I think I’ve heard of gas/electric locomotives but who made them and when?
The only gasoline powered engines I am aware of were direct drive and not turning a generator for electric power. They were also in doodlebugs rather than road engines. I am unaware of typical road engines being gasoline powered due to fire and explosion concerns in the event of an accident. The Rio Grande narrow gauge Galloping Geese were converted autos.
I believe that ‘Dan Patch Lines’ # 100 started as an ALCO-IR gas-electric, before a diesel was substituted. Other early box-cabs may also have beeen gas-powered. There was a great article in Trains in the late 1960s or so by David H. Hamley, if I recall correctly, that detailed the evolution of these early locomotives - including some of the bizarre starting methods.
Those people made a good locomotive
Trains, December 1969 page 28
History of Westinghouse and its diesels
( DIESEL, “HAMLEY, DAVID H.”, WESTINGHOUSE, ENGINE, LOCOMOTIVE, TRN )
Ingersoll-Rand: catalyst of dieselization
Trains, December 1970 page 24
maker of the diesel engine in the first commercial diesel locomotive
( DIESEL, “HAMLEY, DAVID H.”, IR, ENGINE, LOCOMOTIVE, TRN )
| About the railcars which (unintentionally) forecast dieseldom |
|---|
Add to the List; the Gasoline Locomotives of the J.D. Fate Co of Plymouth, Ohio ( started building locomotives in 1909 and until 1927 when it started building diesels.
Here is a link to a Northeast Rails web site with photos of Plymout Engines:
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/diesel81.html
And for a little more on the the Fate-Root-Heath Co (nee- J.D. Fate, after 1919) :
I think we need to be careful in our wording here. Were the engines mentioned truly gasoline engined machines that had traction motors or were they direct drive because the original question was gasoline powered/ traction motor driven? There is a difference. I also sense the use of the word “diesel” as a generic term for a locomotive which isn’t necessarily the case. I am not normally a nit picker but in this case the word usage does have significance.
Good point. The last 3 articles by Hamley that I referenced above are each about ‘gas-electrics’, which I take to mean a gasoline-fueled ‘prime mover’/ engine, that is directly coupled to an electric generator that provides electric power for traction motors.
Yes, the first 2 articles listed appear to be mainly about diesels instead - but I would nevertheless not be surprised if there are a few paragraphs in those articles about the early days and development of those diesels being preceded or forecast by similar work with gasoline-fueled engines - that’s why I included them as well.
- Paul North.
Yes, we should be careful in describing what we are using. SAL’s representation in the November, 1937, Guide shows diesel-electric motor trains being operated between Charlotte and Wilmington, and between Hamlet and Rutherfordton (probably powered by SAL 2027 and 2028, which had 201-A engines)–and gas-electric motor trains being operated between Savannah and Montgomery, Savannah and Americus, and between Hamlet and Charleston. The February, 1950, Guide shows diesel-electric motor trains being operated between Savannah and Montgomery and between Charlotte and Wilmington–and a gas-electric motor train between Hamlet and Savannah. Apparently the 2027 and 2028 had been moved to the Savannah-Montgomery trains by then; perhaps one of the gas-electrics had been converted to diesel-electric. I doubt that whoever was responsible for providing the SAL’s information would have erred, and continued to err, in the information. This indicates that there was such a thing as a gas-electric locomotive.
One of my brothers rode from Hamlet to Charleston in August of 1941, and he told me that the engine had to have help from a steam engine.
Johnny
I believe there were self propelled passenger cars like McKean, GE, EMC, and St. Louis Car which dabbled with it, but no locomotives. These cars did pull trailers.
Johnny -
As henry6 indicates, those gas-electrics may have been simply motor-cars - sometimes also known as ‘doodlebugs’ - not a separate locomotive (only). As you know, those kinds of motor-cars = passenger cars with an operator’s cab in front, and divided into two or more compartments, the front-most one being on the ‘smallish’ side and containing the gasoline engine, generator, fuel supply, controls, auxilliaries, etc. - and the following compartment(s) being for one or more of mail, express, baggage, passengers, etc.
Sometimes those motor cars were intended to also tow a non-propelled trailer passenger car, which may have led to such a configuration being designated in the Guide as a ‘train’, perhaps aided by a generous dose of ambition to be ‘high-class’ in comparison with the competition. The towed-car endeavor was not always successful, as your brother’s account indicates. But that ‘train’ designation may be confusing us here a little. I’d be interested to know if you can confirm if those SAL gas-electrics were actually ‘pure’ locomotives, or if they were of the more typical doodlebug configuration.
See the following for apparent gas-electric trains:
Boyd asked about gas (and or) electric locomotives who made them and when?
I would read his question to be who made Gasoline powered locomotives and also electric powered locomotives.
Rio Grande had their gallopin’ geese which were adaptations of an automobile converted to rail only use. This was a trend as many railroads used early automobiles for various uses within their organizations.
Plymouth made gasoline powered locomotives ( admittedly diminutive) but theyh were gasoline powered. How they were driven( transmission-type) is another issue.
The self powered rail cars such as those mentioned in this thread early on used “distlilated fuels” Fuels which were fractionated from crude. Winton Engine Co, Cleveland,Oh made stationery engines(gas at first thendiesel) which were adapted and used in early self-propelled passenger cars. In 1930 it was sold to GM and became Electro-Motive Corp.
The Doodlebugs seem to be a natural progression of the utilization of the self-powered rail car.
[2c]
Paul, I had hoped that you would come up with some more, more definite, information. I asked Bing to find “gas-electric locomotive,” and came up with Wikipedia’s info, and a few other items. However, I did not see any reference to actual service (perhaps I did not go down far enough in the listing). It was more or less on the ord
Since I got some of you confused lets make this thread open to all gasoline propelled train engines.
This company is trying to build and market a line of Genset locomotives fueled by E85(Ethanol/Gasoline blend);
I imagine that the Gensets used will be use modified Auto/light truck engines…
Greetings,
This link should reveal an interesting UK project for the restoration of a 1903 petrol-electric railcar.
http://www.electricautocar.co.uk
Kind regards,
Andrew Harper
Scottish Railway Preservation Society Diesel Group
Motorcars were often gas-electrics because the early diesel engines weren’t small enough to fit, consider the size of the 10 x 12 engines built by Ingersoll-Rand in the first boxcab switchers. Adding to the confusion was an early distinction between diesel-electrics and oil-electrics, which apparently was based on the type of injection system used, both were compression-ignition engines.
Pictures of motor cars listed alphabetically by railroad (4 pages)
http://www.trainweb.org/passengercars/Indices/DB1.htm
Article about social change in the South and the Seaboard Boll Weevil
http://www.vqronline.org/articles/1979/spring/rubin-boll-weevil/
Thank you, Mike. I believe that the two links give us answers to a lot of questions about gas-electric power.
Johnny