Seaboard Air Line Railroad (SAL) #3003 leads the Orange Blossom Special into Plant City, Florida, in December 1938, inaugurating diesel service in the Southeast.
The EMC E4 was a 2,000 horsepower (1,500 kW), A1A-A1A passenger train-hauling diesel locomotive built by the Electro-Motive Corporation of La Grange, Illinois. They were built between 1938 – 1940. All of these engines were built for the Seaboard Air Line Railway.
The 2,000 hp (1,500 kW) was achieved with two EMC model 567 V12 engines developing 1,000 hp (750 kW), each engine driving its own electrical generator to power the traction motors.
Later E-unit models received the same blunted "bulldog nose" as the F-units.
Ironically, the E4 was produced before the E3. Both models were identical, save for the E4 having a pneumatically-operated nose door passageway in order to facilitate crew movement between units in a locomotive consist.
All the E4s were retired and scrapped by 1964.
Trivia[]
- The E4 was the fifth model in a long line of passenger diesels of similar design known as EMD E-units.
- The front noses of the EA, E1A, E3A, E4A, E5A, and E6A cab units had a pronounced slant when viewed from the side. Therefore, these six models have been nicknamed "slant nose" units.