Skip to content. | Skip to navigation

Personal tools
Sections
Search the Archives
Browse the Archives

Route Name

Follow Amtrak Online
 
Home > Archives > AEM-7s enter revenue service, 1980.

AEM-7s enter revenue service, 1980.

Black and white photograph showing the christening of AEM-7 No. 901 on May 9, 1980. This was the first AEM-7 to enter revenue service.

AEM-7s enter revenue service, 1980.

On May 9, 1980, dignitaries gathered at Washington Union Station to mark the entry of the first AEM-7 into revenue service. Congressman Robert W. Edgar, whose district included part of southeastern Pennsylvania, christened locomotive No. 901 with a bottle of champagne.

Behind him are officials from Amtrak, the General Motors Corporation Electro-Motive Division (EMD), Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and Allmanna Svenska Elektriska Aktiebolaget (ASEA), the Swedish firm whose Rc4 locomotive heavily influenced the design of the AEM-7. From left to right they include: Arne Mark, ASEA president; Peter K. Hoglund, EMD general manager; Louis Thompson, FRA director, Northeast Corridor Improvement Project; and Tom Hackney, group vice president for Amtrak operations and maintenance.

Following the ceremony, No 901 departed Washington for New York leading Metroliner Service train No. 108. Amtrak contracted with EMD to manufacture the AEM-7, which was produced between 1978 and 1988. Behind the locomotive are Amfleet cars, which were first put into service in 1975.

Photographer: Ed Wojtas for Amtrak.