Portal:Trains/Selected article/Week 40, 2006

Restored F7 of the Great Northern Railway

The EMD F7 was a 1,500 hp B-B freight-hauling diesel locomotive produced between February 1949 and December 1953 by General Motors' Electro-Motive Division. Final assembly was at GM-EMD's La Grange, Illinois, plant. A total of 2,366 cab-equipped lead A units and 1,483 cabless booster B units were built. The F7 was the fourth model in GM-EMD's highly successful F-unit series of cab unit freight diesels, and it was the most produced of the series. The F7 replaced the F3, differing only in internal equipment (mostly electrical) and was succeeded by the more powerful F9. The F7 can be considered the zenith of the cab unit freight diesel; it was ubiquitous on North American railroads until the 1970s (longer in Canada), and the design has become entrenched in the popular imagination.

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