453 was also Wabash's only road-switcher built in Canada. The others were all switchers or F-units.
It's something specific to that ex Wabash GP7. Not about fuel tanks or anything like that. It made it unique in it's very nature.
rcdrye- You were very close when you stated it was Wabash's only GP7 built in Canada...just take that one step further.
NP Eddie- Wabash has GMD London build 22F7's and one only lonely GP7 for Canadian service Detroit-Black Rock (Buffalo/Fort Erie). Now NS.
Pere Marquette also ran Detroit-Fort Erie/Buffalo and that became Chesapeake and Ohio and then CSX.
New York Central had their magnificiently engineered Canada Southern line.
All 3 had roundhouses and backshops in St Thomas, Ontario. St. Thomas shops even had the capacity to build steam locomotives for the 3 of them in their day. It was one happening place.
The joint Canadian National/Pere Marquette/Wabash line is gone, tore up and rails lifted. NS and CSX use a different CN line for running rights, further to the North.
The Canada Southern is also gone in what RME describes as "ritual murder" to prevent anyone else from getting it. It was in decline but still very much in use by NYC, then Penn Central, which saw further deferred maintenance, then Conrail for a short while, then sold to a joint CN-CP unholy cabal that quickly tore it up. This ensured that no 3rd party could purchase the line. There were several good suitors and some great ideas. The St. Clair tunnel was the big prize.
Rob and All:
This secondary question is regarding US railroads that operated in Canada. Did the Wabash and NYC purchase switchers and Geep's for service in Canada? I have an old GN Distribution of Power and that has about 4 SW's in Vancouver that were built in Canada. The road power was sent from Seattle into Canada and had an "*" indicating duty paid on about 12 diesels and 3 or 4 cabooses. Which US roads operate in Canada from, say, Detroit to Toronto? CSX (NYC) and NS (Wabash)?
Ed Burns
Based on a couple of photos, built with no MU and a tiny fuel tank. Obviously as N&W 3453 it has both MU and a large (by GP7 standards) fuel tank. Delivered with a batch of GMD SW8s.
Toronto Hamilton and Buffalo #71 was the first GP7 built in Canada.
You are very close with the answer. It is GMD London built, it is ex-Wabash and was built for them, it was their only one, a sole unit among 22 F7's but go one step further for the answer.
GMD-built? With a 3000-series number, it's ex-Wabash. First GP7 in Canada? As far as I can tell it's Wabash's only GMD GP7 (though Wabash did have F7 sets built by GMD)
In the interim, here is one. We will still await RME in the future.
What is significant about this GP7?
Even more work on my end, combined with q relative lack of interesting questions.
rcdrye Where are you, erikem?
Where are you, erikem?
In between work and login problems with the forum, haven't had much of a chance to check in.
BTW, I did see your post on the whereabouts of RME.
- Erik
Sorry. Where are you, RME?
Is it not RME's question? I'm confused!
Nobody around going on 2 days anywhere on Classic Forum. Not good.
And the next question is?
That's the answer I was looking for. (Your turn)
The first reference that I saw on the Grass Lake line was in Hilton & Due's book on Interurbans (bought my copy in 1978). There was almost no detail on the installation in the book and got my info from either a 1914 or 1915 volume of The Electric Journal. The Internet Archive has scans of those two volumes (and more) in various formats along with scans of the General Electric Review. Both the Journal and Review are good resources for the technology used in the early electrifications.
The other amzing thing about the experiment is that the equipment seemed to be pretty reliable. Unfortunately this came at the end of interurban construction, so never got past the experimental stage.
The motors for the Milwaukee electrics were tested to an equivalent of a 4500 volt trolley potential with no ill effects.
Grass Lake line of Michigan United Traction Company? (Covered in Electric Railway Journal, V.XLVI, n.14 (Oct 2 1915) p.660ff) This followed internal Westinghouse testing at East Pittsburgh in 1914 all the way up to 7000V on the trolley wire. Duffy says that Machefert-Tassin, Nouvion, and Woimant, in Histoire de la Traction Electrique, mention a test between Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids at around this time with 5000V on an isolated third rail, which would be highly interesting to see... this is the famous 2400V on 80lb rail setup, but I think the reference is confusing the insulator test values with an actual traction test at that power.
Apparently the auxiliaries were run off a 150V storage-battery bank that charged in series with the four 100hp traction motors (!) which had double armatures geared to a common axle (!!) Traction current was reportedly only about 30A peak per motor, so this is less extreme than you might think.
Not one mercury-arc rectifier; three.
And to add further amusement, the car was completely compatible with normal 600V DC power...
Potter of GE apparently tested BA&P equipment at this same 5000V, but I can find nothing but anecdotal discussion of the testing.
The installation used a single trolley wire with the track rails used for current return.
A couple of clues: The installation was done by Westinghouse and a mercury arc rectifier was used to convert AC to DC. The installtion was completed before major work was started on the main Milwaukee electrification.
A side note on 3000/3300VDC electrics - GE made a late 1969 proposal to the Milwaukee for modern 3300V C-C locomotives that had about the same continuous rating as the Little Joes. One signficant change in motor construction between 1950 and 1969 was using Kapton for insulating the armature conductors with a 30% increase in continuous current rating. The proposal said that the motor used by the internal M-G set was a 2 pole motor to allow for operation directly off 3300VDC.
yeh, if this was much higher than 3000 or 3300 volts, was this two wires with one positive and one negative with respect to ground?
