EMD E9A/E9B

The EMD E9 was the tenth and final member of Electro-Motive Division's celebrated E-unit family, produced at the company's La Grange, Illinois facilities from April 1954 through January 1964. Over the course of that decade, EMD delivered 100 cab-equipped A units and 44 cabless booster B units, all destined for service with American railroads. The E9 arrived at a moment when passenger rail was still a dominant force in intercity travel, and it quickly found work on some of the most prestigious named trains in the country. Union Pacific assigned E9s to its famous "City" fleet of streamliners, while the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy put them to work on Zephyr services, and Southern Pacific used them on runs including the Coast Daylight and the Sunset Limited. As the economics of passenger railroading deteriorated through the 1960s, many E9s found themselves reassigned to less glamorous duties. Union Pacific, the Rock Island, and the Illinois Central each pressed E9s into freight service as passenger revenues declined. When Amtrak was established in 1971 to assume operation of most intercity passenger trains in the United States, the new quasi-governmental carrier acquired 36 E9A and 23 E9B units from predecessor railroads including Union Pacific, the Milwaukee Road, the Baltimore and Ohio, and the Seaboard Coast Line. Amtrak operated these locomotives until approximately 1979, and converted a portion of the B units into auxiliary cars providing steam heat or head-end electrical power for passenger consists. The legacy of the E9 extends well beyond its active revenue service years. Burlington Northern equipped a number of surviving units with head-end power systems and upgraded powerplants based on the EMD 645 engine family, extending their usefulness in Chicago-area commuter operations into the early 1990s. Several dozen E9s survived into the preservation era, with examples finding homes at museums and tourist railroads across the country. The Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois, operates five examples, while Union Pacific has retained three rebuilt E9s in its heritage fleet. Southern Pacific 6051, the last surviving unit from that railroad's roster, is preserved and operated by the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento.

The E9 was powered by a pair of EMD 567C engines, each a twelve-cylinder, two-stroke, Roots-blown diesel arranged in a 45-degree V configuration with a bore and stroke of 8.5 by 10 inches, yielding 567 cubic inches of displacement per cylinder. Each engine produced 1,200 horsepower at 800 rpm, for a combined output of 2,400 horsepower. The two engines drove separate DC generators, and the electrical output from each generator powered two traction motors, giving the locomotive four motors in total distributed across an A1A-A1A wheel arrangement. In this arrangement, each three-axle truck had its center axle unpowered, a configuration that reduced axle loading on the lighter rail and trackwork commonly found on passenger routes. Externally, the E9 was nearly indistinguishable from its immediate predecessor, the E8. The primary mechanical difference was the substitution of the newer 567C engine in place of the 567B used in the E8. The only reliably visible external change was a revised, flush-fitting mounting for the headlight glass on the nose of the carbody, though this modification was also applied to some E8 units during maintenance overhauls, making visual identification between the two models unreliable in practice. The shared carbody design reflected EMD's deliberate continuity across E-unit generations, and the 567C engine itself remained in production until 1966, when it was eventually superseded by the 645 series powerplant that would go on to serve as the foundation for subsequent EMD locomotive families.

—