I have been doing a Rip Van Winkle impersonation for the past few years; had I been conscious I would, most likely, not need to be asking this question.
The major locomotive manufacturers - and in this day and age that boils down to GE and EMD - are continuously doing modifications in an attempt to improve the reliability of their products. These modifications are sometimes very minor and almost imperceptible; others, however, can be quite radical. My question concerns GE’s Hi-Ad trucks: is there any radical difference - in appearance - between the Hi-Ad trucks found under the forty dash eights and the Hi-Ad trucks found under the forty-four dash nines?
GE Hi Ad trucks were introduced by GE on the Dash9-44CW model. The preceding Dash8-40CW model used “Floating Bolster” trucks, basically the same as used on the first U25C units.
Now, I’m a foreigner who hasn’t visited the USA since 1997, but I have photos of ATSF Dash 8s and Dash 9s climbing through Cajon Pass, and all the Dash 8s have Floating Bolster Trucks and all the Dash 9s have Hi Ads. This is the most visible difference, although Dash 9s have deeper radiators and smaller central air intakes.
If the beautiful red and silver locomotives were still there, I’d probably have come back earlier!
You be the judge of visual differences…it’s most noticable around the wheel bearings.
This may be a little nit-picky, but the FB3 trucks first appeared under the Phase 2 U28C’s. U25C’s and Phase 1 U28C’s used a truck similar in appearance to Alco’s Tri-Mount truck with heavier equalization rods.
M636C and alfadawg01, thank you so much for your info; you both hit the nail right on the head! My Brian Solomon book on GE Locomotives is buried in a box out of reach in the front room; I did, however, find a couple of photographs in Kalmbach’s Trains Special Issue titled Locomotive which substantiated what you both said. I was under the impression that the GE’s Hi-Ad truck had been introduced on the dash eight series of locomotives rather than on the dash nine series.
alfadawg, I will take your response to indicate that the same truck, this FB3, was under all GE six axle locomotives from the U28s all through dash forty production. If that is true - and I accept that it is - then I will surmise that the trucks from under Kato’s N Scale U30C or C30-7s could be fitted - I am cognizant that this will require some work - under Bachmann’s forty dash eights and be prototypically correct.
You’re very welcome. The FB3 truck was indeed used up through the Dash8 series (and even under CSX’s initial order of Dash9’s). However, it did go through some modifications along the way. The original FB3 truck casting was made by both GSC and Adirondack. The GSC casting style is the one you see under Dash8’s, the Adirondack casting had a pronounced horizontal rib on it. The original FB3 truck had snubbers (shock absorber-looking gadgets) on the outboard axles. Somewhere in the middle of Dash7 production this was changed to snubbers on the center axle, as shown in my Dash8 photo above. If you want to use the Kato trucks and be accurate, make sure you check for this difference, especially since C30-7’s came with both styles.
You are of course correct there! I had just forgotten about the early U25C and U28C, having the ATSF U28CGs in mind. The U28CGs were among the first "Floating Bolster units, of course. The items on the GE “Trimount” trucks that were larger were normally called “equalising beams”.