America’s Largest Train Museum Just Inherited A Legendary Piece Of Amtrak Locomotive History

For decades, Americans all over the country have taken rides in trains pulled by a legend and perhaps didn’t even know it. The Electro-Motive Division F40PH series has served as the backbone of passenger services from lines in California to New York. These reliable workhorses, which first hit the rails in the mid-1970s, are getting phased out, ending an era. The Illinois Railway Museum, America’s largest train museum, just inherited something special. One of the museum’s newest donations is Amtrak 231, one of only two ex-Amtrak EMD F40PHRs preserved intact. It’s an excellent example of a passenger locomotive legend.

I write a lot about the Illinois Railway Museum (IRM), and part of it is because I’m thoroughly impressed by how the museum’s army of volunteers not only runs a thriving museum but also restores and runs hundreds of pieces of equipment. IRM is the largest train museum in America and the sheer scale of the operation is simply bonkers. The museum is home to over 500 cars and locomotives spread out over 100 acres of land and several barns. IRM’s demonstration track is five miles of former Elgin and Belvidere Electric Company right-of-way. Some train museums have tiny demonstration loops, but IRM’s trains completely leave the museum’s property.

IRM is also known for its incredible roster of railroad legends, from the beautiful Nebraska Zephyr to the monstrous Union Pacific GTEL and even a massive Union Pacific DDA40X. Perhaps even more impressive is that so many of IRM’s locomotives are fully operational, and that included two whole steamers until recently. So, Amtrak 231 is going into good hands, where it can thrive in preservation for decades even long after other EMD F40PHs are removed from service.

Amtrak 231 is also a great representative of an important piece of passenger rail history. In fact, the EMD F40PH is such a workhorse that many of our readers probably rode in a commuter train pulled by an F40PH just this morning.

Building A Better Passenger Locomotive

The F40PH was originally the work of the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors, and its primary mission was to be more or less the first name in passenger locomotives.

This story begins in 1971, when Amtrak began service as America’s passenger railroad company. Previously, private railroads ran both freight and passenger service. This model ran into a crisis in the second half of the 20th century as passenger volumes cratered. Equipment on many roads was becoming old and worn out while many Americans were enamored by flashy cars, Interstate highways, and high-flying jets. Even the mail no longer relied as heavily on rail.

The creation of Amtrak allowed surviving private railroads to focus on lucrative freight operations while most intercity passenger rail now fell under the purview of a single entity.

Initially, Amtrak inherited EMD E and F locomotives from private railroads, but as I just noted, a lot of this equipment was already getting pretty vintage. Amtrak’s answer wasn’t far down the rails, from my piece on the EMD F40C:

In 1973, Amtrak began taking delivery of a new type of locomotive to replace the aging and broken fleet it inherited from private railroads when it opened a couple of years prior. The EMD SDP40F was the first new diesel-electric built specifically for Amtrak and the railroad intended the meaty six-axle beast to be used on its long-distance routes. Based on the EMD FP45 passenger locomotive and the EMD SD40-2 freight locomotive, the SDP40F promised durability and more than enough power to pull long passenger trains at high speeds. These bulky locomotives were powered by EMD 16-645E3 169.6-liter V16 prime movers good for 3,000 HP.

The SDP40Fs would later get involved in a series of high-profile derailments and the source of these derailments had never been determined conclusively. Plenty of theories and investigations are out there, which suggest issues like the locomotive’s alleged yawing tendency and its high-mounted steam generator water tank to taking curves at high speed, and poor dynamics with older baggage cars. Amtrak’s present-day documentation calls the SFP40F “unreliable.”

Further putting a damper on the SDP40F’s service life was its steam generator, which was used to heat the passenger cars. Amtrak eventually moved to head-end power to power the passenger cars, which eliminated the need for bulky steam generators and their associated boilers.

The EMD F40PH series wasn’t originally supposed to replace the SDP40Fs. Instead, these locomotives, which were built starting in 1975, were meant for shorter commuter trains. The F40PH was mechanically similar to an EMD GP40-2 freight road switcher, but with a full cowling and geared for passenger service. A base F40PH weighed around 260,000 pounds, produced 65,000 pounds of starting tractive effort, and had a top speed of around 100 mph. These were also smaller locomotives than Amtrak’s previous beasts featuring four axles and a length of 56 feet. The prime mover was an EMD 16-645E, a 169.6-liter two-cycle V16 making 3,000 HP.

The EMD F40PH was designed to use head-end power for air-conditioning, heat, and electrical power for the passenger coaches. How this worked originally was through a 500 kW alternator driven by the prime mover. The HEP unit generated three-phase 480-volt AC power.

A quirk about this system was that it had to run at a constant 60 Hz frequency, which required the prime mover to run at high speed, independent of what the train was actually doing. If you stood on a platform and a train pulled by an F40PH stopped, you witnessed the prime mover still running high even though the train wasn’t even leaving. This gave the F40PHs a distinctive sound.

The first F40PHs were delivered to Amtrak in 1976, and these units had 500 kW electrical capacity and a 1,500-gallon fuel tank. As it became increasingly obvious that the F40s would have to fill the long-distance roles of the SDP40F, subsequent F40PHs would see upgrades in the form of 800 kW alternators and 1,800-gallon fuel tanks. By 1985, the F40PH-2 launched, which featured power upgraded to 3,200 HP.

