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The COX GP-9 is a low-nose example of a popular EMD diesel locomotive
built in the '50s for a variety of the nation's railroads. Though many roads operated GP-9s that had a low nose, most were
"chopped" from original high-nose GP-9s and thus tend to have spotting marks unique to the railroad that did the work. EMD
did offer the GP-9 in a low-nose model, but it was produced in this style in fairly small quantity making this COX model correct
for only a few prototypes.
The tool-and-die work on the COX GP-9 closely resembles that of the Athearn high-nose GP-9.
As is done frequently in the model train business, the Athearn GP-9 likely served as the basis for the COX model. Evidence
of the Athearn model serving as the inspiration may be seen in the wider than prototype long-hood. Cox introduced
this model at the 1974 Chicago Hobby Show.
COX introduces their GP-9 in 1974 and offered it in the roadnames seen above,
plus the fictious 'Big Pine Lumber' model. You can see the Big Pine Lumber GP-9(6111-7) on the home page of this site.
The June 1975 issue of Railroad Modeler magazine reviewed the COX GP-9. The review was
mostly positive, stating that COX appeared to be trying to satisfy both the toy train and modeler market with this offer.
Additional comments included the reference to the unique status of a low-nose or chop-nose GP-9 as a factory offering from
EMD. Phelps-Dodge and Southern Pacific are provided as two known examples of roads that originally purchased a GP-9
from EMD with the low-nose option. Many roads would later modifiy existing geeps, making them chop-nose models.
The original retail for this model is provided in the Railroad Modeler review as being $10.95. The Chessie System example
is shown in B&W images for the review.
Today's HO-scale market has two close cousins to the COX GP-9. Model
Power has a GP-9 that appears to be made from the same molds as the COX unit. Walthers offers a GP-9 that looks to have used
the COX model as its inspiration. Walthers has done some improvements filling in the holes on the side of the shell that the
underframe snapped into on the original COX model.
Canadian GP-9 releases included a trio of roadnames not found in
the American COX line: Canadian National; CP Rail; and Ontario Northland. The Canadian stock numbers for the U.S.
GP-9 models differed from their American counterparts. In Canada, the Championship Trails GP-9 carried No.611370; Chessie
System was No.611360; Rock Island was #611350; Santa Fe was #611340; and Big Pine Lumber was #611170.
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