Diesel locomotive set, and went into series production with other streamlined car sets in Germany starting in 1935. In the USA, diesel-electric propulsion was brought to high speed mainline passenger service in late 1934, largely through the research and development efforts of General Motors from 1930–34 and advances in lightweight carbody design by the Budd Company. The economic recovery from the Second World War saw the widespread adoption of diesel locomotives in many countries. They offered greater flexibility and performance than steam locomotives, as well as substantially lower operating and maintenance costs. Diesel–hydraulic transmissions were intrdouced in the 1950s, but from the
Diesel locomotive operate efficiently within a limited torque range, and while low power gasoline engines can be coupled to a mechanical transmission, the more powerful diesel engines required the development of new forms of transmission. The first successful diesel engines used diesel–electric transmissions, and by 1925 a small number of diesel locomotives of were in service in the United States. In 1930, Armstrong Whitworth of the United Kingdom delivered two locomotives using Sulzer-designed engines to Buenos Aires Great Southern Railway of Argentina. In 1933, diesel-electric technology developed by Maybach was used propel the DRG Class SVT 877, a high speed intercity two-car