EMD F2 Built After F3 Production Began

Hello,

The EMD F3 was built from 7/45 to 2/49, while the F2 was built from 7/46 to 11/46. So, why was F2 production a year later? Almost everything I’ve read states the F2 as a transition model from the FT to the F3. Was it to clear out remaining parts from FT production (D8 generator)? If so, were F2s cheaper?

Thanks,

Northwest

The F2 was a transitional model due to production issues building the new main generator. EMD shipped model F2’s with the option of upgrading them to F3’s at some point. I know the M&StL F2 set was upgraded to Ph 2 F3’s after a wreck. I am not sure of any others that were upgraded. Once the assembly jigs were corrected for placing the insulators in the D12 generator, the production ‘yield’ was sufficient to go forward with the F3.

I hope you are not trusting information from ‘Wikipedia’ - They cannot even copy stuff correctly.

  • EMD F2 production was from 7/46 - 11/46(some indicate 12/46)
  • EMD F3 production started in either 11/46 or 12/46.

Jim

No, this is information from Diesel Locomotives: The First 50 Years, by Louis Marre. (Basically a reprint of the 2nd DSG)

Most, if not all, F2s used the FT control system which was not compatible with any of the later EMD locomotives. The F2 was conceived as a way to turn an ABBA set of FTs into two ABA sets. The F2 which was ordered after F3 production began was likely purchased by a road which intended to use it with thier FTs.

Before anyone jumps on me I know a number of Railroads rewired thier FTs to be able to MU with any other EMD/ALCO/FM etc. But the FTs did not come from the factory wired that way and the F2 was EMD’s “official” solution.

Thanks DS4-4-1000.

That make sense. I know B&M used F2s with their FTs as ABA sets. The only roads to purchase F2s without buying FTs were NDEM and AEC, per The Model Railroader’s Guide to Diesel Locomotives. That would also explain why 74 F2As were built, but only 30 F2Bs.

Thanks again,

NorthWest

Hey Jim this is from the Wikipedia Talk page on the F2:

The original four unit F2 demonstrator #291A1, 291B1, 291B2, 291A2 was built in July 1945. The new F2 was supposed to be a 1500 horsepower machine. But EMD could not get the full 1500 horsepower rating out of the new D12 generator in the demonstrators. The F unit production line was shut down in November 1945 with the last FTs built and EMD intended to produce the new units in 1946. But EMD did not produce another F unit until July 1946 because of the problems with the D12 generator. The F2 as-built was offered by EMD as a 1350 horsepower unit with the old D8 Generator to fill the needs of a few railroads that wanted freight diesels and could not wait for EMD to work the bugs out of the D12 generator. When the D12 generator was able to be rated at 1500 horsepower the new F3 model was announced and the F2 demonstrators became F3s. See “EMD’s F2 - An Interim Model” by Warren Calloway, Dan Cupper, and Paul Withers from Diesel Era Volume 7 Number 2 March/April 1996, pages 31-46 for the complete story. --SSW9389 (talk) 13:20, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

EMD F3 production started in October 1946 with the delivery of Santa Fe passenger units 16LABC-21LABC. Another F3 demonstrator set the 754 was completed in September 1946. Data from A J Kristopans EMD Serial Number website.

Thank you all for your theories! Looks like I have more research to do…

In 1952 I designed automatic transition for the FT, since the B&O wished to use their FT without the need to always have one as the lead unit. But by that time they could at least run with the F3’s and F7’s. I was a Junior Engineer at EMD between my Junior and Senior MIT undergraduate years. Other railroads applied the circuit, in addition to the B&O.

As a theory somebody signed a contract for f2 engines before the f3 was available and didn’t get them until the war was over and materials were available.

