Union Pacific U50 No. 45 at Kearney, Nebraska, in September 1970.
Francis Wiener, T. Hoffman Collection
U50
•YEARS BUILT: 1963-1965, 1969-1971
•MANUFACTURER: General Electric
•OPERATED ON: Union Pacific, Southern Pacific
•NAMES: U50 and U50C; nicknames, Twin Diesels, Double Diesels, Whirlybirds, Choppers, Stalkcutters, Rock Crushers
•QUANTITY: 66
•HORSEPOWER: 5,000
•KNOWN FOR: Large cab with curved nose; long and loud
•STATUS: All were scrapped
Must have been some kind of view out the forward windshield, and then the cab occupants would be first on the scene of an accident……………
Who wrote these? Similarities: GE, Double Diesel, big round nose. Not the same: running gear (U50 bridged B-B trucks, U50C C-C trucks both from retired turbine units). Mechanical layouts, U50 radiators at each end of the car body, U50C has radiators in the center. Of course the cooper-bessmer diesel engines were different as well. SP only had U50s, U50C was exclusively a UP locomotive.