EMD In North Salt Lake, Utah
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This page was last updated on June 19, 2025.
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Overview
At the same time as the completion of Union Pacific's Salt Lake shops in early August 1955, General Motor's Electro-Motive Division (EMD) completed its own factory branch in nearby North Salt Lake, Utah, a separate community located north of Salt Lake City, but across the county line in adjacent Davis County. EMD's North Salt Lake facility was meant as an important link in a series of factory branches, and was built to serve railroads and electric utilities throughout the west.
The North Salt Lake facility was officially dedicated on Wednesday, April 6, 1955, after having been under construction for the previous two years. EMD had foreseen its need and had purchased the needed 9.4 acres in May 1952, with the help of the Union Pacific Land Department.
The facility was equipped with a 20-ton overhead crane, and an enclosed load cell for the testing of remanufactured diesel engines, along with a short spur and interior loading dock. By the early 1950s, the railroads in the west were well into entering their second phase of dieselization, upgrading from FT and F3 to F7 and F9 freight locomotives, and from the earlier models of the pioneering E-series to the newer E8 and E9 passenger locomotives. A facility was needed to perform the remanufacture of earlier versions of EMD's 567 diesel engine to its most modern version, the 567BC and 567C types. The Salt Lake City area was selected and construction commenced in early 1953.
Starting as early as 1954 and continuing through 1956, Union Pacific's 1400-class F3s that weren't part of the 29 cab units and 31 booster units reassigned in to the Northwest in 1950, were converted internally to F7s by the railroad's own shop forces. At the start of the program, the work was done at the railroad's Omaha shops and at its shop in Pocatello, Idaho. Then after the Salt Lake City shop was opened in August 1955, most of the conversion project was done at the new Salt Lake Shops. The conversion consisted of installing a 567BC engine in place of the original 567B engine, and updating the electrical components. Many of the F3s also received the F7 type of dynamic braking with the three-foot diameter cooling fan. Although the trade press announced that the F3 to F7 conversions were being done by EMD, the upgrade was projected to be so extensive that UP and EMD decided to complete it at the railroad's new shop facility in Salt Lake City. This project, along with the prospects of the same type of work to be done on both the AT&SF and the SP, was a leading factor in EMD opening its facility and warehouse in North Salt Lake, located about five miles north along the mainline to Ogden from the new Salt Lake shops.
EMD's North Salt Lake facility was both a rebuild facility and a parts warehouse. It was equipped as a rebuild center for both the 567 diesel engines and the rotating electrical gear (the generators and traction motors). Rather than Union Pacific sending the old equipment all the way from Salt Lake to EMD's La Grange factory, in the Chicago suburb of McCook, the railroad only had to move the equipment five miles north to EMD's new shop.
The North Salt Lake branch remained as an important link in EMD's remanufacturing and warehousing network until August 1964. The property was sold in April 1965 to a local developer. By that time EMD had greatly increased its capacity at its La Grange factory, and had completed warehouses in both Ogden, Utah, and Commerce, California. After EMD vacated the facility in 1964, it was occupied by defense contractor Sperry Utah Company, to build the Sargent ground-launched surface-to-surface missile, and its launcher and support trailers for the U. S. and West German armies.
Harold M. Hamilton, founder of Electro-Motive, and vice president of General Motors at the time of his testimony in 1955, stated the following during the Senate Anti-Trust hearings in November 1955.
Mr. Hamilton: When I say expanding, the expansion that has occurred already and it probably is a matter of record or the question wouldn't have been asked here by Mr. Burns, but the expansion is a drop in the bucket.
The small railroads have very few facilities and have just a few locomotives usually. The big railroads, most every one of them have set up giant facilities of their own to rebuild these locomotives. They have their own shops.
About the only time they use our facilities is to take care of their peak load. When they get volume they can't handle, they will send the overflow to us.
Senator O'Mahoney: You mean the railroads are using their own shops to repair...
Mr. Hamilton: Oh, they spent millions of dollars on beautiful new shops, the Union Pacific...
Senator O'Mahoney: To handle the diesels?
Mr. Hamilton: Yes, sir. The Union Pacific that you know so well has just completed a plant at Salt Lake City, Utah, as big as this building, and thoroughly tooled and equipped to maintain, overhaul, and repair diesel locomotives. Yet we have a plant right there too.
You say how come. Well, that is the point. The cycle problem of maintenance on the diesel can run into peaks like that, and they run the miles out on trucks and motors, run them out on generators, run them out on engines and they cannot always cycle their rebuild program to have a uniform flow. They get caught on peak, so we are there as standby.
If they get caught and can't handle their peaks with their normal staff, why, then they will ask us to step in and take a few. But the percentage of that that we are taking is a drop in the bucket.
