Electric locomotives in the U.S.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

The Virginian's electrification was in great shape at the time of the merger with N&W.  The power plant had recently been rebuilt and modernized and upgrading of motive power had been completed with the EL-2B's and EL-C's.  N&W instituted directional running on the two parallel main lines shortly after the merger which made each main line a one-way operation.  The electrification would have to be expanded or discontinued, and N&W chose to discontinue it.

[Deggesty]

Acually, the Harlem line of Metro North has third rail up to what used to be called Brewster North and is now called Southeast. Perhaps, when the electrification was being planned, the city fathers of Brewster did not want an engine terminal in their city. My wife and I went up to Wassaic and back last year to vist her cousin who lives in Salisbury, Connecticut. If we had been able to take the northbound train early enough in the afternoon and the southbound train early enough in the morning, we would not have had to change trains in Southeast for the engine used on those trips runs on the diesel north of Southeast and on the third rail south of Southeast. On the other schedules, there is a cross platform transfer from one train to the other. Incidentally, the locomotive used north of the third rail was an Amtrak Genesis engine.

[Big Wheel Driver]

Erik, Ihave driven Steam, Diesel Electric, Diesel Hydraulic and Electric locomotives. I preferred the electrics. They were much more responsive than the others. The locos we had were a c+c wheel arrangement. The motor groupings could be selected by the driver, they were series, series-pararell and pararell. there were three stages of field weakening for higher speed. They could really fly on passenger trains with rapid acceleration. On goods trains on heavy grades it was usual to pull them back into series-pararell to prevent overloading the motors. they would start heavy train on a 2 percent grade fairly easily by gently increasing the power until they moved, but you had to keep an eye on the ammeters. The dynamic brakes were far mor powerful than diesels and would hold without any trouble on down grades. Not everyone may agree with me, but Electrics were by far my favourite locos. 

Regards, Malcolm.     

[daveklepper]

I believe the New York and Long Branch NJT electrification now stops at Long Branch, with diesel shuttles from their to Bay Head Junction, the end of the line.   There are diesel through trains on summer weekends and during all rush hours, not changing engines and not running to New York, but terminating either at the old D&LW Hoboken terminal or at Newark.

LIRR?   Ronconkama on the Greenport Main Line, Babylon on the line to Montauk, blocking on the name of the end of electrification on the Port Jefferson Branch (about half way from Hicksville), no electrification on the Oyster Bay Branch, complete electrification on the Port Washington, Far Rockaway, Long Beach, and West Hempstead branches.

LIRR used to have electric freight service, using PRR DD-1's from the original PRR electrification.  Now all freight is operated by the private New York and Altantic with diesel switcher power.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Metro-North out of GCT is third-rail north to Croton-Harmon on the Hudson Line and to Brewster on the Harlem Line.

NJTransit has two sets of electrifications.  On the ex-PRR, they run to Trenton on the Corridor and also on the New York & Long Branch, I'm not sure where the catenary ends now.  On the ex-DL&W out of Hoboken, they run on the Morris & Essex to Dover and Summit and a branch to Montclair.  There is also Midtown Direct service on the Morris & Essex into Penn Station.

Out of Chicago, the former IC lines run to University Park on the main line with branches to South Chicago and Blue Island.  The South Shore runs over the IC to 115th Street and then on its own line to South Bend Regional Airport.

[JonathanS]

What rairloads on the Eastren Coast/North-East Coridor ar electrified?

Of course you have Amtrak electrified from Boston to Washington and from Philadelphia to Harrisburg.

Conneticut DOT runs electrified Commuters on the former New Haven Main.  There was talk of re-electrifying a former New Haven Branch, has this happened?

Then there are many Long Island electrified lines.  Anyone care to list them?

Metro North is electrified from Grand Central Terminal North to Croton on Hudson.  What other lines does Metro North have electrified?

NJDOT is electrified on the New York and Long Branch.  Also many of the former DL&W commuter lines are electrified.  Can anyone fill in the list of these?  Of course the former PRR main line is filled with NJDOT electric commuter trains.  And I cannot forget the electrified Princeton "dinky" with runs a shuttle from Princeton to Princeton Junction.

I can do better with the SEPTA system around Philadelphia.  These are all electrified.  The R1 goes to the airport and to Glenside, R2 goes to Wilmington Deleware and to Warminster, R3 goes to West Trenton  and to Elwyn, R5 goes to Downingtown and to Doylestown, R7 goes to Chestnut Hill East and Trenton, R8 goes to Chestnut Hill West and Fox Chase.  Because of the tunnel connecting the former Reading Lines with the former Pennsylvania lines one end of the route is on the Reading side and the other on the PRR side for each of these.  The upper level of 30th street station is the "center point" of operation.  You might also count the R100 from 69th street terminal to Norristown.  While it is usually considered light rail it is contructed to heavy rail standards.

