New and
Black On April 22, 1965, EMD 434D sat in front of the ATSF Corwith Engine Shop in Chicago, allow- ing mechanical personnel there to “get a good look” at things to come. Below is the turbo- charger end of the 645. — Above: K.C. Henkels photo, Louis A. Marre collecti on; below— EMD photo, author’s collecti on
CRAFTSMAN/Preston Cook, photos by EMD and Louis A. Marre collecti on
Dieselization of U.S. railroads advanced rapidly in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and by 1954 — when Electro-Motive introduced its 567C Roots blower engine to the railroad market — sales of locomotives had slowed down considerably. Steam locomotives rapidly disappeared from the rail- road industry since they no longer dominated the main line. Loco- motive builders began turn- ing their attention to re-
building or replacing their earliest first-generation diesel products in an effort to sustain diesel locomo- tive sales. Electro-Motive had dominated
the first-generation diesel sales, but in January 1954, the Ameri- can Locomotive Company (Alco) challenged EMD’s position as leader in the freight locomotive market when the builder intro- duced its DL-600 six-axle road- switcher powered by a 16-244 engine rated at 2,250 hp. Alco subsequently upgraded the rat- ing of this locomotive to 2,400 hp, and in February 1956, the improved DL-600B featuring a 16-251 engine went into produc- tion. The primary market for these locomotives was fleet size reduction, with two six-axle road- switchers capable of doing the job of three 1,500- or 1,600-hp first-generation roadswitchers or
70 RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
645
streamlined freight locomotives. Electro-Motive had no prime mover capable of competing with Alco for this market, its largest available diesel being the 1,750- hp 16-567C. This dilemma led to an urgent program to introduce a turbocharged version of the 567 engine, resulting in the produc- tion of the SD24 in July 1958. This locomotive was powered by a 2,400-hp version of the 567D2 diesel engine, and subsequent de- velopments led to horsepower in- creases to 2,500 in the “35” series locomotives with the 567D3A ver- sion of the engine.
Meanwhile, General Electric entered the North American lo- comotive market in 1958 with its 2,500-hp U25B and U25C using GE’s 7FDL-16 diesel engine. GE subsequently increased its ratings to 2,800-hp in late 1965 with the U28C and U28B, while Alco had
THE ELECTRO-MOTIVE 645
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