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The General Motors Pavilion at the New York World's Fair in 1940. One of a series of Kodachromes taken by my great-grandfather, who was a photofinisher in Washington, D.C. View full size.
Guy has it nailed, it's an E6A, Electro-Motive Corporation 1940 (built 11/39, EMC serial number 974). EMC and Winton Engine became the Electro-Motive Division (EMD) of General Motors in 1941. After the World's Fair, the locomotive was sold to the Seaboard Air Line Railroad as their 3014 - in later years she looked like this:
I'm sure a little digging would confirm this, but it happens to be the A Unit of an Electromotive E6 A/B lash-up. The trailing B Unit extended into the pavilion. EMD's E6 model was a twin-engine 12-wheel passenger locomotive available in both an A Unit which included a cab, and a booster B Unit which had no cab but was controlled from the A Unit. Each unit was rated at 2000 hp, and any combination of A and B units could be "lashed up" according to a railroad's needs. Each six-wheel truck had two motors, each geared to one of the two outside axles, the middle set of wheels being used only for weight distribution.
The cutaway locomotive is a GM Electro-Motive division early E model (I'm guessing an E-4).
A steam loco fan like me doesn't give most diesels the time of day, but I have to admit the E-1 through E-6 (nicknamed "slantnoses" for the obvious reason) are a darned pretty sight on the head end of a streamliner.
Love the 39-40 Worlds Fair. My dad's family visted there and the Golden Gate International Expo. Hope your GGF took slides of the Ford building with the crazy V-8 scupture out front.
Ten years earlier, all the men would have been wearing straw hats and all the women fashionable millinery. Twenty to twenty-five years later, it would all be a memory. But weren't the women's hats neat?
Looks a lot like Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced boo-KAY) at far left.
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