This is a partial list of the various Maintenance Instructions (MI's) that EMD issued through several decades covering the setting and maintenance of locomotive transition systems. This was developed in researching recent questions and may not be complete so use at your own risk. Note that there is overlap and reissued topics, higher numbers with similar topics generally indicate later issues, although EMD also did revisions occasionally with higher suffix letters. When stock of an MI was depleted, EMD sometimes dropped them out of the index, which makes it very difficult to find some of the topics now as there was not year to year continuity in their published lists.

EMD TRANSITION RELATED MI’S HISTORY LIST

MI 520 – SW LOCOMOTIVES – SETTINGS
MI 2032 – F7 BEFORE 11/50 – AUTO TRANSITION
MI 2041 – F3/F7 – AUTO TRANSITION
MI 2203 – E8 – SETTINGS
MI 2204 – SW W/D15 GEN – SETTINGS
MI 2205 – RELAYS – SETTINGS
MI 2207 – F9/FP9/GP9 – SETTINGS
MI 5000 – F3 – AUTO TRANSITION
MI 5028 – BL/F3/F7 – REMOVAL OF MANUAL/AUTO TRANS SWITCH
MI 5031 – F3 – 3 RELAY SYSTEM CONVERSION
MI 5046 – TRANSITION – CIRCUIT IMPROVEMENTS
MI 5086 – TRANSITION – CIRCUIT IMPROVEMENTS
MI 6825 – TRANSITION – RELAY SETTINGS
MI 6829 – EI TYPE SYSTEM – SETTINGS
MI 6833 – SW W/D15 GEN – SETTINGS
MI 6834 – E8/E9 – SETTINGS
MI 6835 – SD9 – SETTINGS
MI 6836 – SD24 – SETTINGS
MI 6852 – SWIOOO/SW1001 – SETTINGS
MI 6853 – SW900/SW1200 - SETTINGS

Note that MI 6829 tends to be the most useful for most late production (and upgraded) locomotives with 567 engines, as it covers the EI type system used in the late 1950s.

I am not aware of any organizations maintaining specific libraries for EMD technical information at this time, although some museums and historical groups may have some of this information as part of their document collections. Sources of MI books include eBay, train shows, estate sales, etc.

The purpose of this list is to save the time necessary to search through MI indexes from 1948 through the 1980s to identify MI's that were changed or reissued under different numbers, since all of them do not appear together in any one EMD index. And if you don't have an index, it gets pretty tedious to try to find a specific topic in the several thousand MI's.

PC

Granted the paperwork (re. MIs) is essential, the bigger challenge would seem to be coming up with the MG set.

ETA

Thanks so much for posting that list, Preston, and for compiling it. Digitizing it in one place would be a good idea, and we all should start floating that idea around.

Thanks, and Happy New Year ....Mike Del Vecchio

Thanks Mike,

An all-time all-topics index of the seventy years of EMD MI's would be a benefit to the organizations maintaining and operating their older EMD power, making it much easier to find information. There are lots of questions that come up quite frequently on the maintenance publications, but with thousands of MI's having been issued over the years, it is an overwhelming project for anybody to attempt to catalog and index them all.

PC

Thanks, Preston. On a similar note, everybody, do any drawings from Morrison-Knudsen exist about the GP8 rebuild program of the early 1980s. We're looking specifically at Lackawanna 959 on the Delaware-Lackawanna. Fuel pump curcuits would be handy right now, and any notes about what was done to remove the wiring on the dynamic brakes, as a long term goal would be to restore the d/b to operation.

....Mike Del Vecchio

Mike,

Send me a PM with your contact info. I have the schematics your looking for.

EBL

Preston,
Thank you for compiling these MI lists, they are very helpful. What can add additional confusion to transition setting is the undocumented modifications that get made to the systems by the railroad over their in service years. Many groups only have the manufacturers electrical prints which show what existed when they were built.
Mike Tillger

EMD often discontinued listing information on upgrades and modifications when the supply of paper documents on the shelf required reprinting. In researching the transition MI numbers, I found that between the early 1970s and late 1970s they dropped listings for all the transition related MI's except one - the MI 6852 for SW1000/SW1001. They apparently had no inventory of the earlier topics left. So if the people on the railroads did not keep each and every piece of paper sent to them by EMD, and particularly the modernization recommendations (ModRecs), they could have great difficulty trying to recover that information later, just as Mike indicates. And if they only kept the newest MI list that EMD had sent them, and threw away the earlier ones, they would be unable to identify many of the previously issued MI's.

The Service Manager in the NE Region used to keep and catalog every revision of every MI in sequential order, never throwing any of the earlier issues away. If you wanted to be able to document changes in the publications and equipment, that was the best way to do it.

PC

Would anyone have a good electrical schematic for a Production Motor - EMD SW-9; 16 PIN MU, Electro-Hydraulic Governor, Road/Switch Circuit and Drum Controller?

I just purchased the pictured SW-9 and have no good schematic for her original-configuration wiring. Any help to keep this locomotive in service would be greatly appreciated!!!

If you can help out, send me a message.

I would suggest calling EMD service department:

800-255-5355

Electro-Motive Diesel
9301 West 55th Street
La Grange, IL 60525