Electro-Motive Diesel

Coordinates	31°46′29″N35°14′2″N
Name	Electro-Motive Diesel, Inc.
Logo
Type	Private (subsidiary of Progress Rail Services Corporation)
Predecessor	Electro-Motive Division of General Motors Corporation
Foundation	Cleveland, Ohio, United States ()
Founder	Harold L. HamiltonPaul Turner
Location city	La Grange, Illinois
Location country	United States of America
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	John Hamilton, President and Chief Executive Officer
Industry	RailroadPower Generation
Products	LocomotivesDiesel enginesOEM parts
Services	Locomotive maintenanceLocomotive managementTraining
Num employees	3260 (2008)
Parent	Progress Rail Services Corporation
Homepage	emdiesels.com

Electro-Motive Diesel, Inc., also referred to as "EMD", is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Progress Rail Services Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Caterpillar Inc., that designs, manufactures and sells diesel-electric locomotives and diesel power engines worldwide under the Electro-Motive brand. EMD has the world's largest installed base of diesel-electric locomotives and offers the world's most extensive range of locomotive products in the rail and transit industry. EMD holds approximately 30 percent of the market for diesel-electric locomotives in North America, second to its only competitor, GE Transportation Systems, which holds the remaining 70 percent share of the North American market.

Electro-Motive Diesel, Inc. traces its roots to the Electro-Motive Engineering Corporation, founded in 1922. In 1930 General Motors Corporation purchased the Winton Engine Co. and Winton's primary customer, Electro-Motive Company, eventually combining the two to form GM's Electro-Motive division in 1941. In 2005, GM sold the division to Greenbriar Equity Group LLC, Berkshire Partners LLC and certain related parties who formed Electro-Motive Diesel, Inc., to facilitate the purchase. On August 2, 2010, Progress Rail Services Corporation completed the purchase of Electro-Motive Diesel, Inc. from Greenbriar, Berkshire, et al. making Electro-Motive Diesel, Inc. a wholly owned subsidiary of Progress Rail Services Corporation.

EMD's headquarters, engineering facilities and parts manufacturing operations are located in La Grange, Illinois, United States. EMD's final assembly operations are located in London, Ontario, Canada. EMD operates a traction motor maintenance, rebuild and overhaul facility in San Luis Potosí, Mexico and plans to begin assembling locomotives in the United States in late 2011 at a plant located in Muncie, Indiana.

As of 2008, EMD employs approximately 3,260 people worldwide.

History

Early years

Harold L. Hamilton and Paul Turner founded the Electro-Motive Engineering Company in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1922. In 1923, Electro-Motive Engineering Company sold only two gasoline-powered rail motor cars, one to the Chicago Great Western and the other to the Northern Pacific. Electro-Motive Engineering Company subcontracted the body construction to St. Louis Car Company and the prime mover to Winton Engine Company. The motorcars were delivered in 1924 and worked well, fortunate for the fledgling company, because the sales were conditional on satisfactory performance. In 1925, the company changed its name to Electro-Motive Company (EMC) and entered full-scale production, selling 27 railcars.

While hardly ever is anyone the absolute inventor of any system, Harold L. Hamilton most probably comes close to being the "father of the diesel locomotive." In an evolutionary career that led him into that role, he was without doubt the diesel-electric’s guiding coordinator. Starting his railroading career as a fireman on the Southern Pacific Railroad, he became a locomotive engineer on both passenger and freights. He eventually became a manager with the Florida East Coast Railway. Upon leaving railroading for an automotive marketing position in Denver, Hamilton, aware of early electric propulsion experiments, the needs of railroads, and his most recent exposure to heavy vehicles, recognized and integrated the idea of more efficient (over steam) internal combustion power with railroading. Financing himself, he quit his truck sales position, set up shop in a hotel with his partner and a designer, and created a product in 1923 that eventually became the successful version of diesel-electric railway propulsion.

