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[ POLL ] Which front-end design of EMD E series do you prefer?

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Posted by Overmod on Tuesday, October 2, 2018 1:02 AM

Jones1945
By the way, I remember PRR did have a plan to develop a 7500hp or above electric locomotive, but it got cancelled, I wonder if this is one of her renderings.

A few pages later in the brochure (following, in fact, a page with the performance of a 7500hp continuous electric graphed out) is this:

which shows the Westinghouse theory at this moment in the late '40s - a modular construction using identical B trucks, presumably with span bolsters and in much the same fashion as the EL-2B.  This didn't last very long; we see Baldwin and Westinghouse going to trimounts for this kind of work within just a few years.

Note that there is a pair of very beautiful, streamlined smoke deflectors on the front end, and the size of that rounded smokestack reminds me of S2's modification in late 1947, so I think it was a rendering created in late 40s.

This was a pretty awful period for locomotive styling (think those C&O yellowbellies, definitely an acquired taste!) as some of the other renderings in this 1948 brochure rather dramatically show.  (See the "GG1" with the bulbous City of LA-style nose in old UP color palette for one of the ghastlier attempts.)

I bet the target buyer was Pennsy.

The target buyer by that point was probably anyone except Pennsy, which had given up on that style of turbine and was looking elsewhere for any coal-burning technology.  It does make you wonder whether there was a Q1-like nose in the original S2 design somewhere, which with other shrouding tin was left off a la N&W J1 for wartime reasons...

Both trucks looks longer than normal 4-wheel truck which made the engines and boiler looks larger and well proportioned.

Alas! what you're looking at here is an airbrushed S2 which has had the center axle detail of the 6-wheel trucks rather clumsily retouched.  I suspect it would be difficult to equalize the trucks 'as shown' and the wheel locations relative to the presumable pivot and rear centering points are decidedly less than dynamically 'optimal' as is the rigid truck wheelbase.  A practical turbine might even be a 2-8-4 design (as there is little augment to be 'steered out')

 

[/quote]

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Posted by Jones1945 on Tuesday, October 2, 2018 3:47 AM

Overmod

Alas! 

Welcome to 1950s, Overmod. The influence of Art Deco was fading or you can say long gone, product design was keep evolving and trying to break free from prewar styling, from a washing machine to EMD’s diesel engine, from an apartment building to the livery of a prime trains, many things were simplified...... cost-cutting, efficiency-oriented, minimize or removal of all beautiful elements and fine details bit by bit. It was colorful as always, but definitely not the color I would pick; many things were still streamlined, but not in a form that would attract me. Where is my S1 Duplex? where is my Maybach Zeppelin DS8 Stromlinien and Delage D8? where is my SS Normandie? They gone for good and will never come back.
 Alas! 
 
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Posted by daveklepper on Tuesday, October 2, 2018 6:08 AM

My all-time favorite passenger diesel locomotive , on looks, has always been the Burlington's E-5s, with the original sloping prow also used on E-3s through E-6s, and lots of stainless steel to match the stainless steel Budd consists.

 But if I were designing a diesel main-line excursion train, obviously I'd want an E-9for the best performance and reliability or even better yet, rebuilt executive units with the latest Progres Rail stuff that would fit.

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Posted by M636C on Tuesday, October 2, 2018 6:24 AM

I mentioned earlier Professor Marre's article.

It was in Trains for December 1971 ("The Tenth All-Diesel Issue") pages 38 to 47.

I don't know if you could still get this as a back issue...

It only dealt with types E-3, E-4, E-5 and E-6 and had brief historical tabulation of each unit.

The E-3s in particular were apparently limited in production, so each customer got two each, except ACL who got one, and KCS who got three (although one of those was the demonstrator.)

Peter

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Posted by daveklepper on Tuesday, October 2, 2018 8:10 AM

Regarding the B&O film:   Great nostalgia....  But really, heavy steel rails sagging under the weight of the train?   Hope they did not sag very much!

Editor was needed!

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Posted by Jones1945 on Wednesday, October 3, 2018 1:46 AM

M636C

I mentioned earlier Professor Marre's article.