Maryland DOT operates electrified commuter trains on the Ex PRR out of Washington.

Until very recently American Electric Power ran two E50 locomotives in Southeastern Ohio supplying coal to a power plant.  These were nearly identical to the PRR/PC/Conrail E44 and E44a locomotives.  But that operation has ended.

What have I missed?

 

[nokia3310]

What rairloads on the Eastren Coast/North-East Coridor ar electrified?

There are any electrified railroads in California? 

[spikejones52002]

There are ten thousand reason electric line died.

One, the power has to generated.

TWO, the power has to be distrubited.

Three, They need a termendious amount of power that does not get to other uses.

Four, if there is going to be a track, there has to be a wire.

Five, if something happens to that feed wire. It affects all all tracks around it.

Six, There is a lot more to maintain.

Seven, Weather effects are exponential.

Eight, the amount of load that can be placed on a power feed.

Nine, exhust coming out of a smoke stack on an engine or chimmey is pollution.

[oldline1]

In my opinion the electrification on the Virginian was the most successful. It permitted the Virginian to greatly increase the capacity of their single track main while at the same time reducing operating costs significantly. Unfortunately when N&W bought them out the Virginian main line was converted to single direction, which doomed the juice jacks.

Probably right with this! The VGN (and I'm told GN) balanced trains on the electric lines. A train would be set to leave a terminal while another was going down grade using regenerative braking (the electric locos form of dynamic braking) to feed power back into the wires. I was told by an old VGN maintenance man I knew that the power of the downgrade train was equal to that used by the starting train which greatly saved fuel at the powerplant. The Virginian electrification was a great success and the main reason the N&W dropped the juice when they bought the VGN was because the power generating plant at Glen Lyn was in need of updating and overhaul and the cost was more than they wanted to spend when diesels had much more going for them as far as cost, maintenance and utilization. Electrics could only go where they had wires...........diesels or steam still had to do the switching. N&W was really into having a fleet of locos that could do any job they wanted rather than having any specialized engines.

Interesting note here is the N&W shut down their own electrified section when they opened the New Elkhorn Tunnel in 1950. Steam replaced the electrics! The new tunnel was built on a lesser grade and had better ventillation equipment allowing steam to continue through where they had to change over to electrics before. These 2 power changes ate up a lot of time and money. The original N&W electrics were getting very old and the Bluestone powerplant was aging as well.

What a shame the N&W didn't save one of the beautiful Virginian EL-2 electric locos!

Roger

Roger

[daveklepper]

I think the Virginian road-switcher relectrics looked great in the New Haven paint.  One cosmetically restored is at a Connecticut museum.

[wjstix]

Why is modeling catenary systems so expensive? My Lionel EP-5 and MTH GG-1 in
O gauge are designed to run with the overhead system. Can anyone help out on this
idea?

Installing real overhead catenary on the prototype is very expensive. I would think it wouldn't be too expensive to build it on a model system. (Remember this forum is for Classic REAL Trains, Classic TOY Trains forum is down the hall and to the left.)

In 1913 the Dan Patch Line (the Minneapolis St.Paul Rochester and Dubuque Electric Traction Co., thank you very much) went to GE / Ingersoll Rand and asked about buying electric boxcab locomotives. However they pointed out they had a problem - they could buy locomotives, or hang overhead wire, but couldn't afford to do both!! GE et al suggested putting oil-burning electric generators in the boxcabs...'hey, you can use this to move stuff around while you're building the overhead wire'.

Turns out it worked so well they never did string any wire. Technically they weren't "Diesels" because they burned oil not diesel fuel, but otherwise they were the first blip on the radar screen of the coming diesel revolution. 

Several iron mining companies in northern MN used electric locomotives in the mines, some with a trolley pole angled off to one side of the engine (they couldn't put the wire right over the track or it would interfere with the steam shovels loading ore into the cars) or a REALLY long extension cord!!

[Phoebe Vet]

Actually, all trains in America are electric.  The locomotive drive is electric.  The deisel engine just drives a generator.  That system means they don't need overhead wires or third rails.

[arkansasrailfan]

Problems with electrification, 1)taxes 2)cost of installation 3)trying to find locomtives that will suit needs(remember that this is about freight railroads) 4)BIGGY if the power is cut, like in the Northeast Corridor a few times, the railroad is shut down, and that means finding the problem. so there you have it. electrification is good in a lot of ways (limitless power, green) but it has flaws that set it back, just like you don't see turbines(coal, gas, oil), steam engines out on the road today. A lot of railroads studied (during the 70s)electrification, but shied away at the cost.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

I hope that they'll have the good taste and design some decent looking electrics then.....

