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The EMD GP7 Model Train Locomotive is modeled after EMD GP7 built by Electro-Motive Diesel, Inc. The GP7, built for both passenger and freight, was produced from 1949 to 1954. Nearly 2800 engines were built and painted in over 70 road-names. Many of these road names are available in the ho-scale. Those that are not leave a great opportunity for a custom painted model train engine.
The GP7 was the first train to use a hood design as apposed to the car-body design (that usually seen pulling passenger cars). This body design provided the GP7 and its predecessors with a cheaper hood, cheaper maintenance, and gave the engineer better visibility especially to the rear.
GP7 Description: Nicknamed "torpedo tubes" because of their long uniform shape the only exception being the slightly wider engineering cab. The service walkways are on the outside. Most GP7s have three sets of ventilation grills under the cab and two pair of grills at the end of the long hood. Above the fuel tank early GP7s had a solid skirt while the later models added access holes.
Some of the more popular road-names that used the GP7 during production years and are available in the ho-scale are the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad (#100 #253), Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (#720 #731, #740 #746, #910 #922, #6405), Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (#5700 #5719, #5739 #5797, #5800 #5900), Chicago and North Western Railway (#1518 #1550, #1556 #1559, #1562 #1599, #1601 #1603, #1625 #1659), and Louisville and Nashville Railroad (#400 #440, #500 #514, #501 #502, #550 #552).
Numerous GP7s have been preserved and would make a great idea to model a model train layout after. Some preserved locomotives include the Central Railroad of New Jerseys GP7Ps, #1523 and #1524 owned by the United Railways Historical Society, the Chicago and North Western Railways #1518, the Illinois Terminal GP7 #1605 being preserved by the Illinois Railway Museum, and Western Pacific #705, #707 and #708 at the Western Pacific Railroad Museum.
Other GP-Series locomotives include the GP9 and GP18, similar in body to the GP7, GP15, GP18, GP20, GP28, GP30, GP35, GP38, GP39, GP40, GP49, GP50, GP59, GP60. There are also variation of each of these such as dummy or B-units.
Electro-Motive Diesel, Inc. was originally the Electro-Motive Engineering Company founded in 1992 in Cleveland, Ohio and was purchased by GM in 1930 to become the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors Corporation. The company was finally sold in 2005 and became the Electro-Motive Diesel, Inc. as it is today. At time the largest builder of locomotives in the world until it was overtaken by GE in the 1980s.
Nearly every locomotive created by EMD has been modeled into an ho-scale model train. The two most common series of model trains are the GP-Series and SD-Series model designations.
