Matt Adams - "Bulldogs Downunder" - (from Beaverton, OR)

In 1951, Australia's Railways began to turn to diesels for the road power. The first mainline diesel, an English Electric built by the South Australian Railways' shops entered traffic September 10, 1951. 10 days later, the first mainline EMD, but by licensee Clyde Engineering, entered traffic. Known by SAR as the GM class, the first 11 (GM1-11) were built in an A1A-A1A configuration to meet Australia's axle loading limits and were truly just elongated F units. As a result of the initial GM Class experience, coupled with interest from the Victorian Railways for a C-C version with double ends and the theory the lighter axle loading would be popular globally, EMD went to work. In 1951, VR placed their order for the ML-2 and with what EMD had learned "down under," released the SD7 to the US market, just 5 months before the first ML-2, VR's B Class leader B60, hit the rails in July 1952. Further orders of the GM class were also C-C units. The last new unit built with the "bulldog" nose in the world was CL17, now CLP10, which entered service in June 1972. Remarkably, some of these EMD pioneers can still be found in active service to this day for Southern Shorthaul Railroad, while thanks partly to a lower global demand for iron ore, has allowed GWA to store many of their older examples. Here, we look back and their life as they knew it in 2014, hauling infrastructure and wheat trains in New South Wales and South Australia.