EMD FT's

Trains Magazine Locomotives
21

I have read on a number of occasions that the main reason that most of the early owners of FT’s requested drawbars rather than couplers was to make it clear to the Train Service Union officials that a consist of them was considered a single locomotive for crewing purposes.

There was some concern that the unions would demand that an engineer and fireman be assigned for each individual unit (i.e 4 engineers/4 firemen for every A-B-B-A set).

Perhaps Santa Fe had negotiated this point with their unions?

22

John and all:

The NP FT’s were never used in passenger service thus no S/G. They ended their careers hauling freight on level track between Seattle and Portland. The first of them were retired about the time I hired out in 1966. One retired FTA was at Northtown and departed without one number board!

23

I should have added that water capacity in the NP passenger F’s necessitated the use of a water-baggage car behind the locomotives.

Kuebler’s “North Coast Limited” has a list of the servicing locations on the NP.

24

M636C talks about this a little earlier. Early Santa Fe FT “sets” were A-B-B-B, because the unions attempted to require one crew per cab. After the rules were changed, they were ordered in A-B-B-A “sets”.

25

Indeed, I should have made the union aspect clear. The first two sets were ordered with two cab units each, but the others came with only one cab unit.

We are talking about two hundred units being delivered as sets with only one cab each, and it was 1944 before the cab units arrived to allow A-B-B-A sets to be formed. So the unions took four to five years to be convinced that a trailing cab could be unmanned.

In retrospect, I hadn’t thought of this earlier, but “Amos and Andy” arrived with two cabs each but very quickly lost one cab each and later ran as cab and booster, although “Andy” spent some time as unit 10 with a cab between periods as booster 1A.

The E-1s only had one cab per set although by 1944 A units did run back to back as required.

Union Pacific ran A-B-B sets on the big “City” trains, although I think some sets of E-6 units came as A-A, suggesting UP had an agreement by 1942 or so although UP were much slower adopting freight diesels, which might have influenced the union attitude.

M636C

26

, .

27

, .

28

Seaboard also ran mixed engine consists of Baldwin BR-8/12-1500/2 centipedes with Alco and EMD power, including FTs, something not many other carriers attempted in the 1950s.

29

The Cotton Belt acquired 20 FT units. A dozen units were six sets of semi-permanently coupled A-B units numbered 900ABCD, 905ABCD and 910ABCD delivered in mid 1944. The following eight units were four single A units and four single B units delivered in mid 1945, numbered 915ABCD and 920ABCD. None of the units was equipped with steam generators. Standard equipment was a 16V-567A diesel engine driving a D-8 generator to produce 1350 tractive horsepower to feed four D-7 traction motors. The units had 61:16 gears rated at 70 mph. The units were delivered in a yellow and gray scheme with red pinstripes.
The 920 ABCD set was wrecked at Renault, IL on November 16, 1948. The units were returned to EMD for rebuild. All four units were returned from EMD in the new Black Widow colors of parent Espee. The 920D was rebuilt on an F7 underframe.
The FTs were renumbered in April 1949 with all A units in the series 901-923 odd, and the B units in the series 902-924 even. The original numbers were not reused. A head on collision at Aurich, Arkansas in the morning fog of November 29, 1949 destroyed FTA 921 and sent the entire diesel set of three units back to LaGrange for rebuild. The 921 returned riding on a new F7 frame. All Cotton Belt FTs received the Black Widow colors.
A rebuild program commenced at Pine Bluff Shops in Late 1955 which upgraded the engines to 16V-567AC. New Farr grills were installed on the sides of the units. COTTON BELT lettering repla

30

.

31

I was surprised that the Strapac Compendium didn’t mention this rebuild.
I assume that the 921 as returned was an F3m or F7m using salvaged equipment that survived. I expect that it had F7 radiators, for example. The Kalmbach GM Scrapbook illustrated a rebuilt Southern Ft with F7 radiators in the original body.
M636C

32

What type of solid drawbars were used between the units? How did the roundhouse folks disconnect them?