It was in Trains for December 1971 ("The Tenth All-Diesel Issue") pages 38 to 47.

I don't know if you could still get this as a back issue...

It only dealt with types E-3, E-4, E-5 and E-6 and had brief historical tabulation of each unit.

The E-3s in particular were apparently limited in production, so each customer got two each, except ACL who got one, and KCS who got three (although one of those was the demonstrator.)

Peter

 

Thank you very much, Peter. I would like to get a copy of this(..........Deleted Message................... )I remember you mentioned about a issue of Milestone about S1, it is probably the last book or article I need to find but I am still searching on and off. CoffeeTime
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Posted by Overmod on Wednesday, October 3, 2018 1:54 AM

Jones1945
I would like to get a copy of this, but I am afraid it won't be easy to find one.  Back issues of Trains before 2004 can only be found on eBay or Amazon ...

Have they stopped issuing the Complete Collection now? 

https://kalmbachhobbystore.com/product/dvd/15100

Not to advocate this (except that I'm still irritated with their making the Collection incompatible with all modern generations of Macintosh, then not replacing the defective product discs after 'solving' the issue for new customers) but you might find someone with the Collection who would e-mail you a couple of screen grabs with the article pages, if you don't want to spring for your own set.  (It is very, very, very worthwhile having the set, though.)

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Posted by Jones1945 on Wednesday, October 3, 2018 2:08 AM

daveklepper

My all-time favorite passenger diesel locomotive , on looks, has always been the Burlington's E-5s, with the original sloping prow also used on E-3s through E-6s, and lots of stainless steel to match the stainless steel Budd consists.

 But if I were designing a diesel main-line excursion train, obviously I'd want an E-9for the best performance and reliability or even better yet, rebuilt executive units with the latest Progres Rail stuff that would fit.

 

CB&Q really put a lot effort on their legendry E-5s, even the engine trucks were skirted. They were best match of their Budd built stainless steel consists; from front end to the observation car, the train looked shinny and consistent. The beauty of them reminds me of the Empire State Express of 1941.

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Posted by Jones1945 on Wednesday, October 3, 2018 2:28 AM

Overmod

Have they stopped issuing the Complete Collection now? 

https://kalmbachhobbystore.com/product/dvd/15100

Not to advocate this (except that I'm still irritated with their making the Collection incompatible with all modern generations of Macintosh, then not replacing the defective product discs after 'solving' the issue for new customers) but you might find someone with the Collection who would e-mail you a couple of screen grabs with the article pages, if you don't want to spring for your own set.  (It is very, very, very worthwhile having it)

Wow thank you for the link, Overmod. I didn't know this before. I note the link "Important information about Windows 10 compatibility", I have been using Window 10 for a while, I wish there won't be any problem since I had some “not so smooth” experience when I purchasing the “Steam Glory 3” from “you know who”, put I don’t want to talk about it openly. It would be great if they could divide the set from 70 years to seven separate part. Issues from 1940 to 1960 are what I really want tbh.

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Posted by Overmod on Wednesday, October 3, 2018 10:08 AM

Jones1945
I note the link "Important information about Windows 10 compatibility", I have been using Window 10 for a while, I wish there won't be any problem since I had some “not so smooth” experience when I purchasing the “Steam Glory 3” from “you know who”, put I don’t want to talk about it openly.

I'm tempted to note that if you don't talk about it, no one will figure out how to fix it... or improve customer service details if warranted.

My immediate recommendation is that you set up a proper virtualization environment and then download and implement Windows XP Mode.  That gives older or cranky software a familiar sandbox to play in.  On some older computers this produces a performance 'hit', but rendering the equivalent of PDF pages off a DVD-ROM is not exactly bandwidth-intensive.

There are considerably important articles in the late '60s (for example, the discussion of Giesl ejectors), the '70s (Withuhn conjugated duplexing and a considerable number of modern-steam articles), and the '80s (Le Massena on Niagaras, HPIT, etc.  You never know until you read ... and it's there for the reading.