And you can reduce the number of commutator bars having more than one ring of brushes and bars, with insulation bars between the conducting bars, as I described. The much-much wider gap for insulation allows much higher voltage, as much as 100V instead of 20V. Much higher than that and you wil get arcing as the brush leaves the conducting bar for the insulation bar. But you also have to watch the current to avoid arcing.
erikemWhile correct with the "much-used" disclaimer, there was one experimental installation with a significantly higher voltage (this is the one I'm looking for).
I can't find the Alexanderson research that Armstrong hinted at in his discussion of DC vs. split-phase in 1914, but I should at least mention this later alternative for people who might not have seen it.
I do have an answer of sorts to the question: it's shown on what's left of this sign from the aftermath of the GE 6-pole rotary-converter experimentation...
That's getting close to what was done in the experimental installation, but note that the air-compressor was one of the low voltage axiliaries...
Rule of thumb for commutators on DC machines is that the potential difference between bars should not exceed 20V. That means a four pole motor wound for 1500V would need at least 300 bars in the commutator.
The equipment in the installation I'm looking for used four motors and has series/parallel control, in this case either four motors in series or two sets of two motors in series with the sets in parallel.
Not sure about the highest voltage, but low-voltage auxiliaries on streetcars and interurbans often used the voltage drop across the air compressor to get a voltage that could be used to charge batteries.
daveklepper Replying, the highest much-used voltage DC was 3300 (approximately, somewhat more than the more usual 3000) on some Russian electrifications, and some may be in use today.
Replying, the highest much-used voltage DC was 3300 (approximately, somewhat more than the more usual 3000) on some Russian electrifications, and some may be in use today.
While correct with the "much-used" disclaimer, there was one experimental installation with a significantly higher voltage (this is the one I'm looking for). GE had proposed this higher voltage as an option for the Milwaukee electrification. Overall system costs would have been about the same for both voltages, with the increase in locomotive costs eating up the savings in reduced feeder/substation costs.
Using an m-g set for auxiliaries was not practical at the higher voltage, so another approach was used.
The Milwaukee did up the trolley voltage to 3300 in the late 1940's and early 50's.
Replying, the highest much-used voltage DC was 3300 (approximately, somewhat more than the more usual 3000) on some Russian electrifications, and some may be in use today. Usually, accessories were powered by a motor-generator producing a low voltage with battery charging capability. Some locomotives used motor-generators for traction power as well, for lower voltage to the motors, but some a motors were wound for as high as 1650 using many turns of thinner wire on both armatures and field coils with very specially designed commutators, with offset contacts allowing considerable insulation between segments. In other words, there were several paths for brushes, alternately contacting copper or brass and then hard insulation.
And I do not remember the source for what is either iinformation or misinformation; you probably know the details much better than I do.
3300 volts were used by some other countries as well. In Eastern Europe.
And I just used the Edit Button to add this comment!
daveklepper And are not we waiting for a question from Erikem?
And are not we waiting for a question from Erikem?
Yep, I've been busy with my son's H.S graduation festivities... He will be off to UCSB in the fall.
Question: What was the highest voltage used for a DC electrification and what was the trick used to make it possible? Exra credit: What was the trick used to power the auxiliaries?
Another note related to series motor field shunting/tapping: The tradional method for getting variable speed operation with a DC shunt motor was to use Ward-Leonard control, where low speeds would be constant field and variable armature voltage, and high speeds would be variable (reduced) field and constant armature voltage. Some of the early gas-electrics used Ward-Leonard control and the ASEA/EMD AEM-7's used Ward-Leonard control implemented with thyristors.
WRT to Middleton's Traction Classics, vol 2, I bought the book not too long after it was published from the OERM bookstore and didn't get around to reading the chapter on the Electroliner's until maybe a year ago. The story of the 1950 tests with the field shunting stood out, so it ws easyt to answer RME's question.
Wow, what a distinguished looking man your father was David! I wish I could grow a moustasche like that!
The best I've been able to manage is like Dr. Bridgman's.
And thanks Mike and RME!!
OK. I have complained by email to Jim Wrinn, but not gotten any reply. I do note that my complaint - explanation posting did get posted without spelling errors, or at least none that I can recognize. The problem may be with my servers in Israel and have zero to do with Kalmbach. A similar problem also occurs with my regular email, primarily on Yahoo. I double-check that I send something with the right email address, am certain that the email address is correct, then get a notice from Yahoo that the message was not delivered, then check the address on the non-delivery message, and note that one letter was missing from the address.
I checked prior posting before writing this, and still did not find the Edit Button.
erikem has, in fact, a better answer than I did.
Mr. Klepper: your account still shows up as current, so the only way you'd fail to see an 'edit' would be if you posted using a different account, or deleted cookies after posting the original. If the problem is systematic, contact Kalmbach forum customer service, describe the situation analytically, and they will help you fix it.
To my knowledge there is no way a moderator can deny editing to a poster without completely banning them ... perhaps not even then. So this is anomalous and not likely any form of intended or circumstantial discrimination.
daveklepper sitiuation
sitiuation
Dave, it's great to see you post again. I'm very sorry you lost your father, 62 years ago yesterday. The NY Times, June 16, 1955:
https://archive.org/stream/leadersoftwentie00mend#page/132/mode/2up
Mike
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