In 1930 General Motors, seeing the opportunity to develop the diesel engine, purchased the Winton Engine Company, and after checking the Winton Engine Company's books, decided to purchase its primary customer "Electro Motive Company,". Advancing from railcars, the company began building multi-car diesel streamliners, for the Union Pacific Railroad, among others. By 1935, GM felt confident enough to invest in a new factory on 55th Street in McCook, Illinois, west of Chicago, which remains the corporate headquarters. By the end of the 1930s, EMC had a diesel engine powerful and reliable enough for locomotive use.

The 567, named for its displacement-per-cylinder of 567 in³ (9.3 L), was a two-cycle (or two-stroke) supercharged engine with overhead camshafts and four exhaust valves per cylinder. It was built in V-6, V-8, V-12 and V-16 configurations. The technology was first used in glittering prow-nosed passenger locomotives, but EMC's eye was on freight service. The glamorous passenger services made little money for the railroads, but replacement of steam engines with reliable diesel units could help railroads save money in a money-losing service. It also gave EMD practical experience and future contacts for capturing the ultimate prize: freight service.

The company produced a multi-unit freight locomotive demonstrator, the EMD FT, and began a tour of the continent's railroads to demonstrate it. The tour was a success. Western railroads, in particular, saw that the Diesels could free them from dependence on scarce water supplies for steam locomotives. By 1940, EMC was producing a locomotive a day, with 600 in service.

General Motors merged EMC and part of Winton Engine to create the Electro-Motive Division (EMD) on January 1, 1941. All GM locomotives built prior to 1941 were built by the Electro-Motive Corporation (EMC). Winton's non-locomotive products (large submarine, marine, and stationary diesel engines) continued under the title of the Cleveland Diesel Engine Division for another twenty years.

From the Forties to the Sixties

World War II temporarily slowed EMD locomotive production—the diesel engines were instead required in Navy ships, but in 1943 locomotive production regained momentum. More locomotives were needed to haul wartime supplies. The war was, in the end, a godsend for EMD. It was allowed to continue to develop the diesel freight locomotive and to sell it to railroads. Its competitors — principally the American Locomotive Company (Alco) and the Baldwin Locomotive Works -- were allowed minimal developmental work with diesel road locomotives. They were ordered to produce mainly diesel switchers and steam locomotives to pre-existing designs as fast as possible. This delayed EMD's competition and dealt them a fatal blow. By the end of the war, EMD's diesel production was in full swing, with new passenger EMD E-units and the new improved freight locomotive the EMD F3 following in late 1946. Baldwin Locomotive was crippled by its incorrect belief that people desired travel on trains pulled by steam locomotives. EMD opened another locomotive production facility at Cleveland, Ohio in 1948 to meet the demand for diesel locomotives.

built in Sweden in 1956 by NOHAB under license from and with components supplied by EMD, now preserved in the Danish Railway Museum]]

The story of diesel's conquest of steam is better placed elsewhere, but a combination of factors weakened steam's position and strengthened that of the diesel locomotive, and by the early 1950s the majority of American railroads had decided to dieselize. While other builders had entered the diesel locomotive field—whether old steam builders like Baldwin, Alco and Lima, or newer competitors like Fairbanks-Morse (also a producer of Navy diesels in the war), EMD's extra years of experience told. Most railroads ordered a few units from several builders in their first, trial purchase —- but the second, volume order usually went to EMD. Most of these were sales of its freight F-Unit platform. The economic arguments for diesel passenger power over steam were a bit shakier than those for freight service, but it hardly mattered—passenger service was more a matter of rolling advertisements and publicity machines than actual profit by this late date.

In 1949, EMD opened a new plant in London, Ontario, Canada, which was operated by subsidiary General Motors Diesel (GMD), producing existing EMD as well as unique GMD designs for the Canadian domestic and export markets. That same year, EMD introduced a new, revolutionary locomotive—the EMD GP7. Called a road switcher type, its design was that of an expanded diesel switcher, with the diesel engine, main generator and other equipment in a covered, but easily removed, hood (thus the other name for these locomotives, hood units). This hood being narrower than the locomotive, this enabled the crew to have visibility in both directions from a cab placed near one end. The structural strength in the road-switcher was in the frame, rather than in a carbody as in earlier locomotives. The maintenance ease of this new type of locomotive won over the railroads quickly. Nearly all locomotives produced in the United States for domestic use since the 1960s have been hood units.

