Half Jeep/Half F-Unit

[gabe]

I realize this thread is going to be greated by: You novice--for may inability to know the proper name of this locomotive. But, there is/was an engine that was half Jeep half F-unit (and in my belief not the most aesthetically pleasing locomotive built by GM). The Chicago & Eastern Illinois seemed to have a few of them as did the Monon. I am not aware of other railroads that had them.

Anyway, I am curious as to why they were developed.

From what little I know about them, the concept was to combine the abilities of an F-unit with the visibility of a Jeep/road switcher.

Were F-units considered superior to Jeeps in some pertinent category? If so, how were they superior and why didn't this design achieve more acceptance. If not, why didn't railroads (and GM) just buy and build Jeeps?

Thanks,

Gabe

[Randy Stahl]

The engine you are thinking of Gabe is the BL-1 BL-2. The Bangor & Aroostook had a bunch of them, my office wall still has pictures of them, I suppose nobody had the heart to take them down. Interestingly, when I worked for the Wisconsin & Calumet ,we used the ex BAR 52 in freight sevice out of Janesville Wi. I never guessed that one day I would be working in their old home shop.
Randy

[jeaton]

Gabe

Leaving in a few minutes to run the I-65 gauntlet for a long weekend in Cincinnati and in honor of the trip I am going to leave with a smart-#@! crack.

Was the Jeep part one of those offroad rag top models?

(Sorry, I think I know what you are asking about and I am sure you will get good responses from others).

Hope that you otherwise have a good day.

Jay

[Overmod]

Gabe, it's "Geep", not 'jeep' (from GP for General Purpose)

I believe you're talking about a BL-2 (on most everyone's short list of Bad Looking Locomotives) -- cab end has the sad basset-hound look of the 'babyface' Baldwins; hood has snazzy tapers that match nothing, weird bicycle-chainguard running-board shroud profile...

The F unit was a bit more streamlined, and had access to the engine and mechanicals inside the carbody, from the cab. I believe the internal structure was either stronger, or of equivalent strength for the same tare weight, compared to the welded frame required for a hood unit of equivalent capacity.

Balancing that, the hood unit has better visibility to the rear, cheaper general construction, MUCH better access to the engine and mechanicals at maintenance time.

Ironically enough (according to DPM iirc) *** Dilworth intended the early GPs to be 'so ugly that the railroads would hide them where they could do useful work' (I don't remember the exact quote) with the showier F units... and the Branch Line units, presumably... being the ones 'on show' where shippers and the public were watching. In my opinion, the GP7/9 carbody is one of the great classic locomotives. And the BL-2... NOT.

If this isn't what you mean, give us the link to a picture...

[CShaveRR]

The BL2 was a precursor to all of the Geeps, with "BL" standing for "Branch Line", where they were expected to find a home. Why were they developed? Same reason as the Geeps--to give a trainman on the footboards some visibility to the engineer, in either direction. They were better than an F3 (their contemporaries) in that regard, but by giving them up in favor of the GP7 carbody EMD was admitting that Alco had the correct idea with its road switchers.

Believe it or not, the BL2 is what I thought a diesel locomotive should look like for about the first twelve years of my life, because that's just about all I ever saw. The C&O used them for both the passenger trains and the local freights on the line through my home town (it was a quintessential branch line, perfect for these units, but I didn't know that!). I figured all of those E and F units and switchers I saw in pictures were the specialized units.

It was the June 1962 issue of Model Railroader, with the story and drawings for the BL2s (and pictures of the C&O units!), that set me straight--there were only 59 BLs built (at 14 units, C&O accounted for nearly 25% of the production), so they were the rare breed. Unfortunately, it was also 1962 when the C&O traded in its BL2s on GP30s--they worked on our line right up to the end.

[gabe]

Randy: Somehow, I thought that post would bring you out of the wood work. Glad to hear from you and hope things are well.

Jeaton: If you get this in time and are passing through Indy on the I-65 gauntlet (you have my sypathies) and you want to stop and do lunch near the tracks, let me know.

Overmod: Yes the BL-2 is what I was referring to. Thanks for your information on it.

All: Yes, I am an idiot and said "Jeep" when I meant "Geep."

So why didn't the advantages that Overmod and CShaveRR referred to eventually trump the GGGGeep?

Gabe

P.S. I think the GP-7 and 9 is a classic design as well. I guess familiarity doesn't always breed contempt.