If they look like the EL-C's or E44's, I would be quite pleased, despite H. Reid's opinion regarding the EL-C's.

Eeerrmmm...... I think that you'll have to enlighten me Paul.

The E44's were PRR/PC/CR freight electrics rated at 4400 continuous HP and were numbered in the 4400 series.  They lasted in service from 1960 into the early 1980's and have a road-switcher carbody.

The EL-C's were VGN rectifier electrics rated at 3300 continuous HP and also had road-switcher carbodies.  H Reid, in his book "The Virginian Railway" described them as looking like "misshapen bricks".  The EL-C's were numbered VGN 130-141 and went to N&W when VGN was merged into N&W.  When N&W de-electrified, the EL-C's were sold to NH (11 for service, 1 for parts) as NH 300-310 and were re-classified as EF-4's.  They went to PC when NH was imposed on PC and were renumbered PC 4600-4610 and were re-classified as E33's.  They kept the same numbers on Conrail.

[JanOlov]

I hope that they'll have the good taste and design some decent looking electrics then.....

If they look like the EL-C's or E44's, I would be quite pleased, despite H. Reid's opinion regarding the EL-C's.

Eeerrmmm...... I think that you'll have to enlighten me Paul.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

I hope that they'll have the good taste and design some decent looking electrics then.....

If they look like the EL-C's or E44's, I would be quite pleased, despite H. Reid's opinion regarding the EL-C's.

[JanOlov]

I hope that they'll have the good taste and design some decent looking electrics then.....

[daveklepper]

Patience, maybe in our lifetimes!

[Tom Curtin]

The question can arguably answered with one word. Oil. In the 1920's the U.S. was self sufficient in oil, and it was actually cheap.

Well, almost that word.  That --- plus the property tax essessment matter discussed in a more recent post.  Simply put, during the era when this country's railroads were planning their conversions from steam, the economics of diesl-electrics were unquestionable and unbeatable.  Diesel fuel was incredibly cheap --- as incredible as this may sound to somebody who wasn't around then, it was just a few cents a gallon!  A purely hypothetical discussion of how those economics would play out if railroads were converting from steam today, at today's oil prices,  might be fun to engage in but I have no idea where it would lead.

Something that hasn't been very widely written about, but neither is it a secret, is that in the late 70s, when it was a young and struggling enterprise, Conrail paid for an engineering study to analyze extending its electrification west from Harrisburg/Enola to Pittsburgh/Conway. This was something the PRR had always wanted to do but after WWII they never had the capital.  Remember. that in that period CR was still operating the PRR's full freight electrification east of Harrisburg.  In the 1970s it was still a spectacularly efficient operation that PRR had been able to install in the 30s, at depression-era prices.   The study that was done is said to have recommended electrifying, but the capital required (I don't know the details) was more than CR was willing to commit to.

[JonathanS]

One of the big reasons you do not see common carrier freight railroads in the USA using electrification is TAXES.  All those catenary supports, wire, and substations add value to the property that the local governments see as taxable real estate.  You would need a lot of operating cost avoidance to just break even.

You do see electrification being used by government agencies (AMTRAK, NJT, SEPTA, etc.) because they are immune from property taxes.  Also you see some utilites using electrification because they can simply pass on the additional taxes to the consumer as "cost of doing business" and the consumers cannot turn anywhere else to get electricity.

 

[JanOlov]

How would the US electrics compare back then with the rest "world" as in Europe, in quality, future thinking etc. etc.?

[2redeyes]

Why is modeling catenary systems so expensive? My Lionel EP-5 and MTH GG-1 in
O gauge are designed to run with the overhead system. Can anyone help out on this
idea?

[penncentral2002]

A lot of the issue why electric rail never became more common was initial development/infrastructure costs. The electricification was so expensive, so it only was economically feasible in a few markets (like the Northeast Corridor) or for urban systems (such as the urban subway systems). It cost way more per mile to build the infrastructure for the electric system than a non-electric system. And throughout American history, it is rare that more than the bare minimum gets spent on basic infrastructure.

Personally from a practical perspective, my favorite electric trains would be the Metrorail in DC which took me faithfully for work during the years that I lived there preventing me from having to drive in that awful traffic up there.

But from a design/railfan perspective, I prefer the Pennsylvania GG-1's because of that fabulous 1930s art deco design.

Whether the high gas prices/tightening demand will make electric locomotives more popular again remains to be seen. As of now, diesel prices haven't ran to the level to offset the costs of the major infrastructure improvements needed for electric rail - but with the rising global demand, perhaps electric locomotives might become a more attractive option again.

