The loco that put GE on the map of builders, broke ground on ALCO's grave and destined EMD to lose domestic market share before the arrival of the new millennium.
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| Posted by SES on July 12, 2019 | |
That said, it was a bit of a miracle GE made it into the competition because many railroads weren't very fond of these U-boats at the beginning. Controls, cab comfort and some performance differences compared to EMD put them in 2nd place for a long time. It wasn't until EMD messed up with the SD50 that they fell behind and GE had dramatically improved cab design. The Milwaukee was so displeased with their fleet that they took their complaints to GE, but GE's reply was the Milwaukee was deferring maintenance, causing the poor performance issues. Personally, I would tend to side with the Milwaukee in this case. If a manufacturer is stupid enough to draw heat off the exhaust manifold to warm the cab, it would lead me to believe there would be other faults in design.
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