The EMD GP30 emerged in the early 1960s as General Motors' Electro-Motive Division responded to serious competitive pressure from a resurgent General Electric. GE's U25B, which offered 2,500 horsepower and a modern sealed-hood design engineered with maintenance accessibility in mind, was drawing favorable attention and orders from American railroads. EMD's existing GP20 produced only 2,000 horsepower, and the company's engineering staff recognized that a more capable locomotive was needed quickly. The result was a 2,250-horsepower road switcher built on the B-B wheel arrangement, powered by the 16-cylinder 567D3 prime mover. Though its output fell short of both the U25B and ALCO's contemporary RS-27, EMD wagered that the proven reliability of its equipment and the familiarity of railroad mechanical departments with EMD products would carry the day. The gamble paid off. Production ran from July 1961 through November 1963, during which time 948 units were delivered, compared to 476 U25Bs sold over a considerably longer sales window extending to 1966.
EMD's marketing department chose to designate the new locomotive the GP30 rather than the internally considered GP22, partly to suggest a generational leap beyond GE's numbering and partly to support promotional claims of thirty distinct improvements over the GP20. The styling of the locomotive was entrusted to the GM Automotive Styling Center in Troy, Michigan, whose designers gave the GP30 its distinctive high-profile hood and the characteristic stepped, humped roofline behind the cab that made the type immediately recognizable among American motive power. The largest single buyers were the Southern Railway with 120 units, the Union Pacific with 111, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe with 85, and the Baltimore and Ohio with 77. Union Pacific was the only railroad to order cabless B units, taking 40 of them, thirteen of which were equipped with steam generators for passenger train heating service.
The GP30's legacy extended well beyond its relatively brief production run. Several railroads found the locomotives durable enough to justify substantial rebuilding programs rather than retirement. Burlington Northern sent units to EMD, Morrison Knudsen, and VMV Paducahbilt for rebuilding to GP39-series standards, with upgraded 12-645D3 engines rated at 2,300 horsepower and Dash-2 control systems. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe undertook its own comprehensive rebuilding at Cleburne, Texas, producing the GP30u variant with 645-series power assemblies boosting output to 2,500 horsepower. Other roads including the Chessie System, Illinois Central Gulf, and the Soo Line performed their own modifications. The fact that a number of GP30s remained in revenue service more than fifty years after construction stands as a testament to the soundness of the basic design, far exceeding the twenty-five to thirty year service life typically expected of a diesel locomotive of that era.
The GP30 rode on a B-B truck arrangement using EMD's standard Blomberg B trucks, inheriting the frame and running gear from the GP20 without significant alteration. Power came from the 567D3 engine, a 16-cylinder two-stroke diesel that EMD's engineers coaxed to a 2,250-horsepower rating through refinements to the fuel system and the addition of turbocharging. The locomotive employed DC traction motors throughout, consistent with EMD practice of the period. One of the more significant engineering departures from earlier GP units was the adoption of a centralized, pressurized air induction system inspired by the approach GE had used on the U25B, intended to keep dust and debris out of the electrical equipment and engine compartment. Accommodating the associated air handling equipment, turbocharger, and electrical cabinet without lengthening the carbody required increasing the height of the hood behind the cab, which in turn necessitated an entirely new body profile. Some units built for the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio, the Milwaukee Road, and the Soo Line rode on AAR Type B trucks sourced from ALCO trade-ins rather than the standard Blomberg B, a detail that distinguishes those particular examples from the majority of the fleet.
The cab design offered a low short hood as standard, giving crews improved forward visibility, though Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway both specified the older high short hood configuration for their orders. Dynamic brakes were available as an option, and on equipped units the distinctive hump behind the cab incorporated intake louvers to cool the resistor grids, while units without dynamic brakes shared the same external profile but lacked those openings. The stepped roofline over the cab, rising to accommodate the central air system housing immediately behind it, gave the GP30 a visual profile unlike any other American locomotive before or since, and the type remained readily identifiable even after decades of service and various rebuilding programs altered other external details.
Broadway Limited
Atlas
ScaleTrains
Walthers