The UM12C is a type of

diesel-electric locomotive A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover (locomotive), prime mover is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is conv ...

manufactured by GE for

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...

n rail operators. It is currently in service with the

State Railway of Thailand The State Railway of Thailand (SRT) ( th, การรถไฟแห่งประเทศไทย, abbrev. รฟท., ) is the state-owned rail operator under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Transport in Thailand. History The SRT was ...

. It was also operated by the Manila Railroad Company and the

Philippine National Railways The Philippine National Railways (PNR) ( fil, Pambansang Daang-Bakal ng Pilipinas and es, Ferrocarril Nacional de Filipinas) is a state-owned railway company in the Philippines which operates one commuter rail service between Metro Manila an ...

from 1956 until 1999. While the units for both companies feature a shovelnose layout, the MRR locomotives were single-ended and had a

cowl unit A cowl unit is a body style of diesel locomotive. The terminology is a North American one, though similar locomotives exist elsewhere. A cowl unit is one with full-width enclosing bodywork, similar to the cab unit style of earlier locomotives, ...

cab, the SRT locomotives are double-ended

cab forward The term cab forward refers to various rail and road vehicle designs that place the driver's compartment substantially farther towards the front than is common practice. Rail locomotives In steam locomotive design, a cab forward design will ...

units.

MRR/PNR 2000 class

The Manila Railroad Company (MRR) announced the

dieselization Dieselisation (US: dieselization) is the process of equipping vehicles with a diesel engine or diesel engines. It can involve replacing an internal combustion engine powered by petrol (gasoline) fuel with an engine powered by diesel fuel, as o ...

of its locomotive fleet in 1954.

GE Transportation GE Transportation is a division of Wabtec. It was known as GE Rail and owned by General Electric until sold to Wabtec on February 25, 2019. The organization manufactures equipment for the railroad, marine, mining, drilling and energy generation ...

was selected as the supplier of diesel-electric locomotives. The agency bought fifty units in which thirty were

streamlined Streamlines, streaklines and pathlines are field lines in a fluid flow. They differ only when the flow changes with time, that is, when the flow is not steady. Considering a velocity vector field in three-dimensional space in the framework of ...

mainline locomotives and twenty were

switcher A switcher, shunter, yard pilot, switch engine, yard goat, or shifter is a small railroad locomotive used for manoeuvring railroad cars inside a rail yard in a process known as ''switching'' (US) or ''shunting'' (UK). Switchers are not inten ...

s. Twenty of these were the UM12C

road switcher A road switcher is a type of railroad locomotive designed to both haul railcars in mainline service and shunt them in railroad yards. Both type and term are North American in origin, although similar types have been used elsewhere. A road s ...

model MRR 2000 class. These were some of the first locomotives to feature the

design. The locomotives were introduced to the MRR in 1956. Along with the

cab unit In North American railroad terminology, a cab unit is a railroad "locomotive" with its own cab and controls. "Carbody unit" is a related term, which may be either a cabless booster unit controlled from a linked cab unit, or a cab unit that cont ...

1000 class, they formed the mainline locomotive fleet in Luzon until the late 1970s and the early 1980s. Starting in 1973, a newer

GE Universal Series The GE Universal Series are a series of diesel locomotives intended for the export market introduced by General Electric in early 1956. General Electric had previously partnered with Alco, producing locomotives for export using Alco’s 244 engin ...

type numbered the

PNR 900 class The PNR 900 class is a class of 21 GE Universal Series diesel–electric locomotives operated by the Philippine National Railways since 1973. The locomotives comes with 3 different types: U14CP (1973), U14C (1979), and U15C (1991). Initially use ...

was introduced on mainline passenger services. Due to its popularity on services such as the ''Amianan Express'' and the ''Bicol Express'', it eventually replaced the 1000 and 2000 classes from passenger service. The 2000 class continued service until January 1999 and the remaining units were immediately scrapped.

State Railway of Thailand

The State Railway of Thailand purchased 50 units of a meter gauge version of the UM12C. Unlike the Philippine version, it features a dual cab layout with a

design. As of 2015, 45 units remain in service with the SRT.

References

UM12C C-C locomotives Metre gauge diesel locomotives Railway locomotives introduced in 1956 3 ft 6 in gauge locomotives {{diesel-loco-stub