Dieselization without EMD?

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

QUOTE: Originally posted by samfp1943

Wasn't the First Diesel a box cab built by General Electric and powered by a diesel built by electro-motive corp for New York Central?? Pre General Motors FT's deno set?

CNJ 1000 was indeed a box cab switcher built in 1925, with a carbody by Alco, electrical gear by GE, and a diesel engine by Ingersoll-Rand. Later versions had the carbody work also built by GE.

[Anonymous]

Interestng stuff.

Much of the fixed infrastructure investment would last many years and some of it is still in use today. How does the Brown paper allocate these costs? Also, at the time of dieselization, how much deferred maintainence to steam-related infrastructure had accumulated during the war and the immediate post-war boom. It's also worth remembering that the economy went into recession during the mid to late 50's.

Modern supersteam era locos were making extended runs with greatly reduced maintainence on many roads. For example NYC Niagras were running 25,000 miles a month between servicing, and even Northern Pacific which used a poor grade of coal greatly extended runs and service intervals. Just how reliable early diesels were is another question. I sincerely hope the MTBF of 20-30 days for SD70MAC's given in the recent Trains article in BNSF preventative maintenance is a mis-print. I suspect the Big Boys did better than that.

Had there been no EMD, I wonder if the capital investment would have gone into more mainline electification. Does the Brown paper address that alternative?

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by up829


Had there been no EMD, I wonder if the capital investment would have gone into more mainline electification. Does the Brown paper address that alternative?

It is interesting that during the 1950's both GN and Milwaukee were analyzing the cost/benefits of rebuidling and even extending their respective electrifications. The GN's decision to ventilate the Cascade Tunnel to allow diesels to work through the tunnel upgrade must have been made with the experiences they had with EMD products. If EMD hadn't come around, it is likely GN would have rebuilt and extended their electrification as far west as Everett WA. Meanwhile, the Milwaukee went ahead and rebuilt their electrification, utilizing it well into the 1970's until stock price manipulation(?) forced the elimination of the catenary.

So if GN had kept and expanded their catenary into the BN merger, the added traffic through the Cascade Tunnel would not have been limited as it was (and still is) with diesels. It is a stretch of the imagination to think so, but perhaps we'd still have an electrified Stevens Pass route for BNSF able to handle 50 to 60 trains a day instead of today's 25, and thus Stampede Pass would be gone by now, and even grain trains might still be using Stevens Pass for Tacoma bound grain.