I saw Athearn is producing their GP40X for SP with the "elephant ear" cowling over the radiators. I know they did this for the SD45s but what time period did they have them on the GP40X?
Here is a pic to show what I mean.
http://www.firsthobby.com/store1/Product.asp?ProductID=ATH94719&SN=2007090418490153
Sure Looks Wierd...
...but thats my opinion...
Take a Ride on the Scenic Line!
silicon212 wrote:From what I understand, all 4 units were delivered from EMD this way.
Do you know when they were removed?
Your friendly neighborhood CNW fan.
Lord Atmo wrote:and what was the point to adding them on?
I think it was an attempt to address the tunnel overheating problem. SP had a large fleet of SD45s and geeps and this was one attempt to modify them. Even the Chessie tried it with a few SD50s. The modifcation didn't stay long.
Elephant ears? like these:
The CPR did some testing with these from 1982-1983. They were found to not be very effective and were removed.
More ear info here. There were 12 SD45s and 3 SD45Xs fitted with ears starting in 1970-1971.
http://espee.railfan.net/spsd45t-1.html
http://espee.railfan.net/spsd45x.html
Ed
jktrains wrote:I was just looking at a 1972 (don't remember the month) issue of Trains magazine that had a story on the SP elephant ears. So that would give you a rough time period. The article mentioned that it was an attempt to deal with overheating problems in tunnels.
Brazilian MRS still using the elephant ears on the SD40-2 and Sd40-3 fleet.
pedro
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