I’m trying to put together a locomotive roster of first generation locomotives for a fictional railroad and I ran into one problem. How should I decide if the RR used locos with dynamic brakes or not? Looking at other things on the net I decided they would use E-units for passenger instead of F’s because the terrain is generally flat, but I’m still not sure about the db’s. Any help?
First generation, they would probably not have DB if the terrain was flat.
For relatively flat terrain I would think db’s to not be so necessary.
For graded terain I would assume db’s to be very helpful.
I believe that was the reason db were “invented” was to help slow down locos on down grades, much like down shifting a car. I could be wrong.
It might also depend on if your fictional railroad is much larger than the portion you’re modeling. Many railroads operated in the plains where DB would typically not be needed. However, some of their lines extended into the Rockies and locomotives may have ventured there due to traffic, regular rotation of a particular type, or reassignment to another division.
Ricky
as has been pointed out, Dynamic brakes are for downgrades in hilly or mountainous terrains. With first gen diesels, they were an added cost that a railroad may not need. In the modern world of mega railroads, its pretty much a requirement for all railroads.
If your fictional railroad is a second-tier railroad or even a short line, they might be picking up their motive power on the second-hand market. In that case, they might have just about anything that was available when they were engine-shopping. So, if you want an excuse to run a loco with dynamic brakes, this would work for you.
D/B equipment on a 1st generation passenger loco is quite rare. EMD did not even offer the option until the E8 model was introduced. IIRC, Southern, UP, SP, & MILW were the only domestic buyers of E units with this option.
The ‘advantage’ of using an E is:
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Unit reduction
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Dual S/G option
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Twin engine reliability
By 1950, E units and FP7’s were the popular passenger units. A few years later, passenger equipped GP’s became quite popular.
Jim
Actually I was always into the steam equipped F-units untill few months back and MR had a review on the E8. Since then I’ve been almost obessing with the E8. I actually did work some things out last night although I don’t really know how accurate it would be. I didn’t neccesarily planned on having the rr pass through these lines, it was just easiest to pick those cities.
PASS (E8)
GB-APL-OSH-FDL-MIL/reverse (Train 1)
GB-ST-EAU-STP/reverse (Train 2)
MIL-LA-STP/reverse (Train 3)
MIL-CHI/reverse (Train 4)
FDL-SHB/reverse (Train 5)*
MIL-MAD-WIS/reverse (Train 6)
FREIGHT (F9)
MIL-FDL-OSH-APL-GB (Train 7)
GB-APL-OSH-FDL-MIL (Train 8)
GB-ST-EAU-STP (Train 9)
STP-EAU-ST-GB (Train 10)
STP-LA-MIL (Train 11)
MIL-LA-STP (Train 12)
LOCAL (GP9)
all
YARD (SW8, SW9)
all
E8= 15, F9= 24, GP9= 18, SW8= 4, SW9= 10, RS-3(sg)= 9, total= 80
It consisted of a Northerly line going from Milwaukee to Green Bay, a Milwaukee-Chicago connection, a northwesterly line from Milwaukee going cross state then up the Mississippi a little into the Twin Cities, and a Westerly line from Green Bay, again going cross-state to the Twin Cities. After I worked out it I looked at it and thought that even if I was off on the needed loco’s it seemed either kind of big or kind of small. I’m still working it out. As for the loco’s I
That’s one reason the SP acquired a lot of dynamic-brake-equipped Alco PA and PB units.
It wasn’t unusual for the SP to match up non-DB-equipped E7As with DB-equipped E8B cabless units.
It was rare for switchers to be DB-equipped since they were mostly used in yard work or local industrial switching. However, some intended for roadswitcher service had DB (and MU connections), such as SP’s SW8 numbers 4604 through 4623.
Mark
The prototype roads in your area were mostly non-dynamic, except MILW had quite a few with, and many without. Soo, GB&W and CNW were mostly non-DB.
If you must have E-units, that’s fine, but using FP7s and boiler GP9s gives more flexibility. That is what the Soo did. They also didn’t have much passenger traffic compared to CNW or MILW. Both these lines got E-units early, but later went for FP7s and FP9s (CNW). These two also had Chicago commuter service which kept passenger power alive later.
I could do that, the appreciation for the E-units falls more inline with the styling. EMD’s cowl units just had better lines than the rest. Except for maybe the Baldwin shark nose’s. But eithery way, I would like to have a passenger train at least pass through the layout. I scanned the add from the latest Walthers catalogue mailer for their HO UP city of streamliners so I could have a visual refference of the cars for the city of LA, city of SF, and Challenger as listed. The challenger one looked real nice. I would switch the coach-dome car for either another coach car or another sleeper, but other than that I would leave it. Now if would have just listed the loco’s used. The ad said the city trains would use an A-B-B set of E8’s but didn’t say anything about the Challenger train.
On the other hand I also looked at the diesel set up the Green Bay & Western/Kewaunee, Green Bay & Western had and thought it was much nice, definetly alot smaller. If I had the rr modeled after that with added passenger service I think it would nicer, and more model-genic. A smaller railroad would also mean I have the possibility of having the entire locomotive roster modeled. I got all that info from the Green Bay Route website. IIRC GBW had a pair of Alco S-series switchers, a trio of FA-1’s, four RS-2’s, and four RS-3’s. The KGBW had a switcher or too, a three FA-1’s and in mid 50’s an RS-11 was adde