[wallyworld]

The North Shore did look at one man operation and a study was done to look at conversion costs. Shop drawings exists for this so it was seriously considered.
Another costs savings that did not occur that was also looked at favorably but economically impossible to implement was the retrofitting of roller bearings to replace the friction bearings on cars. One cost saving option that was never seriously considered was the lopping off of the Wisconsin trackage much as it was done in the CTA "take-over" study. The leasing of the line by the North Shore Commuters Association was only stalled by the lack of liability protection for the owners in the event the properties value was lowered during the term of the lease. I am old enough to remember Harold Mason, the road's president being attacked in various editorials for being non committal toward the preservation effort, particularly on WGN radio. They kept playing his "no comment" responses over and over. For a time, some villiages in my neck of the woods tried to convince The Milwaukee Road to run down the Soo Line from outside Grayslake to connect to the CNSM trackage at Mundelein and head west to reconnect with the Milwaukee at Roundout. Nice idea but the Soo was not in favor of it. I drive past the former Skokie Valley high speed right of way and think what a waste the abandonment was. There has been studies made over the years, priorities set and still the extension of the CTA up to Lake Cook Road on this right of way has yet to happen. The Mundelein branch intersects three current Metra lines. Had it survived, transfer between these three lines, with North and South destinations, would have been possible. Oh well....

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

The Shore Line was abandoned for passenger service in 1955, probably should have been abandoned much earlier since it paralleled (often on adjoining rights-of-way) the C&NW North Line.
Any savings from closing Highwood shops may have been negated from labor protection clauses in the existing union contracts. Skokie Shops would be an outside contractor so it may not have been possible to move work there due to the same agreements. Lay-up points are also governed by labor agreements, so laying up trains short of Waukegan or Mundelein may not have saved much cash. One-man cars would also have required changes in labor agreements, plus a major re-structuring of the fare structure. Zone fares did not exist at that time.
While using the L to get to the Loop put North Shore riders closer to their workplace than Union or North Western Stations, the L was also appreciably slower than either C&NW or MILW.

[daveklepper]

I believe the North Shore could have survived if management had done the following after the Shore Line abandonment in 1952:

Worked with the CTA to consolidate shops at the CTA's Skokie Shopes and closed Highwood.

Then studied the remaining portion of the Shore Line north of highwood and kept only that portion where freight service was really profitable and only for the time that it was profitable.

Reduced the Mundeleine branch to single-track, with a portion of the former second track kept in position west of Deerpath only as a layup track so the commuter's Skokie local trains, which did get most of the business from the Shore Line when that line was discontinued, did not have to run, usually nearly empty, all the way up to North Chircago Junction or Waugegan Edison Court to lay-up overnight,

Some older steel cars rebuilt for one-man operation (when not on CTA tracks) and used as one-man cars for certain of the practical one-car off-peak trains.

The Northwestern suburban service is convenient if you work near the Travel Center, but the CNS&M directly served a much wider employment area and its connections to the transit system were more convenient.

The economies may have kept the CNS&M operating until subsidized commuter operations and government ownership became the norm.

The June issue notes that the old Pacific Electric Long Beach line handled 25,000 (or 20,000?) a day, but today's Blue Line handles 80,000!

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

QUOTE: Originally posted by wallyworld

Maybe someone has the answer to this question that I have been curious over for some time although its a moot point but interesting from a historical point of view. Its in two parts: 1. Remember the annual passenger train speed surveys that Donald Steffee (sp?) did? Are they available somewhere on line? 2. Between Chicago and Milwaukee which road had the best regularly scheduled timings?

MILW did operate a few non-stop Chicago-Milwaukee runs scheduled for 75 minutes, average speed of 68 MPH.

[wallyworld]

Maybe someone has the answer to this question that I have been curious over for some time although its a moot point but interesting from a historical point of view. Its in two parts: 1. Remember the annual passenger train speed surveys that Donald Steffee (sp?) did? Are they available somewhere on line? 2. Between Chicago and Milwaukee which road had the best regularly scheduled timings?

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

South Shore became known as the Last Interurban more because of its origins and its electric operation, by 1950 it was more of an electric railroad and less resembled an interurban than even North Shore or the Iowa freight interurbans.
The trolley poles on the first Insull MU cars and steeplecabs were more for possible operation on the other Insull lines than operation on their own lines, and were removed or replaced with a second pantograph in short order. Why they were even equipped with trolley poles is questionable since the MU cars would have never fit on North Shore, even as leasers; they were too wide and too heavy for the L and not equipped with radial couplers.
As far as possible passenger growth on North Shore for continued suburban service, I find it quite unlikely. North Shore was too close to C&NW's and MILW's North Lines, both of which were re-equipped with air-conditioned bi-levels, providing a real advantage over North Shore's antiquated equipment.