EMC TA

The EMC TA was a diesel locomotive model built in 1937 by the Electro-Motive Corporation for the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, which was its only customer. Six units, numbered 601 to 606, powered the original Rock Island Rocket streamliner trainsets built by the Budd Company. The T in the name meant twelve hundred horsepower and the A meant a cab-equipped lead unit. Each had a single Winton 201-A engine, so it was shorter and lighter than the twin-engine E-units of the same year, and rode on two-axle trucks in a B-B arrangement. Its carbody truss construction and styling pointed the way to later EMC passenger and freight designs. Unlike many early streamliner power cars, the TAs were separate locomotives that could haul ordinary cars, so they worked local and suburban trains until they were retired in 1957 and 1958 and scrapped.