I was in the cab of a GG1 once, somewhere. Maybe the Railroaders Museum in Altoona? It was outdoors, and not spiffy.
I was shocked at how little space there was in the cab. Made me think of early submarines.
But what a cool loco! An awesome beast.
If one could be run sans catenary, do most folks here envision retaining the pantographs? It's probably heresy to say this, but it would look really cool without them; and maybe silly to keep them. But I guess if one can play "air guitar," why not air cables?
Lithonia OperatorI was shocked at how little space there was in the cab. Made me think of early submarines.
That was kind of the "Dirty little secret" of the GG1's, if that's the proper term, and maybe it isn't. As futuristic as they looked on the outside they were kind of on the primative side inside, again if that's the proper term. "Flash Gordon" on the outside, but regular 1930's electric on the inside.
I remember reading years back one rail museum with a GG1 kicked around the idea of running it powered by a generator on a flatcar, but nothing ever came of it. I don't remember who it was.
The Little Joe at the IRM was rebuilt for or by South Shore in 1949 to operate on 1500 volts DC, quite different for the 11000 volts 25 cycle AC for the GG1.
We covered this exhaustively, and so did Trains in their discussion of the GG1.
The 387A motors are essentially the same construction as the New Haven design from which the twin-motor quill drive was derived. On the New Haven these operated quite happily on 750V DC from New Rochelle all the way into GCT, not just in '20mph mode' like the auxiliary electrics on the '50s 'lightweights' or the UA TurboTrain. One might easily assume, as I do, that a twin motor might be wound and insulated so that the two armatures are in series for 750V each, and run 'native' on 1500V instead of having to be connected in series pairs (i.e. three of them for a complete locomotive) which might tend to produce a giant sucking sound at any museum substation -- not that you'd need the full horsepower for any museum's logical operation.
The only relevance of 11kV (or 12.5kV) or 25-cycle AC is in the transformer, and those are irrevocably gone, Pyranol-contaminated paper and all. There is utterly no need to replicate any part of that for DC operation, as it involved complicated tap-changing arrangements for speed control.
The point of Mr. Klepper's use of AEM-7 components (the wheel diameter is technically very close, although of course the construction is not) is that you obtain a locomotive easily capable of 125mph performance from basically obsolescent and costed-down parts. The earlier problem was that Amtrak was highly reluctant to sell those parts for any operating purpose; the current problem is that I believe there are very few AEM-7s or components still available for the purpose, assuming you could manage the systems integration and inspection to convince all the 'powers that be' to let you play.
And then there's the question of redissolving the crystallization in the frames ... not particularly difficult, but not particularly trivial and not cheap, either. All this before we come to the MP54-level corrosion damage in the upperworks and welded casing metal; by now I'd expect even the bridge members to be suffering, particular around the concrete deck.
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