Steven, its your money and, your railroad so, if you want to paint PAs in black widow, go for it! Enjoying the hobby is what it is all about. If you do paint the units, some detail options you might wish to consider if such is important to you. All PA/PBs delivered to Southern Pacific proper had dynamic brakes-those delivered to the Cotton Belt and, the Texas and New Orleans did not have d/b. The Cotton Belt units were delivered without Mars lights so, the headlight was mounted in the grilled nose instead of in the nose door like the T&NO and the SP units. Lots of modeling opportunites here, have fun.
SP 6203 (the lead unit) is an F-7 with 65:12 gearing for passenger service. True freight gearing for EMD was 62:15. The gearing did not mean that 6203 could not be used in freight service, it just could not get out and lug with the freighters on say, Paisano Pass, Stein’s Hill, Beaumont Hill or any other of SP’s gut-busters. Most western roads preferred high geared F’s to E’s and other A1A power because the weight wasted on that idler axle could be put to use in adhesion and tractive effort, both very useful in mountainous territory. The A1A truck was fine in giving a smoother ride at high speeds in flat-land running where the track was also straighter than in the mountains. Most western roads (ATSF, SP, WP, GN, NP, D&RGW and to a degree, UP) chose four axle power for their western trains. Those that did use A1A trucked units ran them in herds of 3 to 5 units (10000 or more h.p.) Another reason B-B trucked units were favored by the roads with mountains to climb was dynamic braking. EMD did not offer it on their E-7 and only SP, UP, Milwaukee, and, Southern opted for it on their E-8s and E-9s. Some might point out the A1A trucked Alco PA was relatively well received out west-ATSF, SP, UP and even D&RGW. The PA had two things in its favor the EMD did not-dynamic braking and the GE 752 traction motor. This is why after their passenger hauling days were over, they moved right into freight service on many roads that owned them.
But the New Haven was an anomally, in that they made many stops between NY and Boston and the line was not a very high speed line due it’s many sharp curves between those two points, the DL-109 had a lower gear ratio so they could start heavy passenger trains quickly rather than a higher gear ratio that allowed higher sustained speeds on straight track. So the DL-109’s were equally at home in freight or passenger service.
The New Haven EP-5 (jets) Electrics, were the same way and when the PC tried to use them on long distance fast passenger trains on the Coorridor they had numerous problems including fires and failures. They worked on the New Haven but not the PC off of the NY to Boston run.
The BAR after passenger service ended rebuilt their E7’s with freight gear ratios so they could be used in freight service.
Rick Jesionowski
Randy,The E-L went one step farther and regeared some E8s for freight service.
A lot of modelers and some railfans fully believe these E8s retain their passenger gearing which of course they did not.