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| THE EVOLUTION OF EMD'S "F" SERIES LOCOMOTIVES |
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| At left, one of the many other manuals which holds clues to the differences in F units, a 567 series engine manual. These manuals not only cover the diesel engines themselves, but the governors as well. Many subtle differences in the locomotives themselves can be supported with info from these, for example the changes in starting excitation characteristics that take place during the evolution of the F3 series locomotives. Other manuals and original sources have been consulted as well for this series. |
| Many fine books and articles have been written about EMD's "F" series locomotives over the years.People started talking and writing about them during the barnstorming tour of the FT demonstrator, and they haven't stopped talking (or writing) yet! They were a fine series of locomotives, worthy of all the attention. So why this article/series? Is there any information left to expose? Yes. Lots. And we're going to explore it right here. Our sources? All EMD and railroad company official publications. We're going to get into the technical differences between types, on a very fine level. We're going to explore just exactly what makes an F7 different from an F3, for example, on a TECHNICAL and MECHANICAL level. The differences in the locomotive exteriors has been well documented, but now lets look INSIDE! |
| FT - F2 - F3 - F7 - F9 |
| this image is the frontispiece for the 4th edition F7 manual, March 1950. |
| We'll start with a bit of info on our sources. Operating manuals provide most of the technical info, and are a wealth of information. At left, the beginning and the end of our story. The left most manual is for Southern Ry. 6100 A-D and 6101 A-D, two 4-unit 5400 HP FT sets. 6100 was the ORIGINAL FT DEMONSTRATOR SET, refurbished and sold to Southern! This manual shows us what the demo was like, and the differences between it and the set delivered with it, which is representative of "current" FT production. To the right, an F9 manual, representing the last "F" type. |
| There are MANY variants to the manuals for the F series locomotives. Just think about how many years they were in production, and think about the changes they went through, and you'll quickly see that there had to be many manual changes to cover these developments. We have almost every known variant for our research. At left, just a few of the series of F unit manuals, shown are two variants of F2 manuals, the first F3 only manual, and four of the other known F3 variants. Since EMD offered update pages (or "rev." pages) for manuals already in circulation, sometimes it's hard to find non-updated manuals. We think we have enough of a spread to cover most major (and minor) changes. |
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