Sure, I prefer bound copies for 'serendipitous perusing' -- but full-text search is an attractive feature, even if it doesn't always work reliably.  And storage and access are greatly facilitated!

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Posted by Jones1945 on Wednesday, October 3, 2018 12:30 PM

Overmod

I'm tempted to note that if you don't talk about it, no one will figure out how to fix it... or improve customer service details if warranted.

My immediate recommendation is that you set up a proper virtualization environment and then download and implement Windows XP Mode.  That gives older or cranky software a familiar sandbox to play in.  On some older computers this produces a performance 'hit', but rendering the equivalent of PDF pages off a DVD-ROM is not exactly bandwidth-intensive.

There are considerably important articles in the late '60s (for example, the discussion of Giesl ejectors), the '70s (Withuhn conjugated duplexing and a considerable number of modern-steam articles), and the '80s (Le Massena on Niagaras, HPIT, etc.  You never know until you read ... and it's there for the reading.

Sure, I prefer bound copies for 'serendipitous perusing' -- but full-text search is an attractive feature, even if it doesn't always work reliably.  And storage and access are greatly facilitated!

Thanks, Overmod, the problem I mentioned was never fixed after months and tons of auto reply emails from another "digital books hosting service provider", at last I simply buy one more digital copy from that "digital books hosting service provider" instead of waiting  "you know who" to fix the problem for me and I got the digital copy on the  "digital books hosting service provider" instead of "you know who". I didn't request a refund and not going to since it was not a large amount of money and I don't have mood to do it. It wasn't technical problem on my end I am quite sure.

The full-text search feature is really really attractive to me, if there are any reader using window 10 and willing to the share their experience I am gonna get one, I guess my family members could help me to figure it out as well if there will be any problem. Thank you for your help!Thumbs Up

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Posted by Miningman on Wednesday, October 3, 2018 9:36 PM

A real Bulldog nose styling before being applied to Diesel.

6400 beautifully restored, it was part of Railway Week in Belleville, Ont. June 23-28,1964. 

Preserved at the National Museum of Science and Technology in Ottawa. 


 

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Posted by SD70Dude on Wednesday, October 3, 2018 10:23 PM

Greetings from Alberta

-an Articulate Malcontent

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Posted by Miningman on Wednesday, October 3, 2018 10:57 PM

The Dude with the 20 foot jump shot for three!

( I've never seen the blue in a photo)

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Posted by M636C on Thursday, October 4, 2018 6:32 AM

Miningman

A real Bulldog nose styling before being applied to Diesel.

6400 beautifully restored, it was part of Railway Week in Belleville, Ont. June 23-28,1964. 

Preserved at the National Museum of Science and Technology in Ottawa. 


 

 

I'm not happy that that scheme matches the way the locomotives were painted prior to the Royal train:

If you go to:

http://www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/photos/cnr_steam2/royal.htm

and scroll down to the photo of 6401, apparently in green on the pilot train at Brockville, the only part of the valance forward of the cylinders  that was green was the stripe. Also it appears that the boiler aft of the smokebox is green, separated by a thin (yellow?) stripe.

Although the hand coloured three quarter view shows the  boiler cladding as black, the CN painting above suggests silver or "Russia Iron" (the CPR Royal Train Hudson had stainless steel). The B&W photo of 6400 below the hand coloured thre quarter also suggests a colour other than black on the 6400 as painted for the Royal Train.

Is it possible that up to 1939 no 6400 had a black boiler?

Peter

 

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Posted by Overmod on Thursday, October 4, 2018 6:57 AM

I don't think any 6400, or its more attractively valanced counterpart on the Grand Trunk, had other than black boiler cleading in service, and I think that applies to Royal train service (the "silver" color in the painting being, I think, artistic license for sunlight on shiny black paint).

Russia iron is not 'silver', although this appears to be a fairly common impression; neither is it oxide bluing of any kind.  It is a kind of mottled green color, shown in some of the relevant threads on RyPN where extensive forensics on how to produce it, or its American 'commercial' variant (which used a very different process from the original!), have been conducted.  I believe we have had topics on it here, too.

