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EMD turbos lashed to non-turbos
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Back in the dark ages, Seaboard Coast Line (remember it?) bought a slug of GE U36bs - 3600 HP, 4 motors. <br /> <br />They were fine when you could keep them over 25MPH, but below that, especially in the rain, they'd slip out of a sandhouse. <br /> <br />So GE sold SCL some road slugs called "Mates" - Motors for Additional Tractive Effort. There were two kinds - single and double ended. The single-ended mate was to attach to a single U36b and made it, in effect, to a U36D - eight traction motors taking power from a single 3600HP power plant. They were used in the phosphate mining territory of south Florida. <br /> <br />Double-ended mates were designed to couple between two U36bs; the traction motors on one end took power from one U36 and the other end from the other. The result was a combo about the equivalent of two U36Cs, or two SD45s (actually, they were better than two SD45s on SCL, because you never saw an SCL SD45 that didn't have a couple of traction motors cut out). <br /> <br />But in the mountainous regions of SCL, four units of power were needed, so they'd couple up another U36b to the three-unit mate consist. The result was that, on the mountain in the rain, the "bachelor" (the U36b not supplying a mate) would slip just like always. <br /> <br />But GE was happy. They sold a hundred or so engines not good in the mountains, and then sold them some additional jewelry to make them good. <br /> <br />Old Timer
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