[CShaveRR]

The only advantage I could see is that the BL2 had better visibility angles than the F units, and were more bi-directional. They had, as far as I can see, no advantages whatsoever over a Geep or other road switcher. When C&O got rid of the BL2s on our branch line, they were replaced by steam-generator-equipped GP7s, and later GP9s.

I got to crawl (almost literally) into the cab of the Monon BL2 when it was at an EMD open house. That cab was cramped--and I'm familiar enough with locomotive cabs to say that it was more claustrophobic than anything else I was ever in. The C&O units could only have been worse, because at least some of those had control stands on both sides of the cab!

And how on earth did one work around the prime mover? They definitely didn't have the interior space of an E or F unit around the engines, and there were no outside access doors like on a Geep.

[Overmod]

My own opinions:

1) Cost. All the expense of an F unit, perhaps more, complicated metal fabrication, difficult to repair if damaged (and paint), not much better for service access (note the absence of hood doors)

2) Weird design compromise. Aside from still-restricted vision (and cramped nose-door access), the unit was apparently conceived as a single locomotive for light-duty service. The original BL-1, iirc, was supposed to have an air throttle (!) and no MU (!!), and even in the BL-2 the frame was so light, I've heard, that you couldn't MU more than two of them together safely. (Presumably that applies to buff force more than draft, so you could have one on the point of a multiunit consist, but even a switcher with road trucks has more structural integrity...)

3) Streamlined? Not really -- just the '40s interpretation of what 'cutting-edge modern' styling ought to be. Would it matter anyway, considering the slow speeds involved in most of the services this locomotive would be expected to see? No.

I think the point about Alco competition is the most important point of all: it turned out that railroads liked, and wanted, a locomotive with an offset cab, hoods (because full-height cab doors open past them) and platforms at both ends, continuous walkways the effective length of the unit, and MU capability/road trucks. And, more to the point, had no problem running even fairly light units "in public".

It's hard to trump the road-switcher configuration on a working locomotive -- note that it substantially prevailed many other places, at much larger size, with only one subsequent "major" innovation in the configuration: the 'low nose', which substantially restored the visibility advantage of the F-unit windshields, and made short-hood-forward running a preferred mode of operation.

I'd note, parenthetically, that most of the hood locomotives that used 'styling' as elements dropped it fairly quickly, except when there were structural reasons. The early features of FM locomotives (fancy windows, headlight surrounds, faired curves) did not last long in production. Neither did the cab-roof fairing of the GP30. Note the changes in GE units (with conventional cabs) from the early production through to the Dash-8s. I pointedly leave the Alco notch-noses out of this category (as there's a nominal reason for it: number boards above, sand capacity below...)

I haven't covered everything, of course, so additional reasoning is thoroughly welcomed, as are anecdotes or evidence one way or the other...

[Anonymous]

The BL-2 was probably the engine that Gabe was talking about, but one locomotive did actually exist that was literally half-geep/half-F-unit. In Mexico, a "hybrid" locomotive was put together using a wrecked F unit and geep. The geep's cab was taken off and the F unit's cab was stuck onto it. I have not seen a picture of the actual locomotive, but a while ago, in Classic Toy Trains, there was an article about someone who kitbashed a model of this engine using a Lionel F3 and GP7.

[mudchicken]

Introduce Gabe to some of the early "round-top"/ "wagon top "Santa Fe CF-7 's and see what he thinks.....although BL1, BL2 is the correct answer, this morph's into what Gabe originally asked in his question quite nicely.[swg][swg][swg]

[edblysard]

Gabe,
It sounds like Mudchicken has your locomotive...the CF7,,,old F units rebuilt by Santa Fe into very ugly, but very efficent road switchers...will send you a photo of a pair of old ones stashed in our diesel shop, so you can see if this is the one your talking about...
These things were sold off by Santa Fe to a lot of short lines and industries.

Ed

[espeefoamer]

The Rock Island also had BL2s.They used them in commuter,as well as freight service.The BL2 had another problem that has not been mentioned yet. They had weak frames that tended to buckle when in the middle of a lashup.

[M636C]

Gabe,

You have nothing to be embarrassed about calling it "Jeep"!

That name came from the WWII US Army description, which was (wait for it)

"General Purpose Vehicle"!

So "Jeep" and "Geep" are both abbreviations of "General Purpose". However, since "Jeep" is now a trademark owned by Daimler Chrysler, and they have lately been very protective of the name and image, calling the locomotives "Geep" is a smart move.

Peter

[jeaton]

Oh hey, Gabe could win a trademark infringement case in his sleep.

