Those alcos stink. I was in the cab of an S-12 running around the city and they sound awful. They stink too, something wrong with the exhaust. They would be better off with a rail-king if they can’t get a GP or at least an old SW unit.
OK. I’ll take a stab - mostly a wild guess.
Obviously the GP9 first- a couple of guy with standard hand tools plus a crab stud tool should do it - but this is where my knowledge ends!
I’ll do the U25 next because I think I have a relatively straight pull for the power assembly up thru the carbody roof hatch. U25s are just plain wierd locomotives, though, and it’ll probably crap out for something else 10 minutes after I have the power assy changed anyway.
Then, I’d do the Alco, even though it looks like it would be a pain to get the assy out thru those short doors. I imagine it would be worse if the unit had DB.
Then, the Baldwin - just because it doesn’t look like the access is any better than the Alco and I’m guessing the power assys are larger.
Finally the FM because of the top crank.
Am I close?
I agree, keep your job as round house foreman. I liked the part about the G.E. going to hell as soon as they roll out the door…How true. Don’t think this did not go un noticed in the front office. Lets look for a suitable replacement and get these engines out of here. We can’t seem to get any decent mean time before failure #s from these things. Too bad WE don’t have any input on buying new locomotives , we surely wouldn’t have bought these. Now what do we do with them? We can find less demanding service for them,maybe they’ll last a bit longer in local service. Most likely though we’ll park them, as soon as one has a major component failure we won’t waste our money repairing it. In the meantime we’ll pick up a few more EMDs, soon they’ll all be gone.
Randy
The GP40-2 w are around and in good use here in Fond du lac Wi. The CN is using them for local jobs that they are entirely unsuited for. Face it these engines are worn out!!! The cabs have big holes rusted through them . The CN simply had more than they needed , they were able to sell and scrap some of these engines, hopefully get rid of some of the troublemakers. The SD50… A terrible locomotive , always one electrical problem after another. This is a locomotive that was released before the technology was ready. I don’t blame anyone who rids them selves of this locomotive.
As far as I know the Motreal Maine and Atlantic has a fleet of B39-8 and C30-7. I don’t think they have any ex CN locomotives
Randy
Wow, this is so interesting.
However, to add to the frey, didn’t the need to keep EMD honest affect this process and cause the Brass to insist on keeping Alcos and then GEs running more than they otherwise would have? Even though the EMD was the better product, wasn’t an invaluable virtue of the Alco or GE simply that it was not an EMD?
And, couldn’t you argue that this was a good strategy? As Mark said, GE just kept coming and improving. Had uper rail management not insisted on a policy of buying them and servicing them despite their problems, would have GE been willing or able to improve their product like they did?
Finally, does anyone know if the reason railroads buy EMDs now is the same as they used to buy EMDs in the past–to keep the competitor honest? Or is EMD considered so close in quality to EMD to be a tomato/tomaaaato thing?
Gabe
Your right, no they don’t. Got my locomotives screwed up-MMA has F40PH. Guilford Maine Centreal has 20 and Quebec Gatineau has 2 ex CN GP40-2Ws.
Great answer Mark !!!
I know some RRs are hesitant to put all thier eggs in one basket.
If an entire series of locomotives develop problems , that could be a disaster.
I think all the RRs today just want a good product at a good price.
Randy
Speaking of the GP40-2W, we have a GP40-2L CN 9460 in the new website paint in Manitowoc, WI this week since the WC 2004 broke down. The locomotive is in great shape. The cab is fine and she seems to run just fine. I had a chance to step inside after chores were done in the yard yesterday and the interior is not the worst. The paint is holding up well and the seats are real nice. The only th
So, railroads just were ignorant in recognizing that the earlier GEs and ALCOs were an inferior product, or were these products not inferior?
Uh, it might be a bit more personal at times than you think. Conrail lost a bunch (100?) of GP38s they had planned to buy out at lease end to EMD who was trying to build a lease fleet at the time. Even though EMD out bid CR fair and square, this left CR in such a bad position that they “punshed” EMD by going all GE for a few years. The new loco orders in 90, 91 and 92 were all GE. Since it was pretty much a toss-up on price between C40s and SD60s, it didn’t "cost " the RR much to do this.
It was not a coincidence!
Thank you,
That makes sense. I didn’t know that Alcos and GEs were that much cheaper, and it hadn’t occurred to me that GE was willing to run its locomotive division without a profit when it first started.
I also appreciate the CAT/John Deere analogy. I have a good friend who works as an exec at CAT and I e-mailed him asking him if his experience coresponded with your analogy and he said totally. His e-mail back to me echoed many of the things you mentioned even though I did not include them in my initial e-mail.
