@breezinup posted:Do you know if GE, ALCO, Baldwin and FM provided the same design services, or did they just follow whatever EMD did?
Since EMC/EMD was in the diesel locomotive business long before GE, ALCO, Baldwin, and FM, those builders tended to follow those stylings developed by E<C/EMD for those specific railroad customers.
Would they have done some of their own designs for certain of their engines before EMD had done the designs?
Ben Dedek of EMD was their lead designer,
Ben Dedek and Harry Bokawitz were the two "craftsmen" of the Styling Group, later followed by Lee Buchholz.
I read, and was heavily involved with many of their designs.
Correct.
In some cases EMD would prepare several proposals and then let the railroad choose which one they wanted.
Also correct. Railman & Railroad did an extensive multi-issue story, by the late Jim Boyd, of the EMC/EMD Styling Group, which included may photos of never seen artwork of those styling concepts that didn't make it.
Apparently there were a few exceptions to railroads using EMD designs, other than Pennsylvania and the Santa Fe, such as Northern Pacific using Raymond Loewy's design for the North Coast Limited. I also read somewhere that the Southern Pacific Daylight scheme was designed in-house by Charles Eggleston, which of course was applied to some of their steam engines and then to some of their diesels. Another example was the New Haven McGinnis scheme, which was designed by Herbert Matter.
I find the involvement of famous industrial designers and graphic designers in the history of railroads to be of great interest.
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