— at Agrock Yard near Brewster, Florida.]]

EMD's competition was unable to keep pace. Lima failed first, merging with Baldwin and engine builder Hamilton in Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton, but the Baldwin-led company didn't endure. Fairbanks-Morse, after producing a series of innovative locomotives that sold poorly, left the locomotive field (the company remains in business, in its original markets). Then, only Alco remained, aided by the industrial might of General Electric, which manufactured the electrical gear used in Alco diesel-electric locomotives. GE entered the locomotive market in the early 1950s with the introduction of gas turbine-electric locomotives. By the early 1960s GE was marketing its own line of diesel-electrics in its Universal series, such as the U-25C.

The 567 engine was continuously improved and upgraded. The original six-cylinder 567 produced 600 HP, the V-12 1000 HP, and the V-16 1,350 HP. EMD began turbocharging the 567 around 1958; the final version, the 567D3A (built from October, 1963, to about January, 1966) produced 2,500 HP in its V-16 form.

Present day

EMD F40PH, #3105.]]

The year 2004 saw CSX Transportation take order of the first SD70ACe locomotives, which were designed to be more reliable, fuel efficient, and maintainable than its predecessor AC locomotive, the SD70MAC. The model also met the stringent EPA Tier 2 emission requirements using the two-stroke 710 diesel engine.

In 2005, Norfolk Southern took the first delivery of the new SD70M-2, the successor of the older SD70M locomotive. Like its sister locomotive, the SD70ACe, the SD70M-2 meets the stringent EPA Tier 2 requirements and uses the same engine. EMD is certified to be in conformance with ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 14001:2004.

In June 2004, The Wall Street Journal published an article indicating that EMD was being put up for sale. On January 11, 2005, Reuters published a story indicating that a sale to "two private U.S. equity groups" was likely to be announced "this week". Confirmation came the following day with a press release issued by General Motors, stating that GM had agreed to sell EMD to a partnership led by Greenbriar Equity Group LLC and Berkshire Partners LLC. The newly spun off company was called Electro-Motive Diesel, Incorporated, retaining the EMD name. The sale closed on April 4, 2005.

On June 1, 2010, Caterpillar Inc. announced that it had agreed to buy Electro-Motive Diesel, Inc. from Greenbriar, Berkshire et al for $820 million. Caterpillar's wholly-owned subsidiary Progress Rail Services Corporation completed the transaction on August 2, 2010, making Electro-Motive Diesel, Inc. a wholly-owned subsidiary of Progress Rail Services Corporation.

On October 29, 2010, Caterpillar Inc. announced that Progress Rail plans to begin assembling Electro-Motive Diesel branded railroad locomotives in Muncie, Indiana beginning in late 2011. EMD locomotives are currently assembled in Canada. The opening of the Muncie, Indiana assembly plant will enable EMD to supply locomotives to publicly-funded passenger rail agencies that require their rail equipment to be assembled in the United States. Caterpillar will invest US$50 million to acquire and renovate an existing building for locomotive assembly and build a locomotive test track on the plant site.

EMD Muncie

In October 2010, Caterpillar Inc. announced it is investing US$50 million to acquire and to renovate an existing building for assembly of EMD branded locomotives and to build a locomotive test track on a site located in Muncie, Indiana, United States. The Muncie facility is expected to commence operations in late 2011 and will allow EMD to supply locomotives to publicly-funded passenger rail agencies that require their rail equipment to be assembled in the United States.

See also

List of GM-EMD locomotives

References

External links

Electro-Motive Diesel, Inc. Official company website

EMD China

EMD India

Progress Rail Services Corporation Parent Company of Electro-Motive Diesel, Inc.

Caterpillar Inc. Parent company of Progress Rail Services Corporation

GE Transportation Systems Rail division EMD's primary competitor

* Category:Companies established in 1922 Category:Locomotive engine manufacturers Category:History of Cleveland, Ohio Category:Companies based in Cook County, Illinois Category:La Grange, Illinois Category:Locomotive manufacturers of the United States Category:Locomotive manufacturers of Canada Category:GM engines Category:Caterpillar subsidiaries Category:Diesel engine manufacturers