Gabe
Funny thing, though, when GE made it’s last round of improvements to the Dash 7 line - the eddy current fan clutch and separate DB hatch, I started thinking, “Wow, this is getting to be quite a bit like an…Alco Century!”
Think I’ll keep my “inside” job, though. I don’t have to worry about that GP9 spitting oil on my car!
Let me throw in a couple of thoughts in here about the ALCO verses the EMD. First of all when you talk about the reliability of engine (locomotive) you have to take into consideration more than just the engine. The engine is a big part but it is not every thing. Keep in mind the GE made all the electrical components for the ALCO. Is there a connection here? Roughly seven years after the demise of ALCO, GE hits the market with their first U Boats. Connection? Don’t know.
Secondly let me talk about the Train-Master with used a Fairbanks-Morse 38D-8-1/8 engine. In marine and stationary service this is one of the finest engine ever built (I might add that I work on this engine in the Navy for 3-1/2 years and they were a strong reliable engine “in marine (submarine) use.” The engine was designed in the 30’s and still in service today. You will find them in small power plants; they are still in service in the Nuclear Submarine as auxiliary engine, still used in marine service in basically the same engine. For an engine the have lasted over 70 year is a testament to what kind of engine it.
In the talking with some of the old timers who ran these engine most will tell you that they were a dirty engine and leaked a lot of oil. I will give that one to the 39D-8-1/8 the coffin cover need a lot of attention to get them to stop leaking. In the Navy this was not a problem since you have a person watching 24 hour out of the day. If I had to guess why the Railroad didn’t like these engines I would say the main problem is that the vertical drive unit that synchronized the timing of the upper and lower cranks. For those who do not know about these engine is that a 10 cylinder engine, had 20 pistons and two crankshafts and the pistons move towards the center of the cylinder. Thus no heads, no valves and camshaft assemble. What happen in train engine that doesn’t happen in marine service is that you have the engine fully loaded and the next minute it at zero load. So in train service the load t
It’s the fairbanks I would park my car away from… way away
Randy
I was told a while ago that the reason that the GG1’s were scrapped is that after millions of miles the truck carriages eventually developed cracks
Don’t forget that G.E. designed the electrical systems for ALCO. G.E was able to raise the prices on the equipment to the point that it wasn’t feasable to build an affordable locomotive. G.E. benefitted from ALCO especially in R&D. Westinghouse partnered up with Baldwin and Fairbanks. I must admit those Westinghouse traction motors were tough !
Randy
I read somewhere,(forget where)that the head of the mechanical department of a railroad commented that the perfect locomotive would have an EMD engine and GE electrical equipment.
My understanding (from 30-odd years ago):
It was GE’s entry into the locomotive business that prompted Alco’s exit – as indicated, Alco was relying on GE for electrical components. Someone in Trains in the late '60s indicated that there was a direct connection between GE’s deciding to make road locomotives with the Cooper-Bessemer engines and Alco’s decision to cease production.
The stated reason to retire GG1s from NEC service was because of ‘crystallization’ (not quite the same thing as cracking, but it leads more or less directly to it) in the main underframes (we don’t call 'em “carriages” 'round these parts). Argument at the time was that nobody had the required size of furnace necessary to heat the underframes sufficiently to redissolve the grain boundaries and developed stresses. Since the development of the World Wide Web, I’ve found several facilities… and a couple of equipment manufacturers… who could have made this operation possible.
But… what you’d have after rebuilding the frames would still have been a 25Hz locomotive with only 4400 continuous hp, albeit an extremely good one. The numbers we were looking at, at the time, called for about $1.5M per locomotive for mechanical rebuilding. The AEM-7s looked like a better solution.
The decision to phase out the freight Gs was different, and hinged much more on flexibility than it did catastrophic breakdown. Note that the E44s… thirty years newer and with much more sophisticated electrical gear… didn’t last any longer. Diesels represented a much better way to run freight than the old electrification… and the ‘new’ electrification, at the time, was going to be a higher voltage at 60Hz, with the economics of electric ‘motor’ rebuilding being essentially nonexistent (likewise the effective resale value of the locomotives to an equipment trustee!)
Of course I’m still pissed they closed down the Atglen & Susquehanna! I liked my world better when it was under cat. (Mookie,
Unfortunately the GG1s had another problem in addition to their heavy weight. They were leaking “PCP” from their transformers which is an environmental hazard. This sealed their future, as there were groups that were advocating that it was cheaper for Amtrak to rebuild the best GG1s for continued service and not buy an entire fleet of replacement locomotives. What added a little weight to this was that the GG1 actually outperformed their replacement: The E60CP!
Of course the remaining Gs went to New Jersey Transit for a while and bowed out in the early 80s.