EMD MRS - 1 The EMD MRS - 1 is a type of diesel - electric locomotive built by General Motors Electro - Motive Division for the United States Army Transportation Corps ( USATC ) in 1952 . They were built with multigauge trucks and to a narrow loading gauge for service anywhere in the world in the event of war . Thirteen of the locomotives were built , with serial numbers 15873 – 15885 . At almost $ 500 , 000 each in 1952 dollars , more than three times the price of a standard locomotive of the period , these were very expensive locomotives . Declared un - needed for wartime operations in about 1970 , they were then used on various military bases around the United States , with some serving on the Alaska Railroad . Five locomotives are preserved , three currently in operating condition . History . Development . The Korean War and the intensification of the Cold War at the beginning of the 1950s caused the USATC to consider what it might need for a new land war in Europe . They came up with a requirement for a locomotive capable of running on the existing tracks of a wide variety of railway systems . Key parts of the specification included adjustable - gauge trucks , compact bodywork to fit restrictive loading gauge s and structure gauge s , replaceable couplers to fit a variety of systems , and a power output of . The trucks ' wheelsets adjusted between standard gauge ( ) and Indian gauge ( ) , which encompasses the vast majority of the broad gauge s in use worldwide , including those of the then Soviet Union ( Russian gauge ) and of the Iberian peninsula ( Iberian gauge ) . The specification was put out to tender , and two companies responded ; GM and GE . Both companies were given contracts to produce a batch of thirteen locomotives which would be evaluated by the USATC ; the vendor providing the better locomotive would then produce the rest of the required locomotives . Both manufacturers delivered their sample batch in 1952 , and after testing the GE locomotives , which were actually produced by Alco as a subcontractor , were declared the winner , and a further batch of 70 Alco MRS - 1 locomotives were ordered . No more EMD locomotives were built . As delivered , they were painted in gloss black with white numbering and lettering . They were numbered as 1808 – 1820 in US Army service . Military service . The initial fate of most of the MRS - 1 locomotives was to be placed in storage at the USATC ' s Transportation Materiel Command facility at Marietta , Pennsylvania awaiting a war to use them in ; they had not been purchased for peacetime use . These brand - new locomotives , with at most a couple of weeks ' actual use , sat preserved until approximately 1970 , when the Pentagon concluded that their plans for a future , large - scale land war no longer included the capture and use of the enemy ' s railway system . Thus the 96 locomotives were redundant for their original purpose . Many of the units were taken out of storage and assigned to various military installations around the country , where locomotives of that size and power were required . Five EMD MRS - 1s were sent to the Naval Ammunition Depot in Hawthorne , Nevada ( now the Hawthorne Army Depot ) , but were unsuccessful there and placed into storage . Cold - weather testing . Unit # 1820 was not placed into storage ; instead , it was used initially for cold - weather testing . It was broken in on the Belt Railway of Chicago , and in November 1952 the locomotive was shipped to the Canadian National Railway for testing on the Hudson Bay Railway between The Pas and Churchill , Manitoba , where it became the first diesel locomotive to operate on that line . In May 1953 , the locomotive returned to the BRC ' s shops in Chicago where it was stripped down and examined for abnormal wear from the cold weather , which was not found . The locomotive was then used at Fort Eustis for regular service and training . Unit # 1909 was also sent for cold - weather testing , in this case to the Alaska Railroad for a 3 - year trial period . Shipped back in 1955 , its engine was rebored to a larger size and slightly greater power output , then placed into storage . In 1969 it was reactivated and sent to the Vandenberg Air Force Base for service hauling supplies for the proposed Manned Orbiting Laboratory and components for Titan launch vehicles . European testing . Locomotive # 1818 was fitted with European buffers and couplers very soon after delivery and sent to Europe for Army testing and training and secondarily as an EMD demonstrator . It ran extensively on the Deutsche Bundesbahn ( DB ) and proved quite successful , although the DB preferred German - designed diesel - hydraulic locomotive s . Subsequently , it tested on both SNCF ( France ) and NMBS / SNCB ( Belgium ) , in the latter case successfully for GM - EMD since the NMBS / SNCB subsequently purchased EMD - licensed NOHAB locomotives . Alaska Railroad . The 1952 - 1955 trial of # 1809 was not the last appearance of an MRS - 1 on Alaska Railroad metals . In 1977 , the five MRS - 1 locomotives that had been unsuccessfully transferred to the Navy were moved to Alaska to join thirteen of their Alco cousins . Preserved survivors . Five of the thirteen EMD MRS - 1 locomotives built survive in preservation . Of these , two ( # 1809 and # 1820 ) are in operation at the San Diego Railroad Museum ; # 1811 is on display at the U . S . Army Transportation Museum at Fort Eustis , Virginia ; # 1813 is in operation at the Heber Valley Historic Railroad ; and # 1818 is preserved at the Museum of Alaska Transportation and Industry in Wasilla , Alaska . Update ( 11 / 27 / 10 ) Photo found online shows # 1718 on display in Wasilla , Alaska Spotting features . Being produced to the same specification , both GE / ALCO and EMD MRS - 1s are very similar in appearance and can easily be mistaken ; they are both C - C road - switcher s that are very low in profile in order to fit within European loading gauge s and structure gauge s . The major exterior differences are the peaked cab roof and long hood roof on the EMD locomotives , and the radiator intakes on the sides of the long hood end , which have outside shutters on the Alco locomotives . In addition , the short hood is visibly lower than the long hood , thanks to the long hood ' s peaked roof ; on the ALCO units , the two are the same height . The frame side sills are also different ; the Alco ' s are straight from front to rear , while the EMD ' s step down towards each end of the locomotive . Naming . For a long while it was believed that " MRS - 1 " was an invented railfan name , since it did not appear to have been the official model name in documentation from the USATC or the manufacturers ; it was thought to have been derived from " Military Railway Service " , the USATC unit that operated them . However , Stefan Nicolaï has found that the designation " MRS - 1 " appears on the cover of EMD ' s operating manual for these locomotives , where it appears as " Military Road Switcher MRS - 1 " .