Trains.com

The SD24 – the Coolest Sounding Locomotive Ever

5532 views
21 replies
1 rating 2 rating 3 rating 4 rating 5 rating
  • Member since
    January 2024
  • 20 posts
Posted by MP104 on Monday, January 29, 2024 4:55 PM

Ed

Has your email address changed? I have tried contact and am curious how you are doing. Especially if a book about the North end of SSW is forthcoming. endmrw

  • Member since
    July 2001
  • From: Shelbyville, Kentucky
  • 1,967 posts
Posted by SSW9389 on Saturday, January 27, 2024 3:31 PM

MP173

I believe the Chesapeake and Indiana, based out of Lacrosse, In (old C&O line) runs an SD24.  Quite an operation and the Hoosier Valley Museum in North Judson is nearby.

Ed

 

You likely saw an SD18 . . . 

 

COTTON BELT: Runs like a Blue Streak!
  • Member since
    September 2017
  • 5,636 posts
Posted by charlie hebdo on Saturday, January 27, 2024 3:13 PM

Electrinic Solutions, Ulm (ESU) produces excellent sound decoders (Lok Sound) for model railroads, but not the same as hearing the real thing.

  • Member since
    May 2004
  • 7,500 posts
Posted by 7j43k on Saturday, January 27, 2024 10:06 AM

You can go over here:

 

https://projects.esu.eu/projectoverviews/18

 

and explore LOTS of diesel sounds.  

 

 

Ed

  • Member since
    September 2002
  • From: Sterling Heights, Michigan
  • 1,691 posts
Posted by SD60MAC9500 on Tuesday, January 23, 2024 5:31 AM

More EMD marine power on an Ingram Pusher Boat

 https://youtu.be/lJMvttk1tvg?si=mIgq426mkLQBfsTk 

 

Rahhhhhhhhh!!!!
  • Member since
    July 2001
  • From: Shelbyville, Kentucky
  • 1,967 posts
Posted by SSW9389 on Tuesday, January 23, 2024 3:34 AM

croteaudd

It is believed that in 1959 both Santa Fe and Union Pacific bought the SD24 heavily, 80 for AT&SF and 75 for UP, the latter in two versions, A (30) and B (45) units.  Santa Fe’s initial units were in the black and white tiger stripes, but soon were repainted to blue and yellow.  . . .  

Santa Fe added 45 SD24s in 1959. And another order was made for an additional 35 for 1960 delivery. The overall majority of SD24s were delivered in 1959 and early 1960. That would include the 45 Santa Fe units, Union Pacific's 30 SD24s and 45 SD24Bs, Burlington's 16 and Southern's 48 units. The 1960 Santa Fe reorder was delivered in the then new book ends paint scheme. After the Santa Fe's 1960 order was built another three units were built as demonstrators #7200-7202, painted in Southern Pacific's gray and scarlet scheme, but without lettering. The hoped for sale to Southern Pacific never happened and those three demonstrators, plus the original 1958-built SD24 demonstrator were sold to the Union Pacific. The very last SD24 was built for Kennecott Copper in March 1963. 

Personally I've seen Santa Fe's SD26s rolling across Northern Arizona, usually mixed in with other units. My last sighting of these was a three unit set hauling a light train east the year they were sold to Guilford.  And that should have been the last time to see them I'd thought, but a move to New Hampshire proved that observation wrong because they showed up frequently on the Bow unit coal train. 

Ed in Kentucky

Tags: SD24 SD26
COTTON BELT: Runs like a Blue Streak!
  • Member since
    December 2001
  • From: Denver / La Junta
  • 10,820 posts
Posted by mudchicken on Tuesday, January 23, 2024 1:43 AM

Spent the 1980's around Santa Fe's SD-26 fleet (SD24m's, 4600 class) between La Junta and Albuquerque ... Got used to them I guess, mixed-in with the SD39's.

Tractive effort was more important than pure horsepower over Raton and Glorieta. A normally aspirated anything was oddball in CO, so anything with a turbo was normal in these parts, even if the rack settings were set for lower altitudes.

A good number of the 4600's spent their last days on Guilford/B&M...

Mudchicken Nothing is worth taking the risk of losing a life over. Come home tonight in the same condition that you left home this morning in. Safety begins with ME.... cinscocom-west
  • Member since
    December 2001
  • From: Northern New York
  • 25,020 posts
Posted by tree68 on Monday, January 22, 2024 10:07 PM

SD70Dude

Footage from the engine room of the MV American Integrity, one of the 1,000' lakers.  The sound of four SD45's in notch 8.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzVTTfj6OUI

That 14,400 HP turns two variable pitch propellers and gets them  18.4 knots, or a shade over 21 MPH.

