One of railroading's most famous diesel locomotive manufacturers, Fairbanks, Morse and Co., actually began life as an engine builder for the U.S. Navy thanks to its revolutionary opposed-piston diesel power plants first developed in the early 1930s. By 1944, the company entered the locomotive business when its first H10-44 diesel switcher rolled out of the FM shops destined for the Milwaukee Road railroad.
Fairbanks Morse officials knew that real success in the locomotive business would only come if the company could produce a road cab engine and elected to use a Raymond Loewy carbody design to make that goal a reality. Unfortunately, FM did not have the shop capacity to produce the engine themselves so it was contracted out to General Electric's nearby Erie, Pennsylvania plant. Thus, FM's first road cab engine was dubbed the "Erie-Built" and made its debut in 1945. A total of 111 of the 8,000 horsepower haulers were produced with the last retired from the Kansas City Southern in 1966.
The Erie-Built marks M.T.H.'s fourth recreation of a Fairbanks Morse locomotive following the Trainmaster, H10-44 Switcher and the C-Liner. Like its Premier line predecessors, the Erie-Built, last produced in 2004, offers the O Scale model railroad enthusiast unmatched value thanks to the awesome sounds and features of Proto-Sound 3.0, intricate body detail, crisp decoration and incredible pulling power.
