Sheet metal opening on Santa Fe F-units

Model Railroader Prototype information for the modeler
1

Hello, all. I recently bought a nice book, Santa Fe 1940-1971 Vol 3, by Lloyd Stagner. Tons of great photos, detailed captions, and narrative about Santa Fe operations from Albuquerque to Los Angeles.

Many photos of different F3s and F7s, both passenger and freight, show a roughly rectangular opening in the front of the nose, below and to the left of the headlight as you look at the locomotive from the front, above and to the right of the number board on the engineer’s side . In a few of the photos it’s very irregular as if it were cut by hand in a hurry; in others it clearly has a manufactured cover hinged at the top and with a latch toward the bottom. Other photos of other locomotives don’t show anything there at all, just smooth sheet metal.

Would any of you know the function of that opening? How come it’s not there on all F units? Any theories on the rough irregular openings?

Thanks…

Dean

2

Could it be a step to get to the top of the nose? I don’t see the “usual” grabirons that many F units have in this shot:

http://gelwood.el.wny.org/atsf/atsf0028gea.jpg

But there is a guy washing the windshield and that door to the opening is up.

Ricky

3

Good idea to look for pictures on the web, don’t know why I didn’t think of that! These two show a service connection port of some kind behind that door:

http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/tr_sf342.jpg

http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/9/9/5/7995.1196229600.jpg

The door shows up on most photos of Santa Fe F units that I could find, including those in the blue/yellow paint scheme, but not all of them:

http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/6/5/2/2652.1247974681.jpg

And it shows up on at least some other road’s units, like this GN FT:

http://www.gngoat.org/mpc_vv02.jpg

So I guess the book photos that showed a rough and irregular opening were where that door had been torn off somehow. Still curious about what the service port is, and why some locomotives have it and some don’t.

Dean

4

It looks to me to be the connection receptacle for the main mu cable, as seen here.

F-units, at least the early ones, didn’t have mu connections of the nose of the A units. Many roads realised that they’d be more useful if so-equipped, and retrofitted them in-house.

Wayne

5

jumper cable connection for mu operation?

grizlump

6

Thanks, gentlemen, mu cable makes sense.

Dean

7

I knew I should have picked MU connection insterad of step, what was I thinking…doh![banghead] Seriously, just goes to show how great the forums are for getting answers. ANd it makes sense, many of the Burlington F units could not be MU’ed and guess what, no door on the front.

Ricky

8

Hi Dean,

Yes, those are doors for m.u. cable sockets. The doors were not original equipment and were installed by the railroad’s shops. Volume one of Lloyd Stagner’s Santa Fe in Color series includes some photos of F units with the doors open, including one on page 110 that clearly shows the cable sockets. There’s also a photo of a Seaboard Air Line E7 with similar doors on page 22 of the Model Railroader Cyclopedia, Vol. 2, Diesel Locomotives, in the section explaining multiple-unit connections.

Merry Christmas,

Andy

9

Thank you, Andy. (I think, anyway. My budget could likely have done just fine without knowing about the Model Railroader Cyclopedias… :slight_smile:

So those m.u sockets would have been used when an A-unit was in the middle of the locomotive consist, AABA or something like that? I can see how that’d give the railroad more flexibility.

By the way, I just watched your video on the sound decoder in those Stewart F3s… I just acquired a batch of Stewart FTs and will be pondering DCC installation for a while.

Thanks again–

Dean

10

Yes Dean,

In the 1960s, especially, the Santa Fe ran AABBA F-unit consists on many of its Chicago-California passenger trains, in part to have an extra lead unit in case one failed en route.

I’ve put an older Soundtraxx decoder in one of my Stewart FT sets, but I haven’t done any with Tsunamis yet. The TSU-AT1000 PCB-replacement decoder might be a better choice for that than the TSU-1000 I used in the MR story.

Merry Christmas,

Andy