EMD F9 Burlington Northern #770/777

Technical Specifics

The EMD F9 emerged in February 1953 as the fifth and final major production variant in Electro-Motive Division's celebrated F-unit cab locomotive series. Built at EMD's La Grange, Illinois facility, with Canadian-bound examples assembled by General Motors Diesel at London, Ontario, the F9 represented a refinement of a lineage that had helped transform American railroading in the postwar decades. It succeeded the highly successful F7, carrying forward the familiar carbody styling that had defined EMD's freight cab units since the FT of 1939. Despite its technical merits, the F9 arrived at a moment when market conditions were shifting decisively against the cab unit configuration. Railroad operators had grown to prefer the road switcher layout, which offered crews far superior visibility and greater operational flexibility without the enclosed nose that characterized F-unit designs. The EMD GP9, introduced around the same time and offering comparable power in a hood unit arrangement, drew the majority of new orders during this period and effectively supplanted the F9 in most purchase decisions. As a result, total production was comparatively modest, with only 92 cab-equipped A units and 156 cabless B units completed before the model's production run ended in May 1960. Nine railroads purchased F9 A units during the production run, with the Northern Pacific Railway standing as the single largest customer, acquiring 38 A units and 32 B units. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway and Canadian National Railway were also significant buyers. The Canadian National's locomotives were among those constructed at the London, Ontario plant, as were eight B units ordered by Canadian Pacific Railway. Though the F9 never achieved the sales volumes of its predecessors, examples served reliably across North American freight operations for many years, and some units survived into later decades on regional and shortline railroads.

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