General Motors (Diesel Division) HO Scale Models

General Motors Diesel, Ltd. was established in 1949 as the Canadian subsidiary of the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors, created primarily to circumvent the import tariffs that protected Canadian manufacturers from foreign competition. The company constructed a new facility on the outskirts of London, Ontario, which opened in 1950, since General Motors had no existing Canadian steam locomotive shops to repurpose as competitors Montreal Locomotive Works and the Canadian Locomotive Company had done. The plant was purpose-built for diesel locomotive production, originally designed to turn out one unit per day, and it expanded over the years to encompass approximately 208 acres. The first locomotive completed at the London facility was Toronto, Hamilton and Buffalo Railway number 71, a GP7 road switcher delivered on August 25, 1950, though the first order actually received had come from Canadian Pacific for a series of FP7A cab units. Over subsequent decades the London plant grew into a significant industrial operation, eventually branching into transit bus manufacturing, construction equipment under the Terex brand between 1965 and 1980, and military vehicles produced at adjacent facilities. General Motors reorganized the Canadian operation on February 1, 1969, folding it into a broader corporate structure under the name Diesel Division of General Motors of Canada, Ltd. Following the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement, EMD consolidated all of its locomotive assembly at the London facility by 1991, allowing the plant to supply American railroad customers without tariff penalties, though key component manufacturing including engines, generators, and traction motors remained at the LaGrange, Illinois facility. General Motors sold its EMD subsidiary in April 2005 to a private equity partnership, after which the Canadian operation was renamed Electro-Motive Canada. Caterpillar's Progress Rail subsidiary acquired EMD and its Canadian arm in 2010. A labor dispute in 2012 contributed to the closure of the London plant, with production shifting to a facility in Muncie, Indiana. The reporting mark GMDX reflects the company's continuing role as a lessor of locomotive equipment even after the manufacturing operations that originally defined the enterprise had ceased.