I am not very knowledgeable on the Pennsylvania. However weren’t GG1s so well designed that they were even used for freight (as you noted the freight electrics were mostly failures)? Could electrification much farther west avoided the disastrous first generation diesel (interesting looking yes, but financially failures) purchases, such as the all the Baldwins, Alcos, Limas and FMs?
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Back when I thought the best ‘solution’ was electrified MATES acting as ‘power tenders’, I thought the general idea was to make them B-B, as short and light as (say) an Rc-4, with the two pans, third-rail connectivity, and all the transformers and rectification on board ,along with the crew kitchen and recreational space) using contemporary DC road-slug connectivity to the various traction motors. This gad all sorts of problems once you wanted to integrate it with legacy slug-mother MU integration in a random consist.
In those days it was much more difficult to modulate regenerative braking for wheel slide control. The power to the tender ‘wheels’ was what was transferred to the line, with the MUed units still using resistive dynamic to make up for any difference. Obviously the synergies with a cabbed FLXdrive or equivalent in a consist are collectively greater and more often useful than those in a ‘tender’ alone.
The DC-Link level line integration gets around most of these issues but not the issue of cost-effective full regenerative ‘blendabls’ braking. I don’t think the modifications to ‘trainline’ synthesized AC dynamic braking are simply done in conversion and may be a considerable percentage of implementing full dual-mode-lite pan or shoe connectivity.
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Remember that the G design started as a sort of red-headed stepchild on the PRR, with the relative failure of the P (an electric version of a Pacific) and O (Atlantic’ thinking – the freight was going to be handled by electric Lollipops (the L6). The PRR candidate (appropriately numbered 4800) was like a steam 4-8-2 without augment concerns…
Now the New Haven engine from which the G’s running gear was taken had to operate into Grand Central Terminal on 750V third rail (then as now I think making the switch from catenary at Woodlawn). Consequently it was built with ‘universal’ motors that could run on AC or DC, and for various reasons this type was never replaced. Just a couple of years later GE developed a much better twin motor (428A) but this would not fit in the GG1’s 57"- drive red chassis… but it did in the 2-B-B-2 DD2, which had something like 5800hp continuous on fir axles to the GG1’s 4620 on 6. That was going to be the initial power on the extension to Harrisburg ,and then west) but with an end to government funding access or guarantee, that didn’t happen. Interestingly the specs for the 1943 project still call for 428As or equivalent… even as the WPB made sure PRR bought more Gs for assured power in wartime. After that the PRR had the same sort of situation with GG1s that it had with K4s in 1928; a whole lot of good engines precluding much of a change to better ones.
The middle range of GG1s (in the middle to late 4800s) were built with lower numerical ratio ‘freight’ final drive ratio and without steam generators. At least some of the earlier passenger units got this treatment later in life. Reference books on PRR power cover this, but my copies are deep on storage…
I think PRR might have dived into early diesels to a lesser extent, but not all that much less. There was no conceivable ROÍ for electrifying the whole of Lines West at that point (vs. the perceived joy of oil/electric power) – you’d still have seen the large mid-Fifties orders for proven EMD locomotives, still to Alco’s or Baldwin’s despair, and the need for 'GG1 equivalents to snap passenger trains would have been solved by E8s (and then a rising tide of LD train-offs!) in the time period actually observed without electrification, so I think you might see PRR standardizing away from some of the weird power in numbers, but not variety, and still purchasing a variety of not-very-sustainable options.
The numbers for a full service rebuild of a GG1 in the mid-Seventies would have been on the order of $4.5 million (including welded replacement underframes) and you would still have had a locomotive weight well over 200 tons with only six axles out of 10 powered. That wouldn’t have braked well with Amfleet stock…
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I was thinking the old or dilapidated steamers could have been called out in the East and the best moved to Lines West and used until more EMDs were available.
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As far as I know per NEC region employee timetables dating back to the 30s electrification into the 80s, all of the GG1s were originally geared for 90 mph although they were only authorized 80. They ran both pax and freights. When the Metroliner project started the PRR regeared some to 100 for the Congressional which was supposed to get a faster schedule. That lasted just one timetable Fall 67 before the Congressional was returned to its original 80 mph schedule in Spring 68. They had too many motor failures.
The 100 GG1s were apparently not regeared as Amtrak on occasions allowed them 100mph. Such as when they had to pull dead Metroliners. They weren’t consistent though. Amtrak varied the authorized speeds from 80 to 100 for the GG1s depending on apparently someone’s moods. They were not consistent.
For PRR/PC ETTs see this excellent site:
Sort by Division. Then look for Eastern Division.
That redistribution of steam was certainly observed during the progressive electrification of the Eastern lines to Enola and Washington in the late Twenties up to the Harrisburg completion. It was my impression many of the prewar Lines West freight engines were different detail (e.g. 2-10-2s) from the standardized types, with the L Mikados being too small and the I-class being unstable with heavy inertial augment. Where the more interesting effect might have been is in the perceived need for new duplex power, and in the large wartime acquisition of both the Q2s and the J1/J1as. I suspect little past that point would have changed much – the modern steam that went to Lines West would become obsolescent right on the same timetable by 1947, with just as much eagerness for cheaper-looking diesel power.
One interesting thing that literally came months too late to matter was the revised V1 turbine, that you may recall was approved for production in 1944 but wasn’t much of an answer for fast wartime through traffic. The interesting (if homemade) presentation on the Bowes drive for the two turbines led the the registration of the streamlined passenger shell design patent… then the whole idea disappeared. It might be interesting to have seen whether either type would have held off dieselization in the early years, but again, by the time the credit was there for the big orders in the mid-Fifties the remaining steam would have gone on an accelerated basis.
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