I read a post that a PPR GG1 is sitting next to a UP Big boy and the writer sadly said that he figured they would never run again under their own power. Oh Ye of little faith. A Big Boy is now in the UP’s Steam shop and is slated to be ready for the 150 year celebration of the UPRR. If the Midwesterners can restore a Big Boy. Where are the die hards of the NEC. If a Big Boy can be brought back from a 50+ year sleep why not a GG1? All it takes is money and those who know how to do it right. I’d love to see a Big Boy make the New York to Washington DC run. I rode the Challenger and 844 and they run on the UP main line. 844 even pulled a freight into Omaha Nebraska. Pulled it’s weight. The Challenger run was from Omaha to Columbus Nebraska and we did well over 60MPH out and back. UP even has a special siding next to Ameritrade stadium where the College World Series is played every June and bet my bottom dollar Big Boy will pay a visit to the series.
Because of PCBs in the transformers on a G motor, it is doubtful one will ever run again without a total gutting and transformer replacement.
I remember, when I worked for PC and CR, that many of thee
GG1s developed cracks in the truck frames that required
constant welding.
The PCBs and asbestos can be dealt with, it’s only a matter of money and will. To see one in Tuscan Red on the NEC again would be amazing!
The AC motors on the GG1 will not operate on 60 Hz power which is present north of NYC and on several other lines connected to the Corridor.
Only one or two G’s still have their original transformers, and the NEC now runs on a completely different current than what the G’s originally used. These could potentially be overcome with updated electronics, but there is one issue that could not.
The GG-1’s frames.
In their later years of use, GG-1’s were plagued by cracking frames, and were only repaired to “make it last a little longer”. Even today, you could walk up to any G and look at the many cracks and weld repairs that were done. The cast frames have simply had it after almost daily use, pounding the rails for nearly 50 years. It’s amazing they lasted as long as they did.
Like anything else made by man - If it was once made, it can be remade - all it takes is the desire and the finances. New frames can be cast for a price - how high that price would be is the question.
NY to Washington is still 25 Hz; 12 kV (or some such) instead of 11 kV is the only change there.
If I had the cash I’d be right in the thick of it! [:D]
I don’t know so much about electrification on this scale, but would it be possible to forget about the overhead and bring the juice with you? Could diesel generators in a dedicated car do the job?
Becky
Making a GG1 into a diesel electric would be a sacriledge of the highest order.
While at it, lets recreate a three-‘unit’-set of these, just for the heck of it, for another Missing Link in Electric Locomotive Evolution?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Alco_Westinghouse_EL3A_1925.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/f4/5e/6c/f45e6c4ca256fb2ded605dec344ad914.jpg
I understand these had Liquid Rheostats and the conductive solution would boil under load, resulting in steam from top of car body simulating that there were S/Gs on board.
Would like to see good film footage of these at work.
If there is money left over, why not build a few VGN 2-10-10-2s? which lasted about 30 years, except for one 1 that blew up in 1941. 48 inch Cyls on the front engine.
http://www.nwhs.org/archivesdb/detail.php?ID=19454
http://www.nwhs.org/archivesdb/detail.php?ID=93488
A great road, the Virginian, even in Diesel Days.
Every kid wanted the Lionel Train Master.
Thank You.
That was discussed in a rail magazine article years ago, a rail museum with a GG1 (somewhere) was kicking around the idea of running their GG1 off a car mounted generator. Don’t remember what mag I read it in, but obviously nothing came of it.
Theoretically I don’t see any reason why it couldn’t be done.
More Great Information.
Thank You.
I think there’s a typo in the wikimedia label, IIRC the Virginian locomotives were Baldwin Westinghouse - Alco would normally partner with GE, not Westinghouse.
The N&W phase converter locomotives also used liquid rheostats. Both locomotives used wound rotor three phase induction motors, the rheostats were used to increase starting torque - high resistance provided good starting torque, low resistance offered good running efficiency.
The wiki actually has it right, the squareheads were Alco-Westinghouse, although that was not the norm.
I think there’s a typo in the wikimedia label, IIRC the Virginian locomotives were Baldwin Westinghouse - Alco would normally partner with GE, not Westinghouse.
The following may apply. From eBay.
Thank You.
I checked H. Reid’s classic book on the Virginian. It doesn’t say why Alco built the running gear on the EL-1A and EL-3A electrics (instead of Baldwin) but Reid’s prose suggests that Virginian did its own design work with Westinghouse’s help on the entire electrification project. All of the steam VGN got in the 1920s came from Alco-Richmond (except a 2-8-8-0 rebuilt from the front and a 2-8-2 rebuilt from the, um, “Aft” end of VGN’s Triplex…). The Squareheads’ carbodies and running gear came from Alco-Schenectady.
Here are all the relevant factors:
To make a vintage GG1 run again (as opposed to building a replica), you would need:
- a boatload of money and an available GG1;
- a railroad upon which to operate (your own or someone else’s); and
- a way to fix the frame cracks (and any other issues, such as Positive Train Control or the like) to the satisfaction of the host railroad.
Gutting a GG1 and replacing the “guts” with more modern guts is an option, but not a cheap one. In dollars, six figures easily, more likely seven figures. People who know more than I do about this say that the capacity to cast and anneal a frame of this size simply doesn’t exist anymore in the United States, so a fabricated frame of this size is going to be another high-six/low-seven figures. And if we go this far, heck, just build the rest from scratch as well.
And what would you have at the end? The moral equivalent of one of those fiberglass-body “kit cars” built on a modern car frame with a modern engine, not an actual antique car.
Now, where are you going to run this creation? Virtually all the former trackage that GG1s operated on is controlled by Amtrak, with maybe a few miles of SEPTA and NJ Transit also qualifying. Amtrak IS NOT going to permit an old-frame GG1 to operate over its lines. Period. They have rejected the proposed haulage of a dead GG1 over their tracks. The ONLY reason GG1 4935 was allowed to move from Lancaster County to Washington Union Terminal and back for display for WUT’s centennial celebration was because the officials that approve and reject such special movements were directly overruled by Amtrak’s president and VPs with a “we won’t ask you for another hundred years!” excuse.
The only rail museum that currently has the infrastructure to operate a GG1 and has one is the Illinois Railway Museum, and their overhead is 600V DC, not 11KV AC. One could reji
Learn something new every day… (h/t to NDG as well)
Won’t get started on the Lima built electric locomotive shells that never got the electrical gear installed. [:)]
I presume that you are talking about the L-6 shells that sat at Altoona for years before being cut up. I agree, the story behind that situation is most interesting.