Western Railroad Discussion > "E" vs. "F" nomenclature

Hey Folks,

Here's a really good question that came from one of my list groups. Anyone have any ideas?

--
A friend of mine asked me this question. I've never seen EMD
documentation on where the E/F nomenclature came from. His
hypothesis is what I've heard, but that may be a railfan "urban
legend". Can anyone enlighten?


> Someone told me that the letter designations of the EMD
> 'E' and 'F' units stand for, respectively, Eighteen and Fourteen; with these
> two numbers representing the first two digits of the approximate horsepower
> of the original models. (In the case of the F unit series, the original
> horsepower figure 1350hp was rounded upward to 'fourteen', I'm further told).
> It sounds reasonable to me. Do you know if it's true or not? Please enlighten
> me when you get a chance.

There has never been anything official from EMD on this. However, this is the generally regarded story. After the FT's began getting wider acceptance, someone somewhere thought of shrotening FT to F for freight, but again, no documentation on that.

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

I would doubt the F for 1400 suggestion. When the FT was developed a four unit set was considered a single 5400 hp locomotive. They were not considered to be individual units as we would today.

... remember the 600 hp SW/SC and 900 hp NW/NC (?).

Adding to the above post, in EMD parlance the SW and NW designations used the "W" for a welded frame and the SC / NC pairing was for cast frames. I would guess using this logic the FT could be F for fourteen hundred and T for truss frame (ie covered wagon).

In the far past, it was said that FT stood for "Freight Train." True???

Yardclerk

From what I've read and heard from folks like Wally Abbey, no one
really knows what "FT" stood for anymore. The "T" came out of
the marketing department - the engineering folks just called it
the "Model F." Why F? It's tempting to try to shoehorn it into
the horsepower-based nomenclature that applied to the SC/SW/NC/NW,
and folks have surmised "Freight Twentysevenhundred," "Freight
Thirteenfifty," "Fiftyfourhundred Truss," and other variations.
By 1939, though, the 201A engine that spawned those switcher
designations was history, and the model NW2 was coming out with a
567 engine rated at 1000 hp. So why F? Possibly for "freight."
Possibly just because it was the next letter after "E."

E stood for "Eighteen Hundred HP", which was the original Winton 201-powered EA series engines (900 hp per prime mover). F stood for "Fifty-Four Hundred HP". Note that the first FT's units were connected via drawbars, making it a fixed consist (the lack of footrests and grabirons in the loco consist shows this). Santa Fe demanded couplers between their units and EMD had to cobble up a short drawbar/coupler arrangement to keep the distance the same.

When these engines were built diesels were very unusual critters and nobody really comprehended the impact of MU capability. Railroads treated them (more or less per union rules) as ONE locomotive regardless of how many units were in the consist. In fact, there was some serious haggling when the FT (A-B-B-A) first rolled out the door because there were TWO cabs on it. Believe ir or not, the unions demanded a crew in each one until sanity prevailed.

Ain't history wonderful?

Someone told me that the alphas at the end of the loco number were to circumvent the union gripes 837A,837B,837C,837D were sections of the same locomotive.

djansson wrote:

> In fact, there was some serious haggling when the
> FT (A-B-B-A) first rolled out the door because there were TWO
> cabs on it. Believe ir or not, the unions demanded a crew in
> each one until sanity prevailed.

The issue was more than just putting a crew in each cab. It also
revolved around whether these locomotives constituted a "double
header." There were rules in place regarding when a heavy train
could use a double header, and when the train had to be broken into
two separate trains, with two full crews.

Ok gents;
I chatted with my friend, a former EMD rep, who is retired now. According to him the F stood for freight and the T for 2700 hp. For you see the FT A/B set were required as a solid set since the starter batteries for the A unit were in the B unit. SO this set had 1350 prime movers in each carbody but were a 2700 hp set.
Now for the E's that stood for eighteen hundred horsepower which was in the EA's. They had two 900 hp 12 cylinder prime movers in them.
In addition the first switcher was the SC model which stood for Switcher cast underframe. Then the model designation went to SW which stood for Switcher welded underframe. Both were 600 hp.
He says from this point on the folks at EMD came up with all sorts of designations for their units.
Of sourse the modern day SD is for Special Duty with its 6 axle trucks and the GP was General Purpose for its four axle trucks. The DD was the eight axle trucks.

Bob

Bob, that sounds like a plausible story, but if that "retired EMD rep" is a certain guy that is commonly associated with hot water, I would take it all with a grain of salt.

Frankly I like F for Freight and E for Express. Or was that F for Fast and E for Eventually, I never can keep it straight. :-)