MTH ELECTRIC TRAINS

The EMD F-unit, built by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors, was "the diesel that did it" - vanquished the steam engine from American railroads. While other diesel manufacturers competed with EMD, the various versions of the ubiquitous F unit - FT, F3, and F7 - became the icons of the diesel revolution.

In 1939-40, a quartet of F-units barnstormed across 35 states, logging 83,764 miles on 20 railroads and proving once and for all that diesels were the wave of the future. One of EMD's largest customers was the Santa Fe Railroad. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway stretched from Chicago to the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. Almost everywhere in the Midwest and the Southwest, Santa Fe trains were a part of daily life, carrying passengers and freight for more than a century. Santa Fe diesels hustled freight across plains, through deserts, and over mountains until 1996, when the AT&SF merged with the Burlington Northern to form the Burlington Northern Santa Fe - which is today one of America's largest and most successful railroads.