EMD Displays – Transportable F-Unit Cab

This EMD transportable F-unit cab display was constructed around 1947 and was shown at a wide variety of events through about 1953. Known loocations where it was displayed included EMD company events as well as railroad industry trade shows, one Railroad Fair, a number of State Fairs, and town and city events.

The cab, which was very minimally altered from production, was fitted to the rear of a flat construction equipment trailer, positioned so the cab was facing backward. The rig was hauled around by a cab-over-engine GMC highway truck. On arrival at an event it was simply backed into place in the exhibit hall, and the stairways and ground information displays which were also carried on the flatbed deck were unloaded and positioned. Notice that the “pilot” of the locomotive cab is not metal, it is a cloth fabric skirt that hides the wheels of the trailer. At some events the highway truck cab was polished up and displayed in back of the F-unit locomotive cab.

The cab wore several paint schemes during its years of service. Exact disposition of the display is not known but it could have been turned over to the wreck rebuild services on its retirement as a display, since it would have been easily usable as a replacement for a damaged locomotive cab.

There are surviving photographs that show the cab at events with large numbers of visitors. The possibilities for a museum to duplicate this kind of display are pretty obvious.

PC

Promotion is everything.

People see this and remember the company that built this fine locomotive can build you a good, reliable Chevy. With a stovebolt 6 of course.

Phil Mulligan

Did EMD have an in-house department that built these displays and models?

In my experience the trade show displays were developed cooperatively by Sales Department, Public Relations, and Engineering Department. The Paint and Styling group sometimes developed water color concept paintings of the proposed displays for management review. Some were assembled in the Engineering Workshop (if retired equipment from engineering was being used), some in the Parts Building, and a few involved outside contractors.

In the 1940s the trade show displays for the year were sometimes discussed at the annual management meeting. Summaries of those meetings were archived in the Public Relations Department and were fascinating to review. At the 1947 meeting there was a proposal to gather all the obsolete trade show displays and preserve them as a company museum. It was not adopted.

PC

Two museums in Ontario both have CN F-unit cabs.

I believe I remember a simulator display of some kind at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. It was the cab or a mockup of a cab of a hood unit diesel. There were screens of the track as you "drove" the train. I remember this being there a long time ago. I was probably between 9 and 10. I don't remember it being there when visiting this past spring. Could do something similar with an F-Unit cab perhaps.

Since the display cab in the OP was mobile, I wonder if a museum could do something similar and bring it around to different places as a way of advertising for the museum.