NYC Steam Turbines???

[Anonymous]

I've been investigating the 1938 pair of GE-built steam turbines that ran on UP. In Jerry A. Pinkepank's book The Second Diesel Spotter's Guide page GE-202, it is noted that this pair of experimental locomotives ran on NYC.
Can anyone fill in details?
UP's Streamliner magazine did an extensive writeup on these locos and never mentioned the NYC connection.
Surely someone knows what happened, or can point me to someone who does.
Does anyone know how to contact Mr. Pinkepank?
Hank Morris ???

Also, while we're at it, did NYC ever try to develop its own steam turbine? None of the research I've conducted leads me to believe that it had. Just checking...

[Anonymous]

Couldn't edit above message. Should read as follows (sorry for any inconvenience):

I've been investigating the 1938 pair of GE-built steam turbines that ran on UP.

Did NYC ever try to develop its own steam turbine? None of the research I've conducted leads me to believe that it had. Just checking...

[alangj]

Hank,

FWIW, in Brian Solomon's book "American Steam Locomotive" (1998, MBI Publishing Company), there's a photo (across pp 130-131) of one of those GE steam-turbine units, with UP lettering, heading up a passenger consist in Erie PA. Later in that same chapter, on page 141, there's a paragraph describing that two-unit steam-turbine set of locos.

Alan

[alangj]

Hank,

It must be getting contagious! I forgot to add a somewhat farfetched thought. Wherever those turbines were built (Erie PA?, Schenectady NY? - I have no clue), is it possible that they got some discreet "shakedown" running on the NYC prior to their being given over to the UP? After all, if the photo that I mentioned shows a unit in UP lettering, but is claimed to be in Erie PA, it could be anybody's guess where they had been run, couldn't it? (Of course, the mention of Erie in the photo caption might be the origin location of the press release describing the engines, and NOT the location in the photo.)

Alan

[Anonymous]

Since posting, I have learned they were in fact shaken down on NYC en route to UP.
At 1:20 P.M. on Saturday, April 1, 1939, the two-unit team-turbine-electric locomotive Union Pacific Road Numbers 1 and 2 (builders numbers 12136 and 12137) and nicknamed the “streamlined camels,” was considered finally ready for service and left Erie for delivery to UP. They were the only condensing steam locomotives built and operated in the U.S.
Behind the two units were UP baggage car No. 4450 and ten NYC coaches. The crew stopped in Toledo, Ohio for the night. Sunday morning, the locomotive and ten cars left behind a section of the 20th Century Limited, arriving at Porter, Indiana, two hours and forty minutes later at 9:00 A.M. The ten coaches were left behind on a siding while the twin locomotives and the UP baggage car transferred to the EJ&E for the run to Chicago.
Progress halted in South Bend, Ind. when a coupler’s knuckle broke on the rear of unit 2 releasing the baggage car. They didn’t arrive at West Chicago until 1:20 P.M.
The Union Pacific finally took delivery of the two General Electric-built units in Omaha at 4:40 P.M. on Monday, April 3.
Thanks for your help.