Another question that dovetails with Northwest’s original question is how many FTs were cancelled because of the UAW strike against EMD. UAW workers walked off the job on Wednesday November 21, 1945. The UAW strike ended Wednesday March 13, 1946; but the EMD plant remained closed because of the lingering effects of the steel strike which started January 21, 1946. Richard Steinbrenner gives two different dates for the end of the steel strike at Alco, either March 25th or April 10th of 1946. I don’t have an accurate date for EMD, but builder’s dates stop in late November 1945 and recommence in Mid April 1946. I’ve found cancellations for 60 FT units here: http://www.trainweb.org/emdloco/index.html ; there may be others. I’ve never seen this written up the correlation between the strike and EMD production of FTs, F2s , and F3s.

Ed in Kentucky

This prompts an immediate question: was the ‘cessation of production of FTs in November 1945’ a choice made by EMD before the strike, or did the production cease because of the strike?

We could follow this up with how much of the F2 design was, as indicated, padding out FTs to be ‘double-cab loconotives’ for union purposes in those couple of years before the MU situation was hammered out, and how much of it hinged on getting the 1500hp as a practical thing. I think all the data are there at this point, they just have to be harmonized in full context.

That one of our posters actually produced the compatibility circuits is a remarkable thing, considering how near the ‘edge of history’ is to that achievement. I’d like to ask Mr. Klepper to recount as much as he can regarding context and timing of this work, as I suspect no one else has documented it and I now realize it’s really too significant to lose.

It’s hard to say with clarity what EMD intended for the end of FT production. The three railroads listed as cancelling FT orders were CB&Q 42 units, D&RGW 12 units and M&SL six units. All three of those roads followed up with new F unit orders. There may have been other undocumented cancellations. If any of those orders were in development could the 16-567As been used to another purpose? There is engine block data which suggests that 16-567Bs were in production when EMD shut down in November 1945. And I’m suggesting that a few new build F2/F3s were on the floor when EMD was struck. There was a clear need for passenger equipped A units in demonstration service. Some new build Fs may have been complete or near complete when the production line shut down.

The whole F2/F3 demonstration time is murky. The Christmas Day 1946 wreck of three of the demonstrators 291A2 plus an F3B and an F3A adds to the confusion. There are some details but not a clear picture of what was going on with the demonstrators as to where and when they were.

Ed in Kentucky

[quote user=“Overmod”]

This prompts an immediate question: was the ‘cessation of production of FTs in November 1945’ a choice made by EMD before the strike, or did the production cease because of the strike?

We could follow this up with how much of the F2 design was, as indicated, padding out FTs to be ‘double-cab loconotives’ for union purposes in those couple of years before the MU situation was hammered out, and how much of it hinged on getting the 1500hp as a practical thing. I think all the data are there at this point, they just have to be harmonized in full context.

That one of our posters actually produced the compatibility circuits is a remarkable thing, considering how near the ‘edge of history’ is to that achievement. I’d like to ask Mr. Klepper to recount as much as he can regarding context and timing of this work, as I suspect no one

Thanks for the request. July and August 1952 I was a student engineer at EMD, on a program with MIT to give students working experience before graduation. I had terrific luck in cnvincing the ROTC department at MIT to allow me to do my ROTC cadet summer between Sophmore and Junior years, instead of Junior and Senior. And I did OK at the summer camp, Fort Monmouth, and my bunk neighbor at the Cadet Barraks, a year ahead of me at MIT, was Henry Kloss, who went on to help start AR, then KLH, and then Advent.

AT EMD, my Boss was Bert Haffner, head of the Electrical Controls Department. My routine, a drag, work, was testing Vapor Equipment Company elecrrical contactors, very-high current relays. But during the summer I was handed two engineering projects that took some brains, and completed both successfully.