(Thanks for the lunch offer. We usually blow through to keep the trip as short as possible. I-65 was not bad today. We will probably pay for that on the return Sunday. Once in a while we come here on separate days, and I make the run myself. If that comes up, I'll get in touch and take you up on the lunch offer)

Jay

[Anonymous]

Gentlemen, (and I use the term loosely LOL) Could Gabe be talking about a rare GP40FH-2 built by M-K in 1987 & 88?? They had a cab of a GP-40 and cowl of an F-40. I saw the pic in The Contempory Diesel Spotters Guide pg. 273. That thing is definitly a cross between a Geep and an F unit.

Of course If I would have really paid attention, I would have seen that you all were talking about BL-2's....( DUH!!!!!!!!!) [D)][#oops]

[Overmod]

drailed, that's exactly the opposite of what Gabe was talking about (but certainly no less interesting) -- he noted that it had the F-unit cab but the hood behind.

The first time I came across one of the GP40FH-2s in NJT service was on the old Pascack Valley line, and I had no advance warning about it. I thought it had to be a wreck repair, or some similar emergency measure -- surely nobody would go to the trouble of putting a cowl carbody on something with an unsmoothed cab! (Of course it's no "less" streamlined than the U34CH it replaced...)

See the B40-8W (and its ilk) for the 'contrapositive' modern look -- the wide cab with hood. Link:

http://www.railpictures.net/showphotos.php?locomotive=GE%20B40-8W%20(Dash%208-40BW)

When I first saw a picture of a CF7 and found out what the program involved, I was a bit indignant that they didn't preserve the F-unit nose and cab windows, and just construct a bulkhead and doors at the back. I now know more about how crews use a working locomotive...

[gabe]

Thanks everyone for your comments, especially Ed for the pictures he sent me.

Just an FYI, I was talking about the BL-2. In fact, as soon as I heard the name, I knew that was what I was referring to, I just couldn't think of it at the time.

F-units have always fascinated me. I see the BL-2 as an attempt to keep some of the principles and attributes of F-units around. Ergo, I think it is an interesting footnote to the etiology of current diesel development.

Does anyone know if there are any BL-2s preserved? Unlike the Trainmaster (which nearly brought me to tears when I found out there was only one preserved) I don't think I will be too upset if there are no BL-2's preserved. They may be an important piece of railroading history, but an important piece of aesthetic history they are not.

Gabe

[locomutt]

QUOTE: Originally posted by gabe

Thanks everyone for your comments, especially Ed for the pictures he sent me.

Just an FYI, I was talking about the BL-2. In fact, as soon as I heard the name, I knew that was what I was referring to, I just couldn't think of it at the time.

F-units have always fascinated me. I see the BL-2 as an attempt to keep some of the principles and attributes of F-units around. Ergo, I think it is an interesting footnote to the etiology of current diesel development.

Does anyone know if there are any BL-2s preserved? Unlike the Trainmaster (which nearly brought me to tears when I found out there was only one preserved) I don't think I will be too upset if there are no BL-2's preserved. They may be an important piece of railroading history, but an important piece of aesthetic history they are not.

Gabe

There's a Monon BL-2 at the Ky Railway Museum,in New Haven,Ky.
And the last I knew,it was still running. There are supposed to be a
couple other ones out there,but not exactly sure where.[:)]

[daveklepper]

Interesting. Again, with regard to streamlining. Alco roadswitchers handled the crack trains on the Delaware and Hudson, the Monteral Limitied overnight and the Laurentian by day, later supplemented by the ex-SF Baldwin shark-noses, but only for a while, then back to the Alcoes. And the Norfolk and Western diesilized their passenger service with GP-9's.

[espeefoamer]

QUOTE: Originally posted by gabe

Thanks everyone for your comments, especially Ed for the pictures he sent me.

Just an FYI, I was talking about the BL-2. In fact, as soon as I heard the name, I knew that was what I was referring to, I just couldn't think of it at the time.

F-units have always fascinated me. I see the BL-2 as an attempt to keep some of the principles and attributes of F-units around. Ergo, I think it is an interesting footnote to the etiology of current diesel development.

Does anyone know if there are any BL-2s preserved? Unlike the Trainmaster (which nearly brought me to tears when I found out there was only one preserved) I don't think I will be too upset if there are no BL-2's preserved. They may be an important piece of railroading history, but an important piece of aesthetic history they are not.

Gabe

There is a Western Maryland BL2( Of two the railroad owned) at the B&O railroad museum in Baltimore.