I’ll narrow it down to CNW. When, and why did they start using them, when/why did they stop. At least I’m fairly certain their last purchases didn’t include them. What benifit, did they hope to get out of them, or what it just cause they felt like it.
If you’re referring to the engine bell mounted on the nose of a Chicago & North Western locomotive, I remember seeing and hearing them during the 1960s.
I should think that chosing that style of bell had more to do with reliability, maintenance expenses, and initial cost than any other factors.
Please remember that North American railroads are a business. I don’t think many carriers do many things “just because they feel like it.”
The oldest engines on which I remember seeing them were the GP30s. They may have been retrofitted to commuter F and E units and installed on cab cars before that time.
The last units that received the gongs were CNW’s GP50s. The GP38-2s (RI), SD50s (MP), and SD60s (SOO) had all been ordered by other railroads originally, and consequently had air-actuated bells. The gongs may not have been an option by the time CNW was ordering its GEs.
The one advantage (from a safety standpoint) of the gongs was that they were trainlined–on a multi-unit consist of CNW units, the gongs on all of the units would be ringing (possibly safer when backing units where the bell was required to be audible). The trainlining eventually caused problems when the units were used with those of other railroads (we leased some Chessie units once or twice, and I forgot what ringing our gongs did to those units, but it wasn’t desirable–they lost their load or something).
After the merger, as UP was assimilating the SD38-2s and SD40-2s, they began to eliminate the gongs. Of our six former CNW SD38-2s still around here, only two have the gongs still in position on the nose, but even those have been replaced by bells in the usual position behind the front truck on the left side.
Personally, I miss them, especially on the Metra cab cars. They were innocuous when they rang on those cars–now the bells are quite annoying, particularly if one happens to be sitting on the lower level, up front.