There's still a lot of ALCO power running boats on the lakes, too.

LarryWhistling
Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) 
Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you
My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date
Come ride the rails with me!
There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...

  • Member since
    December 2017
  • From: I've been everywhere, man
  • 4,269 posts
Posted by SD70Dude on Monday, January 22, 2024 9:22 PM

Footage from the engine room of the MV American Integrity, one of the 1,000' lakers.  The sound of four SD45's in notch 8.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzVTTfj6OUI

Greetings from Alberta

-an Articulate Malcontent

  • Member since
    September 2002
  • From: Sterling Heights, Michigan
  • 1,691 posts
Posted by SD60MAC9500 on Monday, January 22, 2024 8:42 PM

BaltACD

The EMD 567/645 sound is unique - no matter if it is on rail or on water.

Being 2-stroke is sounds like smooth power. 

 

If that isn't the truth! One night I just happened to be waterside in Port Huron, MI, when American Steamships Indiana Harbor came upbound on the St Clair River. It was a clear calm night. You could feel the throbbing from those 4 V20-645E7B's shoreside.

Rahhhhhhhhh!!!!
  • Member since
    May 2004
  • From: Valparaiso, In
  • 5,921 posts
Posted by MP173 on Monday, January 22, 2024 3:49 PM

I believe the Chesapeake and Indiana, based out of Lacrosse, In (old C&O line) runs an SD24.  Quite an operation and the Hoosier Valley Museum in North Judson is nearby.

Ed

  • Member since
    July 2008
  • 2,325 posts
Posted by rdamon on Monday, January 22, 2024 12:47 PM

Found this:

 

 

  • Member since
    February 2008
  • From: Potomac Yard
  • 2,767 posts
Posted by NittanyLion on Monday, January 22, 2024 11:55 AM

BaltACD
In 2017 the part of the P&W from Allison Park to the NS connection was leased to the Allegheny Valley and the part from Allison Park to New Castle was formally least to the B&P.

An extra step: In 2019, CSX sold that part of the P&W, along with several other lines in the Pittsburgh area, to the AVR.

  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: US
  • 25,292 posts
Posted by BaltACD on Sunday, January 21, 2024 4:18 PM

My first two years on the railroad, I worked what were nominally 'flat land' locations, trains would pass me with the engines operating at less than full throttle to manage their speed and their trains.  In the Summer of 1967 I got instructions to work the Operators job at Bakerstown, PA.  The office at Bakerstown was about 30 car lengths from the top of Bakerstown Hill - the ruling grade on the P&W Subdivision between Glenwood Jct. and New Castle (the original route of the Capitol Limited before the P&LE trackage rights agreement).

Every Train Order station has a 'bell circuit' that notifies the Operator of the approach of the train and in normal circumstance the Operator will notify the Dispatcher of the train's approach, so he can issue a Train Order if he desires.  At Bakerstown one could hear the head end power, in the 8th notch, a minute or more in advance of the bell being actuated - the B&O being primarily an EMD road, it was the chant of 4 to 6 EMD's on the head end of a 100 car coal train and another two GP9's shoving (PA had a state law that with helpers of GREATER than 3500 horsepower, the caboose could not be occupied).

With the train insight, the power emitted a crescendo of the 567 chant passing the station at 10-12 MPH with the engine's load meters right at the threshold of their short time rating.  Welded rail had not been installed yet, and you got the repetitive clinking of the axles crossing each rail joint.   After about 30 cars passed, the speed of the clinking started increasing at a faster and faster rate and then the next thing you know you see the markers of the caboose approaching and the GP9 helpers that are throttling down as once they get past the station they will cut off from the train on the fly and await the Operator to line the crossovers and give the hand signal to permit the helpers to proceed downgrade for their next shove.

That was 1967 - in the early 1970's the P&W's double track route was converted to single track CTC.  When CSX sold off the former B&O Buffalo Division to form today's Buffalo & Pittsburgh RR, the B&P got trackage rights from Eidenau into New Castle on the P&W Sub.  In the early 2000's CSX decided to stop using the P&W except as necessary to handle Amtrak between Glenwood Jct and the NS connection to the former PRR station in Pittsburgh.  In 2017 the part of the P&W from Allison Park to the NS connection was leased to the Allegheny Valley and the part from Allison Park to New Castle was formally least to the B&P.

