Even as a kid, I always thought the E/F style locomotive was one of the most glamorous pieces of machinery ever created by man.
They are really quite simple, but at the same time, very elegant and beautiful.....like a Beatles Tune.
But their layout did not last...it gave way to snare noses, exposed access panels, and crew entry at the front and/or back of the cab. I guess it was not as good a design as the locos that have replaced it for the last several decades.?
Hopefully you guys understand the question I am trying to ask.
Thank You
kenny dorham Even as a kid, I always thought the E/F style locomotive was one of the most glamorous pieces of machinery ever created by man. They are really quite simple, but at the same time, very elegant and beautiful.....like a Beatles Tune. But their layout did not last...it gave way to snare noses, exposed access panels, and crew entry at the front and/or back of the cab. I guess it was not as good a design as the locos that have replaced it for the last several decades.? Hopefully you guys understand the question I am trying to ask. Thank You
Quite simply the compound curves on the sheet metal on an EMD can unit were expensive to produce. The car body design was less than ideal for access to the prime mover for maintenance etc. I don't believe these were the original motivations for the hood design locomotives ( study the development of the RS1 an the transition to the road switcher design) but once available the genie was out of the bottle!
E and F units were called covered wagons, but their design was more that of a covered bridge. The carbodies were trusses rather than the stiff frames of hood (or later cowl) units. This limited access to the mechanical and electrical components. After the hood units were developed, the railroads recognized a basic economic truth. EMD would sell a GP unit for less than a mechanically equal F unit - and the GPs were easier (cheaper) to maintain. In business, money flows to the less expensive alternative.
Chuck
The design of the E units was appropriate for their time. The early units carried travelling fitters to maintain the 201A diesel engines. It was convenient that they each had two V-12 engines so one could be shut down and a head or cylinder liner or piston could be pulled out. Even the distinctive portholes on F units and later E units were sized to allow a cylinder liner or piston to pass through and one in each set could be opened to do this.
By the time mass production began in 1939-40 using 567 engines, the need for the enclosed body was rapidly receding, and travelling fitters found new employment.
But by then the design was set and accepted by the customers. Union Pacific kept buying E units until 1964, although many were rebuilds of older units. So they can't have been that much of a maintenance problem.
One reason the design of the E/F cab and nose was so good was it was designed by the best professional designers of the time and unlike many designs of the period was inherently simple.
The secret of the nose design was that the shape (a curve using two sharp radii and one large radius) was the same in the vertical and horizontal planes and the transition between the two was a solid of revolution of that shape. That allowed the change in nose shape from a pronounced angle on the pre-war E units to a much steeper angle on the F units and post war E units with no change in the perceived shape.
GM styling produced the GP 35 styling too which was a classic in much the same way. They also produced the Aerotrain and the GP30, but EMD was smart enough to keep the good design and let the others fade away. The FP45 was similarly styled but there were not as many of those built and the majority (the SDP40F) disappeared nearly as quickly as they arrived.
M636C
I see.....very interesting info everybody.
I had no idea the port-holes would open, and allow for an exchange of parts.
A few comments. The forward visibility was indeed excellent but it was pretty poor in other directions, which was a big negative when switching was involved.
Also, while the bulldog nose was attractive, fabricating it with its compound curves was relatively difficult and expensive. I believe that Ray Patten at GE did a better job with the flatnose design used by both GE and Alco which was less effort to fabricate.
Yeah...I had never considered that. I guess looking any direction, other than straight ahead, was pretty hard to do.
One of my earliest memories of a train is a C&NW passenger train stopped at the depot in my old hometown (and that would date my memory to about 1956 or so based on timetables) and the engine had a steeply slanted nose, perhaps an E3 but more likely a demoted E6. Somehow that slant made the engine look like it was fast even when it was standing still
I have seen photos of F units (O&W?) fitted with pilots with steps for local switching - very strange.
Imagine keeping most of the upper nose and body roof curve, narrowing the nose, narrowing the body for visibility -- ah the perfectly designed engine retaining the best of the F unit with the visibility of a Geep. I present to you The Ideal Locomotive -- wait no, I am describing the BL2
Dave Nelson
dknelson One of my earliest memories of a train is a C&NW passenger train stopped at the depot in my old hometown (and that would date my memory to about 1956 or so based on timetables) and the engine had a steeply slanted nose, perhaps an E3 but more likely a demoted E6. Somehow that slant made the engine look like it was fast even when it was standing still I present to you The Ideal Locomotive -- wait no, I am describing the BL2 Dave Nelson
I present to you The Ideal Locomotive -- wait no, I am describing the BL2
By your description, I'm thinking more of the Santa Fe CF-7 mods. The BL2 was more of the worst of both worlds. It was built when the "right answer" wasn't known yet.
I'm wearing my silvers.
F units are cool but suck if you are over 5'5. People were a lot smaller in the 1950's it seems.
Mechanical Department "No no that's fine shove that 20 pound set all around the yard... those shoes aren't hell and a half to change..."
The Missabe Road: Safety First
dknelsonI have seen photos of F units (O&W?) fitted with pilots with steps for local switching - very strange.
Some Bessemer & Lake Erie F7's had running boards applied to the pilots for switching.
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=449498&nseq=14
I remember seeing a photo in TRAINS of a GM&O FA1 equipped with a rear headlight on the roof and footboards on the rear end for local freight operation, not unlike a World Locomotive except for the lack of a cab in the flat end.
Back in the day, the height of an 'average' American male was 5'7". It wasn't un til the early '70's that some outfit (CN ?) took a systems approach to cab design-resulting in the 'Canadian Comfort Cab.'
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