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Thursday, October 4, 2018 10:13 AM

Miningman

A real Bulldog nose styling before being applied to Diesel.

 

An E8A looks a lot better.

The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul
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Posted by Firelock76 on Thursday, October 4, 2018 7:27 PM

CSSHEGEWISCH
 
Miningman

A real Bulldog nose styling before being applied to Diesel.

 

 

 

An E8A looks a lot better.

 

Sorry bro, no it doesn't.  E8's look good, I'll grant you that, but no as good as that Canadian masterpiece!  That machine just exhudes power!

 

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Posted by Miningman on Thursday, October 4, 2018 8:02 PM

'Nuff said!

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Posted by M636C on Thursday, October 4, 2018 8:25 PM

Russia iron is not 'silver', although this appears to be a fairly common impression; neither is it oxide bluing of any kind.  It is a kind of mottled green color

I wasn't suggesting that it was silver.

It is, as usually presented, highly polished and would probably reflect a blue shade on a fine day. We know that the CPR Royal Train locomotive had stainless steel (or something like that). It is pretty clear that 6400 was polished. But the boiler doesn't seem to match the smokebox in the B&W photos. It could be that both were black but with different types of paint for the two locations. But on 6401 the boiler appears to match the green stripe, and not the smokebox.

Peter

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Posted by Overmod on Thursday, October 4, 2018 9:06 PM

M636C
But on 6401 the boiler appears to match the green stripe, and not the smokebox.

If I remember correctly, it was a blue stripe (for the Royal train) not a green one, although the dyes in the color pix I've seen might have shifted.  And I do NOT see the boiler being anything but black in this picture:

whereas the case for the Royal Hudson does support lighter-colored cleading

and I'm sure miningman's 'correspondent' can come up with all sorts of good pictures and description.

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Posted by Miningman on Thursday, October 4, 2018 10:09 PM

You would think somewhere in the deep dusty archives in Ottawa there remains one definitive colour picture in some obscure file. 

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Posted by Jones1945 on Thursday, October 4, 2018 11:52 PM

 

 

 

 

 

 

All pics are direct linked, credits and sources in the pics link. Bon week-end ~~!

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Posted by Miningman on Friday, October 5, 2018 12:35 AM

Thanks for all that Jones1945. 

The streamlined Northerns highballed past our station in Burlington, Ontario frequently. While many trains stopped these felllas never did. Folks milling about on the platforms paralleling the inside tracks waiting for their train would be in for a real treat or freightening shock when the 6400's roared by all raw power, always on the outside tracks,  a very impressive sight.

My first encounter with them was this way and I was held captive by the moment, its such a vivid memory. 

You know, I can't help but think that the railroads really knew what they doing back then. It was important and permanent. It was for all of  us, it was service that could be counted on, all the time. It all worked so well, with great good people. We lost too much too quickly. It's just not like that any more.

The streamlined Northerns would take your breath away and capture your imagination. A person was frozen in the moment. 

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Posted by M636C on Friday, October 5, 2018 1:02 AM

Posted by Overmod on Thursday, October 04, 2018 9:06 PM

 

 
M636C
But on 6401 the boiler appears to match the green stripe, and not the smokebox.

 

If I remember correctly, it was a blue stripe (for the Royal train) not a green one, although the dyes in the color pix I've seen might have shifted.  And I do NOT see the boiler being anything but black in this picture:

But 6401 had no Royal Insignia, and was still lettered CN so is most likely to be green and black. What is hard to tell is exactly which areas were green and which black. I think CPR had a standard Hudson on its pilot train, to take over if the the blue one failed (which it didn't).

I am amazed at the collection of illustrations Jones 1945 has found, but none of them indicate 6400 in Royal Train colours in a real colour photo.

The silver boiler on the hand coloured green 6401, like the CN painiting of the blue loco with a silver boiler gives room for some doubt in that the hand colourist may have seen the real thing....