The F40PH and its many derivatives would become one of the most popular diesel-electric passenger locomotives in America. Amtrak would ultimately run a fleet of 216 EMD F40 types. Chicago’s Regional Transportation Authority and Metra ordered 115 units over the years. Smaller fleets included Canada’s VIA Rail’s 59 F40s, Caltrain’s 20 F40s, Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority’s 18 F40s, New Jersey Transit’s 17 units, and more. Switzerland’s Speno International SA had four goofy-looking EMD F40PH-2Ms for rail construction use.

EMD built over 400 F40 units, with a few dozen more being constructed by Morrison-Knudsen and MotivePower using parts from older locomotives.

Some variants of the F40PH include generators from Caterpillar (the F40PH-CAT) or Cummins (F40PH-2C) to provide head-end power. These locomotives were longer, but their prime movers were allowed to handle just the operation of running the train since a separate diesel engine handled hotel power. There’s also the F40PHM, an F40 variant with a sort of streamlined appearance that railfans have nicknamed the “Winnebago.”

The F40PH proved to be reliable for Amtrak, with each of the railroad’s examples managing to run over 175,000 miles a year. Amtrak kept its F40PHs in service for a long time, too, and as Trains.com reports, they finally left Amtrak service in the early 2000s. Many of Amtrak’s F40PH locomotives were scrapped. Others went to different railroads. Amtrak also held onto a handful of F40s and gutted them of their diesel-electric powertrains. They went on to live as combination cab and baggage cars for trains that ran in push-pull configurations.

So, if you’ve seen an Amtrak train featuring an EMD F40PH on one end and a newer locomotive on the other end, there’s a pretty good chance that the F40 was actually unpowered and functioned as a cab car.

The F40 remains in service today for many railroads. For example, Metra has been slowly phasing out its fleet of F40s, but there are still plenty of them running down the rails today. VIA Rail sent off a bunch of its F40s for rebuilding in only 2024. The Grand Canyon Railway also has some F40s on its roster.

IRM’s EMD F40PHR

Still, the F40PHs and their variants are slowly fading into the past, so preserving some is important. IRM’s new 1977 EMD F40PHR, which comes from Dynamic Rail Preservation, is an interesting unit.

The F40PHRs were constructed when Amtrak traded several of its SDP40Fs back to EMD to have them scavenged to make F40s. How this worked was that major components, including the prime mover, were lifted out of the SDP40F and installed into an EMD F40PH frame and body. EMD also outfitted these locomotives with 800 kW HEP generators and 1,800-gallon fuel tanks. In essence, Amtrak got locomotives that were identical to new F40PHs, but providing the donor parts meant that Amtrak didn’t pay full price.

According to IRM, this locomotive is one of only two F40PHRs preserved in intact condition. From IRM:

Dynamic Rail Preservation (DynaRail) and the Illinois Railway Museum (IRM) are pleased to announce that DynaRail has donated the two ex-Amtrak diesel locomotives under its care to IRM. The locomotives are Amtrak 231, an F40PHR built in 1977, and Amtrak 644/BNSF 6976, an SDP40F built in 1974. Number 231 is one of only two Amtrak F40PHR locomotives preserved intact, while 644/6976 is the only remaining SDP40F, making both engines nationally significant as representatives of early Amtrak motive power.

Amtrak 231, an F40PHR-type locomotive, with IRMX lettering prior to being moved to the Illinois Railway Museum for preservation “Having been involved in rail preservation for 25 years, and contemplating the future of the saved Amtrak locomotives, I am thrilled to see they have been accepted at IRM,” said Chris Fussell, DynaRail founder. “After attempting to find a home for them at three publicly run museums, the challenges the locomotives faced only served to prove that IRM, a privately operated organization, is a home that guarantees their preservation, plus the decades of work and donations that have gone into them will not be for naught. I have confidence in their organizational structure, security, and longevity for future generations; plus, the donation agreement assures that the DynaRail founders will still be fully involved in the ongoing care and operation of the locomotives, which was a critical component in the quest of finding a home. Thank you, IRM, for helping ensure 231 and 644’s preservation for generations to come!”

“IRM is extremely grateful to Chris and DynaRail, both for making sure these units were preserved in the first place, and of course for donating them to our organization,” said Jamie Kolanowski, Curator of the IRM Diesel Department. “These are our first Amtrak passenger locomotives, so as large as our diesel collection is, this was really something we were lacking. We’re thrilled to be able to give these two engines a permanent home.”

Amtrak 231 was retired in 2001 and was acquired by DynaRail in 2002. Christopher Fussell wrote a heartwarming story about why he chose Amtrak 231 in a yard full of decommissioned F40PHs, and I highly recommend clicking here to read that.

What’s really neat is that, as you read above, IRM’s F40PHR is joined by the EMD SDP40F painted in a glorious Maersk Sealand livery shown earlier in this post. So, IRM now has an F40PHR and its direct predecessor. What’s also great is that both of these locomotives have seen a lot of recent work and both are in running order. Amtrak 231’s last paint job was completed in 2024. This is great for IRM, as the museum should have an easier time getting these locomotives ready to run on the demonstration track.

IRM still has a lot of other things going on. In addition to working on five diesel-electric locomotives, including the legendary EMD F40C that I wrote about earlier this year, IRM’s Frisco 1630 steamer has been sidelined this year and will be expected to be out of service for at least a couple of years for repairs and improvements. You can help the museum by paying a visit, donating, or even lending a helping hand. Otherwise, you bet I’m going to check out these new locomotives as soon as I can.

(Topshot: IRM)