Northern Pacific Railway locomotives

4-6-2 steam locomotive No. 2256

Northern Pacific adopted the 4-6-2 wheel arrangement as its main passenger engine early, receiving 20 class Q Pacifics from Alco in 1903. Six other classes followed, culminating in the Q-6 of 1923, exemplified by No. 2256.

H. F. Harvey collection

4-8-4 steam locomotive No. 2606

When heavier train weights began to tax the Q-6 Pacifics, Northern Pacific sought an engine with more power — and a large firebox to burn cheap, low-grade Rosebud coal. The result was the class A of 1926, an engine with eight drivers for power and a four-wheel trailing truck to carry a big firebox. NP 2600–2612 were the first 4-8-4s.

Robert F. Collins, Louis A. Marre collection

U25C diesel locomotives

Northern Pacific had the largest fleet of General Electric U25C diesels, owning 30 of the 113 units GE produced between September 1963 and December ’65.

General Electric

F3 diesel locomotives

A brand-new A-B-B set of EMD F3 diesels is at St. Paul, Minn., in the late 1940s. The units were painted in Northern Pacific’s original passenger-service livery of two-tone green with a yellow nose.

R. V. Nixon

2-8-8-4 steam locomotive No. 5006

Northern Pacific’s 12 Z-5 freight locomotives were the first 2-8-8-4 Yellowstone types and, at the time of their construction in 1928 and ’30, the largest engines in the world. Their immense fireboxes, sized for low-grade Rosebud coal, were eventually found to be too big for efficient operation.

Harold K. Vollrath collection

FT diesel locomotives

Northern Pacific had 22 FTA units and 22 FTBs, which it operated initially as 11 four-unit sets. Built in 1944–45, some of them were the last FTs to operate in the United States.

EMD

4-6-6-4 steam locomotive No. 5107

Northern Pacific 5107 was from the road’s first order of Challengers, built by Alco in 1936–37. Eleven more followed in 1941, and a further 20 in 1943–44, for a total of 47 4-6-6-4s.

Alco

F9 diesel locomotives

Northern Pacific acquired seven F9A units and two F9Bs in 1954–56 for transcontinental passenger service. They were painted in the new paint scheme of two-tone green with white accent designed by Raymond Loewy Associates for the North Coast Limited.

EMD

SD45 diesel locomotives

Brand-new SD45s 3600–3603 — the first of 30 such 3,600 h.p. units EMD delivered to Northern Pacific in 1966–68 — pose for a publicity photo.

NP

4-8-4 steam locomotive No. 2677

Northern Pacific gave the 4-8-4 type its “Northern” name when the road received the first ones in 1926. NP amassed a fleet of 49 4-8-4s in six classes. A-4 2677 was from the next-to-last class, built in 1941.

William J. Pontin