The locomotive of my lifetime

Wish me happy birthday. I begin my eighth decade Wednesday, hopefully aboard the Auto Train. As appropriate for someone of my teetering gait, I sometimes enjoy thinking of the past. I try to sift the few meaningful memories from the far larger ocean of meaningless ones, and some of the former have to do with railroads, such as: In the diesel era, which locomotive class had the most staying power? Which one didn’t let go? Which one will some day start its own eighth decade in measurable numbers?

It will surely be an Electro-Motive product. General Electric in recent years has built wonderfully powerful and dependable locomotives, real champs. But it’s too soon to judge their longevity, and the older GE models are best forgotten.

So think EMD with me. The F unit is almost gone, found on a small handful of short lines and on the executive trains of a couple of Class I and regional railroads. The passenger E unit has gone beyond endangered species and is effectively extinct.

Here are some contenders: The SD40-2, still found in abundance on railroads big and small. What a beautiful locomotive! When I see one, I always superimpose in my imagination a 22-inch Weber grill, or a stuffed easy chair, on that back porch. The GP38-2 is a workhorse of a machine that’s easy to maintain and the locomotive of choice for many of the regionals and beloved on locals and in the yards of the Class Is. The GP39-2 and GP40-2 are right up there, too. Who knows, they may all last forever.

Still, the locomotive of my lifetime is the humble GP7 and its immediate successor, the GP9. The GP7 is gone from the Class I lines, but you will find them still on the short lines and regional railroads and everywhere a grain elevator switches its own cars. Hundreds of GP9s still serve Canadian National and Canadian Pacific, and when they are retired, all will probably be adopted by new owners.

The GP7 did everything: work the yards, haul the locals, pound up grades in multiple units on through freights, and handle passenger trains. Latecomers to dieselization, such as Chesapeake & Ohio, Illinois Central, and Norfolk & Western, pretty much skipped F units and did the deed with the GP7 and GP9. I fondly remember having a late breakfast in the cafe car, on my way to Springfield, Ill., at 90 mph, circa 1970, on Illinois Central’s Governor’s Special behind a black Geep. My last such experience came in 1987, during that brief interlude when Bay Colony Railroad met Amtrak trains at Attleboro, R.I., and took Nantucket-bound vacationers to the ferries at Hyannis, Mass. With three of my kids and a couple of their friends, we sat in the swivel seats of a forward-facing solarium parlor car directly behind a Bay Colony GP7, and I couldn’t take my eyes off that beautiful creature pulling our train. The basic GP7, without the turbocharger fans, had simple but functional lines, and I wouldn’t have changed anything about it.

According to Jerry A. Pinkepank’s “The Second Diesel Spotter’s Guide,” Electro-Motive assembled 2,615 GP7s between October 1949 and May 1954, and 3,601 GP9s between January 1954 and December 1959. Compare this to the almost 1,000 pioneering FT road engines (1939-1945) and 5,733 F units of all classes (1946-1957). The FTs are long gone and the Fs all but, yet the mighty GP7s and GP9s soldier on, just like old men like me. That’s a comforting thought as I embrace my milestone.—Fred W. Frailey