Timeline
May 15, 1952
General Motors' Electro-Motive Division announced that they would spend $1.5 million to build a repair shop and warehouse near Salt Lake City, Utah. The company had obtained an option to purchase 20 acres in North Salt Lake, Utah, near the Union Pacific and D&RGW tracks. The facility is located to allow service contracts with area railroads, including Union Pacific, Denver & Rio Grande Western, Southern Pacific, Western Pacific, and Kennecott Copper Corporation in both Utah and Nevada. (Salt Lake Telegram, May 15, 1952)
February 12, 1954
General Motors announced that it would complete the plans and specifications for its new repair shop and warehouse located on 16 acres in North Salt Lake by late February. The repair shop would be completed by the end of 1954. The attached office building would be 66 feet by 66 feet, and the adjacent factory area would be 156 feet by 300 feet. The shop would have the capability to repair diesel engines, generators and traction motors. (Davis County Clipper, February 12, 1954)
October 15, 1954
The branch general manager of the new EMD repair facility in North Salt Lake, J. S. Chisholm, presented a program describing the new shop to the local Bountiful Lions club on October 11th. The new plant was located on 16 acres of land, and had approximately 60,000 square feet under roof. Mr. Chisholm stated that the new plant was located in North Salt Lake to service EMD locomotives for railroads and companies in the western region, where ten per cent of the 15,000 locomotives built by EMD were in service. Employment would include about 100 local persons and about 20 persons transferred from other EMD locations, including specialists and technicians. (Davis County Clipper, October 15, 1954)
April 13, 1955
EMD held a formal dedication ceremony and open house for its new repair shop and warehouse in North Salt Lake on Wednesday April 13, 1955. On hand for the ceremony was N. C. Dezendorf, vice president of General Motors and general manager of EMD. The new shop included a boring machine to recondition diesel engine blocks and crankcases, along with precision equipment to balance rotating electrical gear such as generators and traction motors. The plant also had full capability to rebuild traction generators and traction motors, including an abrator machine that used apricot pits to clean armatures used on electrical motors and generators (Utah was reported as being the chief source for apricot pits). On hand for the ceremony and open house were 1750-horsepower locomotives owned by Union Pacific and D&RGW. (Davis County Clipper, April 8, 1955) (UP had received 244 GP9s in 1954 and D&RGW had just received the first four of its fleet of 24 GP9s.)
"General Motors Corp. officially opens this first Utah plant with dedication Wednesday at 2 p.m. Operated by Electro‑Motive Division of the corporation, the plant is an important link in series of factory branches designed to serve railroads and electric utility customers in remanufacturing parts." (photo caption, Salt Lake Tribune, Sunday, April 10, 1955, p.B17)
Facility had a 20 ton overhead crane.
Built on land purchased by General Motors Corporation in May 1952, from the Moss and Harwood families. (Davis County Book of Records 37, p.382 and Book 38, p.225)
UP sold the property for the spur to General Motors in August 1962. (Davis County Book of Records 248, p.568)
In March 1964 GM sold the property to the Deshon Property Corporation for $1.02 million, and leased it back on a twenty year lease, dated March 19, 1964. Others involved in the lease were Thomas A. Kenny, John T. Booth, Paul E. Taylor Jr., W. E. Wilson, VP of GM, and the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company. (Davis County Book of Records 288, p.649, Book 289, p.10, and Book 291, p.541)
June 17, 1964
General Motors announced that it would close its North Salt Lake facility "sometime in August." The plant employed 53 people. The remanufacturing of diesel engines for railroad locomotives would be moved to its Los Angeles plant. The parts warehouse portion of the North Salt Lake plant would be moved to a new location in the Greater Salt Lake region. (Salt Lake Tribune, June 17, 1964)
After EMD
In April 1965 GM sold the property to the Otto Buehner Trust Company of Salt Lake City. The facility was vacant until July 1966 when the Buehner Trust leased the facility to Sperry Rand Corporation. At that time the Buehner Trust agreed to remove the engine test cell that was in place inside the main building. (Davis County Book of Records 349, p.215)
In 1971 General Electric, EMD's competitor in the world locomotive market, moved into the former EMD shop in North Salt Lake, with GE calling it the Salt Lake Apparatus Service Shop. The new site in North Salt Lake would be one of 88 General Electric Apparatus Service Shops across the nation. (Salt Lake Tribune, April 17, 1971)
GE moved to North Salt Lake to gain more space than what was available at its original Salt Lake City site. This original GE site in Salt Lake City was located just west of the former D&RGW backshop, at the southeast corner of 300 South and 700 West in downtown Salt Lake City.
(Read more about GE in North Salt Lake)
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