about this topic: EMD AEM-7
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“The history of work has been, in part, the history of the worker’s body. Production depended on what the body could accomplish with strength and skill. Techniques that improve output have been driven by a general desire to decrease the pain of labor as well as by employers’ intentions to escape dependency upon that knowledge which only the sentient laboring body could provide.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)