EMD GP9 Spokane, Portland & Seattle #154

Technical Specifics

The EMD GP9 entered production in 1954 as the successor to the highly successful GP7, extending Electro-Motive Division's General Purpose line of road switcher locomotives. The model proved enormously popular with North American railroads throughout its production run, with EMD ultimately completing more than 4,200 units including cab-less B units, making it one of the most widely purchased diesel locomotive models of its era. Approximately 75 railroads placed orders for the type, ranging from major Class I carriers to smaller regional lines. Among the largest customers were the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, the Illinois Central Railroad, the Union Pacific Railroad, the Canadian National Railway, and the Pennsylvania Railroad, each of which rostered the type in the hundreds. American production of the GP9 took place at EMD's manufacturing facility in LaGrange, Illinois, and continued until 1959, when domestic output shifted toward the successor GP18 model. However, General Motors Diesel, EMD's Canadian subsidiary, continued building GP9s at its facility to serve Canadian railroad customers until August 1963, when the final example rolled out of the plant. Of the total production run, 646 locomotives were constructed in Canada for Canadian carriers, most notably Canadian National and Canadian Pacific. The GP9's legacy extended well beyond its original production years through an extensive culture of rebuilding and remanufacturing. The Illinois Central converted a portion of its fleet into GP10s by reducing the height of the short hood to improve forward crew visibility, and Conrail later performed similar rebuilds on former Penn Central units. The Southern Pacific and its subsidiary the St. Louis Southwestern Railway rebuilt most of their GP9s into GP9E and GP9R variants between 1970 and 1979. Canadian National undertook a particularly ambitious remanufacturing program beginning in 1981, rebuilding well over 200 units into GP9RM locomotives across four distinct batches extending into the mid-1990s. As of the early 2020s, Canadian National still operated a small number of these remanufactured units, a testament to the fundamental soundness of the original design.

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