The worker sent out to attend to engine 44’s needs between runs must feel more like he’s boarding a ship than climbing onto a locomotive. Just how big is General Electric’s massive U50? At over 83.5 feet long and 15 feet 10.8 inches tall, UP’s 557,800-pound gorilla easily dominates the road’s Pullman engine facility in Denver between runs on October 16, 1966. The U50s are also the most powerful diesels anywhere, producing 160,000 pounds starting tractive effort, well above EMD’s competing DD35A, at 113,940 pounds, and Alco’s Century 855, which achieves 109,000 pounds.
