Dave from your comments I can see you have never been on inside of a GG1, or operated one, there is no space at all.
its so small you need to go outside to change your mind.
Even if the Boiler were to be removed you would never be able to put that stuff in cab area.
and even if you could the Unions would not accept the working space on a GG-1 anymore
UNIONS? Volunteers would be doing this, probably. I have a feeling that crews coming off of hot steam locomotives (with cramped cabs) (hand fired, too) in the muggy Washington area had NO COMPLAINTS when assigned to electrics. Really, a GG-1 would be pretty easy to run on excursions–it requires just the juice, so no special stops would have to be made, and they are bi-directional, so no turning would be required. Also, they are just as kind to track as any other electric.
Those are complaints held by some about steam excursions, none of which would be grounded with GG-1’s.
Sincerely,
Daniel Parks
I’ve operated alot of GG-1’s. I have never heard of the Unions taking issue to space inside the cab. Most ran freight and most in passenger service used steam generators and not boilers. Most also had the PCB coolant oil drained after it’s enviromental issues came to light in the 1970’s and were replaced with another mineral oil. If they were to be run again it might be only for nastolgia’s sake, so why wouldn’t it be coupled to freight, old style passenger , or mail cars? HEP would not be an issue. The frames were always cracking due to metal fatigue. Thay were constantly welded. I don’t believe they would be put in working service anyway however; an excursion run would not be out of the realm of possibility. Oh, and Dutch…if you do want to remove the steam generator/boiler, remember to remove the water tanks in each nose too. Plenty more room. [2c]
The one is Stasburg PA is very nice looking. The Pennsy hit a home run with that loco.
Adrianspeeder
If people were not too fussy, a GG-1 “Dash-2” could be built around a trailing power car with diesel alternators for traction and HEP. I’d rewire the controls of those lovely AC quill motors with solid-state thyristor “valves” and other goodies out of a modern AC traction locomotive. In fact, this would be an AC4400 stretched out between a cab and a tender, the former being the GG-1 body with motors and operating controls and the latter being where all the infernal combustion takes place. The pantographs would be dummies, but the unit could run–and earn money–anywhere the track could take the load.
Rich
Sorry, but show me the money…
Adrianspeeder
Of course I’ve been in GG-1 cabs, several times. If you think the cab of a GG-1 is tiny, you should share the “footplate” of some older British steam with the engineer and fireman. I rode the left side, Fireman’s side, of a GG-1 from New Haven to Penn Station when returning from a stint at the Trolley Museum on the Sunday that happened to be the 75th Anniversary of the day that the amalgamation took place forming the New York New Haven and Hartford Railroad.
Dutch, you have no idea how compact the rectifier-alternator electronic equipment can be. A unit about the size of a typical h-fi radio receiver amplifier can probably handle enough power for an eight car train. Remember, most of the weight and space is already provided by the new main transformer or transformers. You are just tapping off a small fraction of that power.
I think the idea certainly is doable, but the money? Who?
The Issue would be getting title to the Locomotive. I am helping with the restoration of the AT&SF 2926, and our club worked 4 years to get title to the Locomotive. Money is not the real issue, determination is the issue. If you have a large group of committed volunteers the restoration will take place.
Gunns
for more details on GG-1’s see: http://www.steamlocomotive.com/GG1/
Getting Title would not be to hard, but moving a locomotive out of date for more than 20 years is.
To fix the frames with Volunteers is nearly impossible, you probably won’t be able to get electrical parts anymore so you would be redisigning a new propulsion package for the unit .
Cabsignal allone is not an option so add to that a $200 000 microcab Acses system.
ps trainjunkie even if you own the locomotive it still has to be operated by the engineers of the railroad your running on.
so if you run it on NJT you use NJT crews, you run on MNCR you use MNCR crews etc.
unless you can find a museum line or abandoned line with 11.5 Kv overhead.
The restored GG-1 could operate on Amtrak Harold Tower, Sunnyside Yard, Queens to Washington Union Station, the Princeton Shuttle of New Jersey Transit, and some of the SEPTA suburban lines out of Philadelphia that also still have 25Hz 11,000V ac power. I believe the clearances in the Center City Tunnel are sufficient, but this woudl require checking. Nearly all the electrical and signal parts needed to restore a GG-1 to operation are off-the-shelf industrial or diesel locomotive hardware. This assumes the quill motores and drives are in good condition.
your talking about modifying a GG-1 Dave not restoring.
No standard Locomotive hardware fits a GG-1, since standard locomotives in general are either DC or three phase AC.
A GG-1 is singlephase motors in tandem at voltages to high to use standard locomotive swichgear.
BTW how good do you think open frame motors are after sitting in open air and humidity after 20 years of non use ???
Since we were running these same GG-1’s on 3 phase AC and the motors were rewound and maintained at the Wilmington Shops, I don’t think there is a real problem running one were Dave is saying.
GG-1’s on 3 phase ?? yeah right, you must be the guy who got me my certification.
