EMD SW1200

The EMD SW1200 entered production in January 1954, immediately following the conclusion of SW9 production in late 1953, and represented the third generation of 1,200-horsepower switchers produced by General Motors Electro-Motive Division. The model designation itself reflected a broader shift in EMD's naming conventions toward a horsepower-based system, making the locomotive's output immediately apparent from its model number. Over a production run spanning twelve years, EMD and its Canadian affiliate General Motors Diesel collectively built 1,151 examples of the SW1200, making it one of the more numerous switcher types of its era. The SW1200 found customers across North America and beyond. Within the United States, 737 units were delivered to domestic railroads, while Canadian railways acquired 287 examples, many of them through General Motors Diesel's Ontario facility, which built locomotives for the Canadian market between September 1955 and June 1964. Smaller orders went to Brazilian operators, a Chilean industrial concern that took 25 units, and the Panama Canal Railway, which received three locomotives. Major Canadian buyers including Canadian National and Canadian Pacific purchased a substantial portion of their fleets in the road-switcher variant known as the SW1200RS, which was better suited to light road service duties. The SW1200 occupied an important transitional place in the broader EMD switcher lineage, bridging the earlier 567B-powered SW9 and the later switcher designs that would follow. Its long production run and wide customer base demonstrated the continued demand for a reliable, mid-range switching locomotive well into the 1960s. Many examples remained in service for decades after delivery, and a number survived into the hands of short line and regional railroads that prized the type's durability and straightforward maintenance requirements.

The SW1200 was powered by the EMD 567C prime mover, a 12-cylinder version of EMD's well-regarded 567 engine family, producing 1,200 horsepower and driving the locomotive through a direct-current diesel-electric transmission. The 567C represented a meaningful improvement in reliability over the 567B engine used in the preceding SW9, and this mechanical refinement was the primary engineering distinction between the two otherwise visually similar models. A small number of late-production SW1200s completed in 1966 were fitted with the 567E engine variant rather than the 567C. The locomotive rode on a B-B wheel arrangement, with four powered axles distributed across two trucks, and standard units used the same basic truck design carried over from earlier SW-series switchers, though customers could order the locomotive equipped with EMD Flexicoil trucks as an option. The external appearance of the SW1200 closely followed that of the SW9, and distinguishing between the two models by sight alone requires careful attention to detail. Some units were delivered with dynamic brake equipment, identifiable by a distinctive square housing fitted with a rooftop fan positioned ahead of the cab on the hood. The SW1200RS road-switcher variant incorporated Flexicoil B-B trucks as standard equipment along with enlarged fuel tanks and prominent front number board housings, accommodating the additional range and visibility requirements of road service. A cow-and-calf variant designated the TR12 was included in EMD's catalog during this period, but no examples of that configuration were ever ordered or constructed.

Models by: Athearn · Rapido Trains · Walthers