As Fairbanks-Morse had outsourced the production of their post-war “Erie-built” to GE what had been costly, they developed the Consolidated line for production in their own shops. While the general layout, dimensions and the appearance of the car body were roughly the same, they changed many parts which they now could manufacture on their own. The prime mover was still of the two-stroke opposed-piston 38D-8 1/8 type. While the locomotives for the US market were built in-house, all for Canadian customers were built by the Canadian Locomotive Company.
Freight variants were offered with 1,600, 2,000 and 2,400 hp and with different gear ratios starting from 65 mph. While also passenger variants with the twelve-cylinder 2,400 hp engine had been built, no freight variants with this option had been ordered. The type designations for all these “Consolidated Freight A-unit” variants started with “CFA”, followed by the power rating in hundreds of horsepower and the number of axles. In the same way, the cabless B-units started with “CFB”.
