(erielack) More on EL 628s

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Another factor that should be remembered in this discussion as to why the EL 
never bought C628s was the GM/EMDs very aggresive "marketing" and clout with 
the railroads. 

Back around late '60s the Justice department filed a anti-trust suit agains 
GM in the diesel locomotive industry. This was reported in the newspapers at 
the time but I have seen very nothing about it since. The government charged 
GM  with:

1. Forcing Baldwin and Fairbanks-Morse out of the locomtive business

2. Threatening to build the new auto plants and relocate exisitng ones on 
other railroads if the line did not buy EMD

3. Threatening to send auto parts and completed auto shipments on other 
lines.

The government apparently had a weak case and the suit was dropped. BUT....GE
went into the road deisel business shortly after and EMD agreed to reduce its 
share of the market. Before that all thAt GE built was electrics, industrail, 
and export locos (except for a few  early switchers). The U25B came out of 
this. All of which indicates an out of court settlement so there must have 
been some "fire where there was smoke".

EMD had another advantage in it's ability to make very attractive trade-in 
offers on old F units since many of the parts were reusable on new EMD 
models. Trade in value of Alco power was already limited. GMs technical 
experience after years of diesel engine development outstripped all the 
competitors, including their design of their fuel injection system for the 
two cycle  diesel...prompted largely by getting around the Bosch system 
patents which all the people in the 4 cycle engine industry had to use and 
pay dearly for. Without going into all the technical details, the GM 
injection system was a brilliant piece of engineering,

All this is not to say that I don't love those Alcos as much as anyone. Even 
did the engineering design for Stewart on their C628. 

Chuck Yungkurth
Boulder CO


All this was, of course, before the C628 - SD45 era but it showed the 
marketing and
field service clout of EMD.

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