The GP30 still pays its way T
he EMD GP30 is unique in the diesel locomotive world. No other locomotive even remotely looks like it. With its distinctive silhouette sporting a beetle brow over the cab, combined with a top-heavy long hood, a jet black GP30 is easy to spot even on a moonless night hauling a coal train during a blackout. Shockingly, for those of us who remember it as the new kid on the block, the locomotive is now more than 50 years old and close to being accepted for AARP member- ship. Not so shocking is that it is still in daily revenue service. While the majority of Class 1’s have removed them from active duty, at least two still use them, although totally rebuilt, as do as a host of regional and shortline railroads. BNSF operates almost four dozen thoroughly-rebuilt units for intermediate and local trains, and CSX has rebuilt them as road slugs. As built, the GP30 was a 2,250-h.p. road switcher designed for mainline freight trains. Intro- duced in mid-1961, it was the replacement for the 2,000-h.p. GP20, the last of EMD’s “traditional” looking Geeps that began with the GP7. The GP30 and competing locomotive builders’ models were considered to be the beginning of the second-generation diesel designs then coming off the drawing boards.
Internal EMD documents indicated it was planned to be released as the GP22, a logical step in
that, like its immediate predecessor, it indicated the approximate horsepower under the hood. But, General Electric had just entered into the big-time Class 1 domestic railroad locomotive market with its U25B. Somewhere in the EMD hierarchy the idea of introducing a new locomotive with the number 22, while the competition had one with the number 25, didn’t sit well. Twenty-two quickly became 30. Two years and four months later, 948 GP30’s, including 40 cabless B-units for the Union Pacific, had been produced. The GP30 was more than just a change in exterior sheet metal. Like the competing GE U25B, it featured a sealed long hood with a pressurization system working hard to reduce and keep dust, dirt, and other debris away from the machinery. The different look that separated the GP30 from the rest of the pack was not by accident. EMD turned to owner General Motors and its styling center to “crisp up” the original design. It was the styling center that was responsible for the hump and cab roof design. Interestingly, only the origi- nal GP30 demonstrator was right out of the design book. Production units had a slightly changed cab profile, with the roof hump extending all the way to the front. The model changed other thinking at EMD, too. Starting with the GP30, the low short hood was the standard package. Until that time a railroad wanting a low nose on the previous GP18 and GP20 (and a few GP9’s) had to pay extra. By the time production ended, only Norfolk & Western and Southern opt- ed for the extra-cost high hood, part of each railroad’s traditional purchase package. EMD’s original GP30 eventually was sold to Union Pacific. A second demonstrator went to Seaboard Air Line. In the end, EMD’s product and a superb marketing department were responsible for about twice the number of units–948 compared to 478–of nearest competitor GE. Alco, marketing its RS-27, was left in the dust. Admittedly, GE was the new man on the block and many railroads were prob- ably not prepared to totally commit to a new product line, which also meant complicating the parts department inventory. Southern, Union Pacific, Santa Fe and Baltimore & Ohio were impressed enough to order large
batches. Other railroads, such as Southern Pacific, picked up only eight, its subsidiary Cotton Belt just 20. EMD even offered a high-nosed B-unit. Only UP bought them. Of the 40, eight were fitted with steam generators for occasional passenger duty, and a number of the road’s secondary trains found themselves powered by a GP30 with two B-units following right behind. At one time seemingly every major and many minor railroads owned the GP30. Besides those al- ready mentioned, original GP30 owners included the Atlantic Coast Line, B&O, C&O, CB&Q, Chicago & Eastern Illinois, Chicago Great Western, Milwaukee Road, Chicago & North Western, Rio Grande, GM&O, KCS, L&N, NYC, Nickel Plate, Pennsy, Reading, industrial operator Phelps Dodge, and Soo Line. The Toledo, Peoria & Western and Alaska R.R. both had a single unit. Some units rode on trucks from traded-in Alcos. Today, understandably, their ranks are thinning, but many have escaped the scrapper and have wound up on short lines throughout the country. Rebuilt, renewed, reworked, upgraded, whatever description you might want to use on the remaining EMD GP30’s, their existence as operable motive power more than a half-century after they were introduced is a testament to the people who designed and built them. LEE DAVIDS
40 OCTOBER 2012
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