33

I discussed Cotton Belt #921 with Joe Strapac on October 3rd and 4th at the Cotton Belt Symposium in Commerce, Texas. Joe agreed that the 921 was on a new frame and that EMD would have placed as many new components in the unit so that it could stand behind any warranty on the parts. The unit looks like a strectched FT as the FT side panels and dynamic brakes were reused in the rebuild. I made the original rediscovery of this rebuild on August 17th last year, so it was well after the SP Diesel Compendium was published. There is a photo of the rebuilt 921 on pages 40-41 of Steve Goen’s Cotton Belt Color Pictorial and a photo of it appeared on EBay back in May. Cotton Belt considered the rebuild to be an FT as that is how it is shown in Special Instruction rosters of the 1950s.

“I was surprised that the Strapac Compendium didn’t mention this rebuild.
I assume that the 921 as returned was an F3m or F7m using salvaged equipment that survived. I expect that it had F7 radiators, for example. The Kalmbach GM Scrapbook illustrated a rebuilt Southern Ft with F7 radiators in the original body.
M636C”

34

SSW 9389
Thanks for the detailed reply.
If 921 retained its original dynamic brakes, it probably retained its original radiators too. I assume what happened is that the frame failed just behind the cab, a common occurrence with EMD cab units in head on and front to rear collisions.
This would leave the majority of power equipment undamaged but in need of a new frame. A standard frame of the time had the FT equipment installed with the result described.
M636C

35

SSW 9839 was kind enough to link me a photo of the accident offline.

Indeed the frame broke behind the cab but possibly at the generator well in the frame and I’d be surprised if the engine and generator could be re-used. The forward radiators look as though they could have survived and it is possible that the dynamic brakes, at least the resistors, might have survived.

However the cab did its job and the crew survived.

Even at this time I imagine that EMD would have had a range of unit exchange components for use in these occasions. Presumably anything up to a current F7 could have been provided with a range of repair charges depending on what you needed and wanted. An FT on the available frame must have met the SSW’s needs.

M636C

36

Just to mention: this thread has my vote for ‘best technical thread of the year’ so far. Wish we had this level of interest and scholarship – and good handling of discourse – in many other areas of discussion!

37

It might be worthwhile explaining a little of the background to my discussion with SSW9389 regarding EMD rebuilding locomotives in the early 1950s.

Let us look at what happened to the iconic Santa Fe E-1 units 2-9 and the E-2 from the 1937 City of San Francisco that ended up with Southern Pacific.

These units had the V-12 201A engine of 900 HP and auxiliaries like radiator fans driven by vee belts, and both of these were regarded as maintenance intensive by 1950, by comparison with the 567B and AC motor driven fans. But much of the electrical equipment, in particular the main generators, traction motors and even the trucks were still in excellent condition.

The preferred EMD answer was to build a set of new E-8s for Santa Fe using the trucks motors and generators from the E-1s (and the prototypes 1 and 1A). The power of the E-8s was reduced to 2000 HP due to the old generators, and these were called an E-8m.

At the time ATSF was one of EMD’s best customers and the rebuild kept both builder and operator happy. ATSF never bought another E unit, having bought passenger equipped FTs and they never looked back.

Having inherited the old E-2A SF-1 which was equivalent to the ATSF E-1s, Southern Pacific had the same problem. A new E-8 would have done the job but SP may have felt the cost was too high.

In the end they built effectively a new E-7 on the old frame with a lot of material provided by EMD.

The first question I asked was why build an E-7 instead of an E-8? Using the original frame, which was set up for the two engines facing the same way with the generator (requiring a well in the frame) at the front, the latest available design was the E-7, which had an improved layout but still used mechanically driven auxiliaries. The E-8 had the engines arranged with generators together at the centre.

But SP got its new E-7 with 567B engines and it lasted as long as the others.

To get back to FT units, Santa Fe lost an A unit, 107L and took

38

From pictures I have seen, they are a rectangular bar with loops on the end. Something like below.

O====O

This was connected to the frame by some sort of pin.

39

Last weekend I identified another Cotton Belt FTA that had been rebuilt on an F7 frame. So there are two of a kind of these rebuilds, not one of a kind like SSW 921. This second rebuild predates the first by about a year. And I found it in a photo in Trains magazine. See the article Fast Freight by David P. Morgan in the November 1949 Trains page 48. The unit in question is Cotton Belt 920D. Upon magnification you can see the overhanging frame at the back of the unit, indicating rebuild on a new frame. The 920D was wrecked at Renault, Illinois on November 16, 1948. And it only took 66 years to reveal this rebuild fact.

40

Is this also true of the B&O E8m design that kept the E6 slant nose?