I'm sitting here looking at some beautiful F3 and F7 photos on the site, and it just popped into my mind that the early EMD units that I used to watch on the "Cotton Belt" when I was a kid had 4 portholes rather close together. What were those models? Thanks to any and all who answer.
Definite! Tom is correct, if it was an EMD F-unit, and it had four closely spaced portholes on each side of the body, it was an FT. Both the FT-A's and the FT-B's had the four portholes. No other EMD F-unit had the four portholes. Each unit, A and B, delivered 1350 HP from its EMD 567 engine. Here's a pic of the class FT-A unit, EMD FT-A demo, # EMD 103. This pioneering locomotive is preserved today at the Museum of Transportation here in St Louis. She is the "Diesel That Did It!"; it proved the economic and performance viability of the diesel freight locomotive. I'm saying it was an EMD, but technically, when the FT was introduced, it was EMC - the Electro Motive Corporation. This was before EMC was made into a full division of GM, i.e., the Electro Motive Division, EMD. Come visit St Louis sometime and we'll go out and take a good look at her. EMC 103 sits very close to another locomotive near and dear to us, SLSF 1522. Both sit safely under cover. Ken
YUP !!! That's it. How come Frisco never had any ??? Haven't been to STL since 94 Ken, but when I head that way again I am gonna take you up on that offer. Sherrel
Sherrel - EMC 103 and her FTB-FTB-FTA demo mates did do trial demonstration test runs on the Frisco. There is a pic in the FMIG Newsletters of them sitting at Newburg on the SLSF Eastern Division. No doubt the results of the trial were impressive, as they were everywhere the units demonstrated, but, alas, our poor Frisco back then was in financial difficulty and likely did not have the scratch to afford to buy FT's from this young, upstart EMC bunch. After WW2, after the EMD diesel was proven, and after SLSF's financials were a bit better off, the Frisco obtained a bunch of EMD F3 ABBA's, and the rest is history. Ken
