NW3

The Great Northern owned seven of these units. The NW3 was ordered five times from EMC/EMD and deliveries spanned from November 1939 to March 1942. It is very possible that additional NW3s would have been built had not the War Production Board halted EMD's switcher line for several years.

Preston Cook called these the first true road switchers, although the Alco RS-1 gets the honor of being first, the NW3 was built first. The common items in these seven units were the 12-567 diesel engine, the Blomberg road trucks in B-B arrangement, the 2250 pound per hour steam generator and the 59:18 high speed gearing. The NW3 was built with the D4 generator and four D7 traction motors.

The differences are the 12-567 diesel engines installed in the first two units, GN 5400-5401. They may have been the 567U deck version, that is not certain at this time as the change over to the 12-567V deck version may have been in progress when the first two NW3s were built. The remaining five NW3's production falls within the range of the 567V deck engine. The first two NW3s share the same wiring diagram: 8029670. The next three NW3s have sequential serial numbers, which indicates they were planned at the same time, but were on three different orders: E334, E413, and E437. Great Northern #5402-5403 have the same wiring diagram 8055050 and were shipped seven months apart, September 1940 and April 1941. The NW3 #5404 has a December 1941 shipping date and wiring diagram 8062572. The last two NW3s built, Great Northern 5405-5406 have the same wiring diagram as #5404 and were shipped in March 1942.

What was the original service for these units? The steam generators and passenger gearing suggest some type of passenger service.

At least one of these NW3s survives on display in Montana.

Ed in Kentucky

This linked photo from Don's Depot shows a brand new GN #5402 in Minot, ND in 1940. http://www.donsdepot.donrossgroup.net/dr1201/gn5402.jpg

Great Northern had an NW and an NW1 both delivered by EMC in January 1938 on consecutive orders. The NW was built with Westinghouse electrical gear and the NW1 was built with GE electrical gear. The GN then followed up this initial EMC diesel order with 2 SW1s and 22 NW2s all built in 1939 between February and August. The first two NW3s were shipped in November 1939. This points to GN satisfaction with the previous EMC units. And raises a couple of questions: Did GN experiment with any of these early EMC switchers in branchline passenger service? Was the NW3 a response to any experiment? Was the NW3 solely a GN idea, EMC idea, or both?

SSW921 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 18, 2022 11:00 am What was the original service for these units? The steam generators and passenger gearing suggest some type of passenger service.

While this doesn't say what motive power would be used on a train, in 1960 the Great Northern operated a good number of mixed trains on branchlines in North Dakota and Montana.

http://streamlinermemories.info/GN/GN6-60TT.pdf

The NW-3 currently on display in Whitefish likely could have run the line to Kalispell (the original main, later turned branchline) as well as to Eureka, for example (however not too far away from the NW-3 is a restored "Bruck" bus, also in GN Empire Builder colors, that was known to run the Whitefish-Kalispell route.) The 1960 timetable only shows bus service to Kalispell.