Peter

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Posted by BaltACD on Friday, October 5, 2018 3:19 PM

Always have found it odd, that companies went to the effort to streamline locomotives only to couple them to Vanderbilt style tenders - Party in front and business in back?

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by M636C on Friday, October 5, 2018 5:28 PM

BaltACD

Always have found it odd, that companies went to the effort to streamline locomotives only to couple them to Vanderbilt style tenders - Party in front and business in back?

Having read somewhere about the streamlining of the 6400 type, there was an emphasis on improving smoke clearance as much as looking "modern" and this design was tested in a wind tunnel to check for improved visibility from the cab. Clearly the tender didn't affect this aspect.

Peter

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Posted by Jones1945 on Friday, October 5, 2018 6:05 PM

Miningman

Thanks for all that Jones1945. 

The streamlined Northerns highballed past our station in Burlington, Ontario frequently. While many trains stopped these felllas never did. Folks milling about on the platforms paralleling the inside tracks waiting for their train would be in for a real treat or freightening shock when the 6400's roared by all raw power, always on the outside tracks,  a very impressive sight.

My first encounter with them was this way and I was held captive by the moment, its such a vivid memory. 

You know, I can't help but think that the railroads really knew what they doing back then. It was important and permanent. It was for all of  us, it was service that could be counted on, all the time. It all worked so well, with great good people. We lost too much too quickly. It's just not like that any more.

The streamlined Northerns would take your breath away and capture your imagination. A person was frozen in the moment. 

Don't mention it Miningman! I understand that the feeling when a railfan encounter his favorite big steam running in front of him, it can be almost as powerful and breathtaking as meeting ones first love! I believe you remember what Raymond Lowey shared about his story when he saw his works running at speed in person first time. The vibration , the heat and the energy, the sound and "sweet-smelling", passengers’ excited reactions made it an unforgeable moment to many railfan like you and me. Until nowadays, I still can't find any other type of railroad motive power have the same level of charms as steam locomotives! 

CNR Class U-4-a is one of my favorites 4-8-4s, I love them since I found pics of them in books and stamps when I was a child. The design of U-4-a included wind tunnel testing to looking for ways to improve smoke clearance around the locomotive cabs of steam trains, instead of making changes to their existing "Confederations" Class’s designs and it proofed that CNR's semi-streamlining approach on their Class U-4-a were working fine. (Did PRR take notes?)

I suspect that CNR Class U-4-a inspired PRR about the design of Q1 #6130 Duplex’s since earlier 4-8-4 of CNR like U-2-d and U-2-h with smaller diameter drivers or even U-4-a itself were seen hauling freight trains, coincidently Q1 and U-4-a were both semi-streamlined, their diameter of drivers were also 77 inches. Please note that streamlining a freight engine was never a tradition of PRR, before or after Q1, although people could argue that Q2 were also semi-streamlined with their "T1-style boiler casting”.

 

 

M636C
But 6401 had no Royal Insignia, and was still lettered CN so is most likely to be green and black. What is hard to tell is exactly which areas were green and which black. I think CPR had a standard Hudson on its pilot train, to take over if the the blue one failed (which it didn't).

I am amazed at the collection of illustrations Jones 1945 has found, but none of them indicate 6400 in Royal Train colours in a real colour photo.

lol, I thought I found the pic you wants, Peter! This case reminds me of people were discussing about PRR's DGLE in different era on different trains or the color of PRR#3768 when it was pained in "bronze" shortly which had no photo avalible for reference. Smile

 

 

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Posted by Miningman on Friday, October 5, 2018 6:07 PM

What's wrong with the tender...the smooth cylindrical sides match the boiler contour quite nicely. Looks great. 

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Posted by SD70Dude on Friday, October 5, 2018 8:09 PM

Don't mean to distract from the steam discussion, but I happened upon these while looking for something else, a pretty good side by side comparison of the two EMD nose styles:

http://www.railpictures.net/photo/668211/

And while the PA is often listed as having superior looks I don't think this paint scheme quite does them justice:

http://www.railpictures.net/photo/645935/

Greetings from Alberta

-an Articulate Malcontent

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