The EMD GP11 is a four-axle

diesel locomotive A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is conveyed to the driving whee ...

rebuilt by the

Illinois Central Railroad The Illinois Central Railroad , sometimes called the Main Line of Mid-America, was a railroad in the Central United States, with its primary routes connecting Chicago, Illinois, with New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mobile, Alabama. A line al ...

Paducah Paducah ( ) is a home rule-class city in and the county seat of McCracken County, Kentucky. The largest city in the Jackson Purchase region, it is located at the confluence of the Tennessee and the Ohio rivers, halfway between St. Louis, Miss ...

shops. It is very similar in appearance to the

GP8 The EMD GP8 is a model of four-axle diesel locomotive rebuilt by Illinois Central's Paducah shops using a General Motors Electro-Motive Division (EMD) GP7, GMD GP7 or GP9 as a start. It is similar to the GP10 and GP11. A total of 111 units wer ...

and

GP10 The EMD GP10 is a diesel-electric locomotive that is the result of rebuilding a GP7, GP9 or GP18. The Illinois Central Railroad had three separate rebuild programs to upgrade their old EMD GPs and GPs that they had purchased from equipment de ...

. The Illinois Central Railroad began its GP11 rebuilding program in 1978. All units were rebuilt from recycled

EMD GP7 The EMD GP7 is a four-axle ( B-B) diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division and General Motors Diesel between October 1949 and May 1954.Pinkepank, Jerry A. (1973) pp. 53 Power was provided by an EMD 567B 16 ...

, GP9 or

GP18 The EMD GP18 is a 4-axle diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors, Electro-Motive Division between December 1959 and November 1963. Power was provided by an EMD 567D1 16- cylinder engine which generated . The GP18 replaced the GP9 in ...

parts. Spotting features are an angled cab, exterior paper air filter, new air intake for the

traction motor A traction motor is an electric motor used for propulsion of a vehicle, such as locomotives, electric or hydrogen vehicles, elevators or electric multiple unit. Traction motors are used in electrically powered rail vehicles ( electric multip ...

s and four exhaust stacks. Internally they had Dash 2 solid state electrical equipment.

Original buyers

A total of 54 of these remanufactured locomotives were built from April 1978 to 1981. The first prototype unit of this model was numbered 8301. To avoid confusion the 8700-series was created to separate the GP11s from the

s. It was intended that 8301 would be renumbered 8700 but that never happened. IC units 8701 through 8726 were built in 1979 while units 8727 through 8750 were built in 1980; the remaining three from 8751 to 8753 were built in early 1981. Core units for the rebuilds came from IC GP9, a lone IC GP18, MBTA GP9, RDG GP7 and UP GP7, GP9 and GP9B. In Spring 1979, the Clinchfield Railroad sent six GP7s to Paducah to be rebuilt to GP11s. These units were called

GP16 The EMD GP16 are a series of rebuilt diesel-electric locomotives, a result of a remanufacturing program initiated by the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad (SCL) in an effort to spare the cost of purchasing new motive power in the late 1970s. This in ...

s by Clinchfield.

Disposition

The majority of Illinois Central's GP11 roster was retired prior to

Canadian National The Canadian National Railway Company (french: Compagnie des chemins de fer nationaux du Canada) is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN ...

's purchase of the railroad, though many of these engines can still be seen in service on other short-line railroads and/or preserved in various locations. * Illinois Central #8701, the second production GP11 rebuild from the Paducah shops in 1979, is now preserved & sitting on static display outside the passenger station in downtown

Carbondale, Illinois Carbondale is a city in Jackson and Williamson Counties, Illinois, United States, within the Southern Illinois region informally known as "Little Egypt". The city developed from 1853 because of the stimulation of railroad construction into the ...

. * Illinois Central #8733, a former GP9 rebuilt in 1980, was donated to the Monticello Railway Museum in

Monticello, Illinois Monticello ( ) is a city in Piatt County, Illinois, United States. The population was 5,941 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Piatt County. Geography Monticello is located at (40.028092, −88.573003). According to the 2010 censu ...

, by Canadian National in 2001 where it has since been restored and remains in operational condition. * Illinois Central #8749, a former EMD GP9 rebuilt in 1980, later went on to other railroads, first SLR 8749, then NREX 8749, SWP 8749, and currently is SWP 2006. Originally built as IC 9314 GP9 in December 1957. * Illinois Central #8702, built in Paducah shops, now an active locomotive on the Pittsburgh and Ohio Central Railroad.

References

External links

GP11 Photographs
''Rail Pictures.net''
GP11 Photographs
''RR Picture Archives.net'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Gp11 Electro-Motive Diesel locomotives Illinois Central locomotives B-B locomotives Diesel-electric locomotives of the United States Railway locomotives introduced in 1978 Rebuilt locomotives Standard gauge locomotives of the United States

Original buyers

Disposition

See also

References

External links