The EMD F9 is a 1,750 horsepower (1,300 kW) Diesel-electric locomotive produced between February 1953 and May 1960 by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors (EMD) and General Motors Diesel (GMD). It succeeded the F7 model in GM-EMD's F-unit sequence. Final assembly was at GM-EMD's La Grange, Illinois plant.

When the diesel age began right after WWII, the most popular locomotive was the Electro-Motive Division (EMD) F Series. The F Series locomotives were produced from 1939 to 1960. They were called F Series because the first one, the FT, was fourteen hundred horsepower. The last one, the F9, would be 1,750 hp.

The F7 (1949) and F9 (1954) were evolutionary: the F7 had improved traction motors, the F9 a 1,750 hp (1.30 MW) 567C engine. A louver arrangement over the vents changed their appearance from the F3. There were also 4-foot-longer (1.2 m) versions, the FP7 and FP9, the extra length being used to house a tank for extra water capacity.

Originally built for the Northern Pacific, ex-Burlington Northern F9 972570 (and 972571) sits in the weeds at the shuttered West Burlington Shops while an empty PRB coal train passes. BNSF closed the (originally CB&Q) facility in 2004.

In October 1990 the executive paint scheme was introduced on the company’s newly rebuilt F9 engines BN-1 and BN-2 and business car Stevens Pass. Also known as “Grinstein green” for Gerald Grinstein the president of BN, it was a departure from the standard BN colors.

Burlington Northern Photographic Roster. Unit # Notes Model Serial # Pictures : BN Shop: West Burlington Shop Switcher

Burlington Northern BN1 is a modernized diesel locomotive known as a “cab unit.” It was built as an F9A mixed-traffic engine for the Northern Pacific Railroad, which used it to pull both passenger and freight trains. It was switched to pure freight duty in the early 1970s and was later rebuilt as a power unit for a rotary snow plow.

BNSF donated BNSF SD9 6234 to the Minnesota Transportation Museum in October 2003. MTM had the unit repainted at Wisconsin & Southern’s Horicon, WI paint shop in December 2007 with a new coat of BN “Cascade Green” and retaining the BN 6234 road number.