Portal:Trains/Selected article/Week 11, 2007

The EMD FT was a 1,350 hp B-B diesel-electric locomotive produced between November 1939 and November 1945 by General Motors' Electro-Motive Division. 555 cab-equipped A units were built, along with 541 cabless booster B units, for a total of 1,096 locomotive units constructed, all sold to customers in the United States. It was the first model in EMD's very successful F-unit series of cab unit freight diesels, and was the locomotive that convinced many US railroads that the diesel-electric freight locomotive was the future, and that EMD was the manufacturer that could make it happen. Many rail historians consider the FT one of the most important locomotive models of all time. FTs were generally marketed as semi-permanently coupled A+B sets (a lead unit and a cabless booster connected by a drawbar) making a single locomotive of 2,700 hp. Many railroads used pairs of these sets back to back to make up a four-unit A+B+B+A locomotive rated at 5,400 hp. Some railroads purchased semi-permanently coupled A+B+A three-unit sets of 4,050 hp, while a few, like the Santa Fe, ordered all their FTs with regular couplers on both ends of each unit, for added flexibility. All units in a consist could be run from one cab; multiple unit (MU) control systems linked the units together.