Conversion of B&O FTAs and FTBs to automatic transition. I did this with fewer parts on the locomotive as convereted than it had with the manual transition. I was told it was adapted for in -house installation by other railroads, with EMD supplying all the parts. I believe I was told this when Bob Konsbrook vissited me in the Bosston area in December 1952, and I gave him a pretty thorough tour of Boston’s ligh rail ad streetcar lines. He said this was the first time he saw PCC streetcars in trains, and he was very impressed with the Beacon Street and Commnwealth Avenue lines. At EMD we were very good friends, often rode the North Shore together, and he got me permission to ride in the Little Joe on an NRHS fantrip. Apparently he had been an unofficial advisor on the conversion from 3000 to 1500 Volts. I have no doubt that any F2s that had manufal transition, if any which I doubt, also were converted using my design, but the F7 was already in production in 1952, and my guess is that the transition circuit for the F2 was the same as for the F3, with slightly different resistor calibrations. Of course I had exami

Interesting story Dave. I started at EMD as a co-op GMI engineering student in 1968 and retired the first time in 2005. Some of my student projects were my favorite, like trying to blow up a 16-645E with ether starting fluid. I knew Bob Konsbrook a little, I remember him being the FL9 guru. I think he retired in the mid-70’s IIRC.

Dave

That was a great story. Sounds like you guys succeeded:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,149312

As I recall, you actually couldn’t, because there was enough clearance when all the gaskets around the inspection door holes blew out to relieve the damage. What was more interesting was that you could get it to bang repeatedly with the gaskets displaced because natural clamping ‘spring pressure’ would hold the seal long enough to get the ether critical mixture to detonation.

I was never entirely convinced there wasn’t some piston-crown or valve damage, or momentary stiction in non-prelubed mains, when ether bangs occurred during the actual closed part of the power stroke. Mr. Goding, were there sequential peak overpressure measurements taken, say at the cylinder cock ports, during the progress of actual injection and compression ignition?

It’s interesting to look at engine designs that happily enjoy ether firing (the Isuzu 4HE1 4.8L being a fine example) vs. those that never, ever will (I never did test the 6.0L power-cerebrovascular accident but was sternly warned that the first time might be the last).

Mr. Klepper: did your transition system as applied to FTs have select ability between manual and automatic reverse transition? Because if that had been an option for installing on PRR E8s only a couple of years later the use of passenger power on TrucTrains or other high-speed alternative traffic might have been a different story…

You’re correct that the handhole covers flexed and relieved the pressure, blowing out the square cut rubber gasket in the process. There was no other visible damage. We didn’t have any instrumentation set up, just a remote pushbutton to actuate the ether valve. This came about because RR’s were using ether to start cold engines at the time and a vendor of injection systems approached EMD about installing their hardware on the assembly line. Of course, EMD did not recommend using ether but had never done any testing on it. We had an old B unit that was missing it’s side panels but had a roots blown 16-645E and we used that; I think it was a test bed for the AR10 development. We simply installed their ether hardware, wired up a remote switch, and parked the unit North of the Engineering Test Shed wi

Overmod, the circuit I designed would not have allowed manual transition, because the manual control parts were removed from the locomotive to reduce the number of parts. But, it would have been easy to have both systems on the locomotive, just as the smooth start and kick start were available on the some GP-7s. The B&O, in particular, saw no reason to retain the manual transition, and I think they were actually asked that question by Sales or Service, before we got the project at Controls. I think Bert Heffner was specific on that point, and it may have been Bob Konsbrook who asked the question.

The concern I have is with automatic vs. manual back transition in that period, which I think is a different thing but might have involved common parts or control modalities.

The issue as I recall it was that PRR decided to use ‘rapidly becoming surplus’ E units on its developing intermodal (TOFC, ‘TrucTrain’) consists, iirc around 1954. The terrible emergent problem was that, apparently, PRR’s freight EMDs had automatic back transition… and freight engineers assumed this… whereas the E8s did not, and suffered an unspecified but certainly painful series of flashover events if the throttle was ‘closed wrong’ with a heavy train at speed.

How would you implement ‘familiar’ automatic back transition on E units, and what additional switches or controls would need to be added to make the units optimal for both passenger and extreme high-speed freight? (I envision something like the brake pilot cutout switch on the P42s, but in the ‘electrical domain’.) Perhaps one of you can explain why these Es, and perhaps other contemporary passenger locomotives, were built without automatic back transition.