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

  • Member since
    September 2003
  • 21,669 posts
Posted by Overmod on Sunday, January 21, 2024 1:57 PM

'Twas not for nothing that DPM referred to the 567 sound as Gregorian chant.

Growing up in Tenafly, the Northern Branch passenger trains were handled by tractor-engine 244s, but there was often a SW or NW switcher idling just west of Palisade Avenue, making that lovely mechanical idle -- one of the great 'sounds of the Twentieth Century'.

When I lived in Shreveport in the early 1990s, the Mid-South was operating what became the Meridian Speedway with multiple frogeye GP10s...there was an overpass at one end of their engine-terminal facility where they would routinely park sets of up to five units idling in multiple.  That was a joy.

I never heard a SD24 (which had the first-generation overrunning turbo setup) so I can only imagine how it sounded at full boost.  If anyone knows an accurate recorded source, perhaps one of those albums of early SP diesels, please provide a link.

NDG
  • Member since
    December 2013
  • 1,620 posts
Posted by NDG on Sunday, January 21, 2024 11:56 AM

The early 567s sounded lovely when Descending 5-Coupled in Dynamic

echoing in the Mountains in the quiet of the evening.

Thank You.

  • Member since
    September 2017
  • 5,636 posts
Posted by charlie hebdo on Sunday, January 21, 2024 10:46 AM

I grew up hearing those EMD prime mover sounds of C&NW Fs, Es and GP7s and GP9s. Wonderful, especially as they went through notch transitions starting up scoots.

  • Member since
    March 2016
  • From: Burbank IL (near Clearing)
  • 13,540 posts
Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Sunday, January 21, 2024 9:54 AM

The closest that I ever heard to the SD24 sound came from de-rated Paducah rebuilds on Illinois Central and various other roads (IHB, IAIS, WSOR) that purchased them third-hand from IC.

The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul
  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: US
  • 25,292 posts
Posted by BaltACD on Saturday, January 20, 2024 8:28 PM

The EMD 567/645 sound is unique - no matter if it is on rail or on water.

Being 2-stroke is sounds like smooth power.  4-stokes by comparison, to my ear, sound out of tune.  ALCO's or GE's.

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

  • Member since
    December 2001
  • From: Northern New York
  • 25,020 posts
Posted by tree68 on Saturday, January 20, 2024 7:53 PM

I've run a couple of F's and a Geep - they have a sound all their own.

LarryWhistling
Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) 
Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you
My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date
Come ride the rails with me!
There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...

  • Member since
    February 2003
  • From: Guelph, Ontario
  • 4,819 posts
Posted by Ulrich on Saturday, January 20, 2024 6:11 PM

croteaudd

It is believed that in 1959 both Santa Fe and Union Pacific bought the SD24 heavily, 80 for AT&SF and 75 for UP, the latter in two versions, A (30) and B (45) units.  Santa Fe’s initial units were in the black and white tiger stripes, but soon were repainted to blue and yellow.  As an impressionable kid that hadn’t even reached teen status, the SD24’s had the coolest sound, unlike anything ever heard before!  EMD thereafter went through a quick succession of dual model design changes for the GP and SD units.  It is too bad the generations that followed in the last 40 years never got to hear that great sound, or at least very, very few have!

 

 

Now I wish I'd heard them, but they were a little before my time. The modern 4 stroke engines sound great too..

  • Member since
    March 2016
  • 349 posts
The SD24 – the Coolest Sounding Locomotive Ever
Posted by croteaudd on Saturday, January 20, 2024 3:52 PM

It is believed that in 1959 both Santa Fe and Union Pacific bought the SD24 heavily, 80 for AT&SF and 75 for UP, the latter in two versions, A (30) and B (45) units.  Santa Fe’s initial units were in the black and white tiger stripes, but soon were repainted to blue and yellow.  As an impressionable kid that hadn’t even reached teen status, the SD24’s had the coolest sound, unlike anything ever heard before!  EMD thereafter went through a quick succession of dual model design changes for the GP and SD units.  It is too bad the generations that followed in the last 40 years never got to hear that great sound, or at least very, very few have!

Join our Community!

Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.

Search the Community

Newsletter Sign-Up

By signing up you may also receive occasional reader surveys and special offers from Trains magazine.Please view our privacy policy