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First Generation ALCO or GE six axle locomotives

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  • Member since
    September 2008
  • 216 posts
First Generation ALCO or GE six axle locomotives
Posted by NILE on Tuesday, January 6, 2015 3:00 PM

It seems that first gen ALCO century sercies or old GEs have an off set three axle truck.  Was the truck off set, with the two axles furtherest from center of the engine closer together?  If so what advantage or disadvantage did this have?  It would seem that it would have more wear on rails by having the wheels off set like this, or was it not enough to make a differance?

  • Member since
    October 2008
  • From: Canada
  • 1,820 posts
Posted by cv_acr on Tuesday, January 6, 2015 3:42 PM

Traction motors are mounted to one side of the driving axle. The centre axle is offset because there needs to be more room on one side where the centre motor is mounted. Like this:

Om mO mO

To make the axles equally spaced, the middle axle is either an unpowered idler axle to spread out weight, or the whole truck has to be much longer because there's a minimum amount of space required for the motors.

 

  • Member since
    September 2002
  • 7,486 posts
Posted by ndbprr on Saturday, January 10, 2015 7:17 PM
If I remember correctly the EMD traction motor was smaller allowing unifortm axle spacing.

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