Cab Units

In August 1940, a significant event occurred in the dieselization of Southern Rail-way when EMC's first road freight diesel, the FT, arrived on the railroad for a series of demonstration runs. The four-unit, 5,400-horsepower set, operating as Electro-Motive 103, was given the task of hauling tonnage between Cincinnati and Chattanooga. Most of the railroad's attention was focused on how the new diesel would do over the most demanding segment of the CNO&TP, between Danville, Kentucky, and Oakdale, Tennessee, where a 2-8-2 Mikado was rated for 1,750 tons. Paul K. Withers, in Diesels of the Southern Railway 1939-1982, writes, "The FT demonstrator handled 4,000 tons over the entire division and sliced an hour off the normal run."

Many veteran railroaders had been skeptical of the diesel's ability to do the job of the steam locomotive, but the FT, more than any single model, proved them wrong (earning its description, by Trains editor David P. Morgan, as "the diesel that did it"). It could travel hundreds of miles without being refueled, and did not require anything close to the array of serv- icing facilities (or people) that steam needed. Impressed by the FT's performance, in February 1941 Southern ordered two four-unit sets. The first set was delivered to Southern in May of that year with Southern road number 6100; it was the original FT demonstrator, reconditioned by Electro-Motive (now EMD) following its 11-month, 35-state barnstorming tour in 1939-1940. A second FT set arrived on Southern in July 1941. They were assigned, naturally enough, to the CNO&TP.

The FT had shown what it could do for operating efficiency, and Southern was fertile ground for dieselization. The railroad had not bought a steam locomotive since 1928, and the locomotives delivered in that year were based on designs that were several years old at the time.

Tom Murray - Southern Railway: MBI Railroad Color History - 2007