The Diesel That Started It All

While the 1350 HP EMD FT was the diesel that retired the steam engine, this little boxcab was the diesel that started it all. The 300 HP Alco-GE-Ingersoll Rand boxcab was the first production diesel-electric produced in North America. General Electric had been experimenting with internal combustion rail power for nearly two decades when, in the mid-1920s, it formed a partnership with Ingersoll Rand and Alco to manufacture diesel-electrics. GE made the traction motors and generator, IR supplied the diesel motor, and Alco built the mechanical parts. In the summer of 1925, the Central Railroad of New Jersey (Jersey Central) bought the first boxcab demonstrator, and CNJ #1000 became the first production diesel-electric owned by an American railroad. In December, the second engine in the production run became Baltimore & Ohio #1, and orders soon followed from the Chicago & North Western, Reading, and Erie. The diesel revolution had quietly begun.  CNJ 1000 had a three-decade career switching the Bronx Terminal Yard, acquiring a Jersey Central Lines "Miss Liberty" paint job along the way. In 1957 it went to a well-earned retirement at the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore. In 2007, MTH brought out this fine Premier line die-cast model of the CNJ 1000, which I have seen at the museum in Baltimore.  In this True HD 1080p video, you get to see it hauling a very prototypical consist of Jersey Central freight cars and in the slow-speed run-by, you can see all of the detail packed into this little model.  By comparing it to the photos on the B&O Museum page on my web site, you can see just what a good model of the prototype it is.