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 Pennsylvania Railroad E7A #5901 on display at theRailroad Museum of Pennsylvania in 2015. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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TheE7 is a 2,000-horsepower (1,500 kW),A1A-A1A passenger train locomotive built byGeneral Motors'Electro-Motive Division ofLa Grange, Illinois. 428cab versions, or E7As, were built from February 1945 to April 1949; 82booster E7Bs were built from March 1945 to July 1948. (Circa 1953 one more E7A was built by the Los Angeles General Shops of the Southern Pacific by rebuilding an E2A.) The 2,000 hp came from two12 cylinder model 567A engines. Each engine drove its ownelectrical generator to power the twotraction motors on one truck. The E7 was the eighth model in a line of passenger diesels of similar design known asEMD E-units, and it became the best selling E model upon its introduction.[1]
In profile the front of the nose of an E7A was less slanted than on earlier EMD passenger locomotives, and the E7,E8, andE9 units have been nicknamed “bulldog nose” units. Some earlier units were called “shovel nose” units or “slant nose” units.
AGulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad E7A, #103-A, appears at the start and end of the 1967 filmIn The Heat of the Night.
ASouthern Pacific E7A, #6001, is on the point of a train that figures prominently in "The Hitch-Hiker", a popular 1960 episode of the anthology television series,The Twilight Zone, starringInger Stevens. (According to the narration, Steven's character is said to encounter the train somewhere between Pennsylvania and Tennessee, yet the locomotive's number board shows that the train, #99, is theCoast Daylight, which travelled between Los Angeles and San Francisco.)
In the 2010 miniseriesThe Pacific, filmed inMelbourne,S313, an example of the similar A16C export model, was painted to resembleLouisville & Nashville Railroad E7A 758 for filming, however it retained the livery for a short while after filming wrapped.
Ex-Pennsylvania Railroad E7A #5901 is preserved as the only surviving example of the E7. This locomotive has been cosmetically restored, and is currently on indoor display at theRailroad Museum of Pennsylvania, in Strasburg, Pennsylvania.
A total of 428 cab-equipped leadA units and 82 cabless-booster orB units were built.[2] Approximately thirty railroads purchased A units, B units, or both.[3] The single largest buyer was the Pennsylvania Railroad, which purchased 46 A units and 14 B units.[4] Other significant buyers included theNew York Central Railroad (36 A units and 14 B units),[5]Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (44 A units),[6]Seaboard Air Line Railroad (32 A units and 3 B units),[7] andAtlantic Coast Line Railroad (20 A units and 10 B units).[8]
