EMD FT

The EMD FT is a diesel-electric freight locomotive with a streamlined cab, built by General Motors' Electro-Motive Division (formerly Electro-Motive Corporation) from March 1939 through November 1945. Each A unit produced 1,350 horsepower, and railroads typically ran an A unit paired with a cabless B unit for 2,700 horsepower combined, on a B-B wheel arrangement capable of 65 to 95 miles per hour; 555 A units and 541 B units were built in total, with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway the largest single buyer at 155 A units and 165 B units. The FT was the first model in EMD's F-unit series and is regarded by many rail historians as one of the most important locomotive models ever built, because it proved to American railroads, despite wartime production restrictions, that diesel-electric power could outperform steam on freight service and set up EMD's dominance of the postwar dieselization of American railroading.