Dutch, you are assuming an exact restoration. I am assume a sold restoration that uses existing state of the art equipment that one can purchase from reputable manufacturers to make the thing run and haul some fans under the overhead (yes, single-phase AC 50Hz 11,000volt) catenary. And look great and authentic doing it, even if the sounds are a bit off. The kind of thing that might have been done if say Amtrak had chosen to upgrade the GG-1 to GG-2! It might even go so far as to have those motors (of course dissassembled and insulation checked and perhaps even the motors rewould with the most modern insulation) run on dc instead of ac. And, as you well know, with the proper safe-guards against overload, this is perfectly feasible with an ac-commutator motor and there is no difference in this particular aspect between the motors that powered the NYNH&H EP-3 4-6-6-4 streamliner and the GG-1. So maybe off the shelf equipment might mean using rectifier technology! But maybe not. Maybe it can be all 25 cycle ac equipment and there are still industrial plants that use 25cycle ac. I bet Wilmington shops still has some 25 Hz equipment and the parts are avialable. As to motors and frames left out to rust for 20 years, what do you suppose trolley musems all over the country face when they find a Brill safety car sitting in the woods on its original trucks after being used as a hen house for 50 years? The museums I belong to have had many motors stripped down and rewired. People who have done this for them have included big outfits like the CTA, NYCTA, and EMD, and smaller industrial motor shops local to the areas. Wilmington could probably do it, but it would of course take MONEY.
Following up on previous remarks. If you’re not too fussy, a G can run again. Step 1, Pair the G with an AC-4400 (or thereabouts) donated by GE, one of the original builders of the G. Get the running gear and frame up to snuff, add cab controls, ditch lights, and run it as a non powered push-pull cab car. Step 2, salvage, if possible, the AC motors. If salvage is not possible, repower each C-truck in A-1-A fashion with contemporary motors and gears to provide token propulsion. Each idler axle could be a freewheeling “zombie” quill for old times sake. The GG-1 becomes a GG-2 slug, highlighting the fine work done by GE and others.
A GG-1 had 2 single phase motors per drive axle via a quill drive, not something any other railroad curently uses, for total of 12 motors.
If it does not sound like GG-1 its not a GG-1. and may just as well sit dead in a museum with a sound system playing the sounds.
If the ac propulsion system IS kept, and the locomotive does NOT use rectifier technology, regardless of what modern equipment is used in the control circuitry, the transformers, head-end power, you name it, if it takes 11,000V 25Hz from the overhead and the motors run on 25Hz, it will sound exactly like a GG-1 should sound. That would be the best modernization in my book. I’d go to rectifier technology only as a last resort. It was the 25Hz power in the motors that gave the GG-1 (and the MP-54 mu cars) their characteristic sounds.
This is a doable project and just requires the money:
The obvioius candidate is the standard one, not “Rivits”, at the Pennsylvania Railroad Musuem. It is close to the home rails where it can operate, and the owners can continue ownership and sponser trips themselves. The arrangements can be similar to what Steamtown offers with Private Car Lehigh Valley 353. Strassburg can sell tickets for the one coach coupled behind the GG-1 when their 0-6-0 steamer pushes it to and from the Lehman Place interchange track with Amtrak’s Philadelphia - Harrisburg line.
If that line is converted to 60Hz, then of course, the GG-1 will have to be towed to and from Philadelphia to reach the power it needs to run. Obviously it have to be towed anyway on its first visit to Wilmington Shops which should do the work.
The project probably has to wait until Amtrak sorts out the Acela problems and settles into a more normal routine. The project requires lots of money, possibly as much as ten million dollars to do it right. It also requires a person as dedicated as the one funding the project but who is a good locomotive man, familiar with current practices in diesel locomotives, enought so he (or she) can interface with the people at Wilmington Shops who know their stuff. If it is one and the same person, even better. The first step is to get a fee quote from Amtrak to thoroughly inspect the locomotive at Wilmington. Of course the costs of transportation to and from, on its own wheels, and getting it shape to role, have to be added. Then Wilmington Shops and Amtrak should come up with estimates for alternatives in restoration, but all alternatives should include: (1) meeting all FRA requirements, (2) head end power compatible with Amfleet, (3) boiler and water for it removed, (3) all necessary ATC and signal equipment, (4) no hazardess material during maintenance or future overhauls, The the options should be chosen and the work scheduled.
The frame cracks are no big deal - weld them up and normalize and you’re good to go! (Just what PRR did all those years)
For excursion service, all you’d need is the cab signal system updated (~$30k) - other cab conditions wouldn’t matter. A HEP car into Penn? Sure, why not? The GG1 hauled “Metroliners” did it all the time.
Getting a new trasformer built would be the big ticket item.
Not so simple for the HEP. The HEP has to be 60Hz, not 25Hz. Can’t do that with a transformer! You could use an HEP car (if you can find one) or an AEM7 to provide HEP.