A road switcher locomotive is a type of railroad locomotive designed to both haul railcars in mainline service and shunt them in railroad yards. Both type and term are North American in origin, although similar types have been used elsewhere.

The EMD BL2 is a model of diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division (EMD). A total of 58 units were built between 1947 and 1949. The BL2 was not very successful, as it was unreliable and occupied a gap between carbody and hood units, which resulted in it suffering from the drawbacks of both designs. However, lessons learned from the BL2 were incorporated into EMD's next design, the GP7.