MTH 30-2286-1

For many railfans, EMD's E-Series symbolizes all that was right about the golden age of passenger service. In the middle of the Great Depression, General Motors asked its Detroit stylists to design a sleek streamlined engine to head up consists of the lightweight passenger cars that had become fashionable. And because diesels did not have the pulling power of steam engines, these new units needed to be equipped to run in multi-unit lash-ups when more horsepower was needed to pull a long train. In addition to their modern appearance and multiple-unit capabilities, the E-series engines were also safer for the cab crew than the earlier box cabs, which put too little protection between the enginemen and any foreign object that might appear on the track.

Now you can enjoy watching these landmark engines streak by at the head of a glamorous passenger train, in the colorful markings of the Alaska, Atlantic Coast Line, Chesapeake & Ohio, and Kansas City Southern railroads.

EMD's hugely successful and long-lived 567 engine was first used in the E-3. The 567 raised the engine's rating to 2000 horsepower instead of the 1800 horses that gave the original E-units their name, but the series kept the "E" designation as long as they were in production.