Locomotive "Edsels"

[tree68]

As far as looks: while I don't particularly care for Cesar Vergara's designs, I agree with his point that we should not replicate the past.  While the F40PH and the other EMD cowl designs are boxy looking, they do have an appeal of their own.  Also remember that the compound curves of the bulldog nose are expensive to produce compared even to an Alco flatnose.  Production costs are part of any design, and Vergara's comments concerning industrial design are worth listening to.

We should probably consider our selves lucky that the railroads that are buying passenger power apparently want that power to look like passenger power, or we'd have -70's and C44's on the point.

[Anonymous]

I agree with the comment that every publication, including TRAINS has blown by the Centipede without much more then a passing glance. It may well be the most ignored large production diesel of all time. Granted it only sold to 4 roads and one of them, UP conceled its order before delivery in favor of trying turbine´s.  I saw a Centipede in action only once. It was on the point of a rather short Seaboard passenger train, detouring over the ACL in the early AM northbound into Jacksonville. Hot still air, ground fog, a distant light and a strange horn, suddenly the ground shook, dust flew, engine noise, smoke, lurching, bounding, like a misguided cannon ball...NOTHING in my railfan experience of 50+ years equaled it.

I grew up just a couple miles from the Seaboards Beaver Street shops and yards in Jacksonville and had the honor of going to school with Mr. Hastings (SCL motive power super) son. I never heard ANY bad talk of the Centipedes from the Seaboard men, Hastings himself seemed to wish they were still around...almost as if they were killed by politics more then service.They had a good availability on the Meteor and other passenger trains which is what they were designed for. The whole concept was to take a longer route, roller coaster profile, single track railroad (Seaboard) and give it a locomotive that could whip a passenger train along better then E Units over on a shorter, flat, double track route (ACL). Give it plenty of wheels to spread its weight over possible sub perfect trackage on branchlines and secondary mains. What caused them to falter was a Baldwin curse. Electric panels that shorted out usually due to water finding its way in through the roof vents and fans. This happened to the CNJ babyface fleet and the GM&O beautiful A-1-A units (which went into storage almost new only to be traded and scraped years latter with few miles),.Certainly the bugs were out by the time the giant Transfer Locomotives were delivered.  

Had they stretched their legs on Sherman Hill things might have been different. Or had Baldwin gone ahead an brought them up to the planned 6,000 HP. Perhaps. Maybe if they had awaited the safety cab era and introduced them in say, 1995 ? Such are dreams made of, I for one miss them.

 

[Anonymous]

Scarcely a glance by Trains?  I recall at least one cover story and several other articles considering its service on PRR and SAL, which considering its numbers and impact on railroading is not hardly a glance, but more like proportionally excessive.

S. Hadid

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I know, "a cover story" and honorable mention in the turkey category of every other diesel article. It´s just when one has a love for a particular locomotive or railroad subject, there is NEVER enough coverage. It´s just a damn shame that Baldwin didn´t build the Centipede model in a factory about 1/2 way up Cajon Pass. BTW does anyone out there know what issues of what magazines had the Centipede articles? I suscribe to all major rail magazines but recent moves have caused the collection to vanish, still, I cannot recall more then passing interest in these great locomotives. Bob

[nanaimo73]

There are some articles here-

http://index.mrmag.com/tm.exe?opt=S&cmdtext=centipede&MAG=ANY

[Anonymous]

Scarcely a glance by Trains?  I recall at least one cover story and several other articles considering its service on PRR and SAL

And the dates of those articles would be?

I've missed only a couple issues since 2000, and I can recall only a couple pics and a few passing mentions over that time frame.

[PBenham]

Strongly recommended reading:"Pennsy Power II",and III, by Alvin Staufer and Bert Pennypacker. Also worth a look, "A Pennsy Diesel Power Review" by Paul Carleton. Both provide good coverage of the centipedes mis-adventures on PRR after the big red subway found the DR12-8-1500/2s were not equal to three E7s! Also look at "The Diesel Builders, VolII" by John F. Kirkland, which covered Baldwin. Easier to find, and easier on the wallet, is "Diesels From Eddystone" by Gary and Stephen Dolzall. All of these do not treat the centipedes very kindly. But in "Pennsy Power II and III", the authors did try to be objective. Kirkland defended the design, while Carelton was amused by their antics trying to do jobs they weren't designed to do!

[Cris_261]

The May 1982 issue of Trains has a lengthy story on the Centipede, and it looks like there's copies still available on the back issue part of this website.

Union Pacific ordered a pair of drawbar linked Centipedes from Baldwin, but canceled the order. So the completed pair of locomotives was fielded as a demo set for a while before returning to its builder to be scrapped.

[Murphy Siding]

     Everything I've read about centipedes makes it sound like PRR was not at all satisfied with their performance.  They kept downgrading which trains they were asigned to, eventually using them (I think) solely for pusher service.

[dansapo]

What about the ALCO RS-27.Only 27 produced(59-62) or C-430 only 16 produced(67-69)

[Murphy Siding]

 Alco Century Series C-628, C-630 demonstrators which failed right & left while out west. (Santa Fe & UP dropped orders)...exit ALCO in the US

I didn't know that Santa Fe took a look at Alco's C628 and C630 demos on the posibility of placing an order or two. Interesting!

UP bought ten C630s, that wound up on the Duluth Missabe & Iron Range, before heading north to the Cartier Railway.

     I seem to recall that Cartier Railway ran them for a long time too.(?)  How could they be good for Cartier, but not so good for ATSF, UP, and DMIR?

[nanaimo73]

      I seem to recall that Cartier Railway ran them for a long time too.(?)  How could they be good for Cartier, but not so good for ATSF, UP, and DMIR?

They spent 6 years on UP, and then 2 on the DMIR before transferring over to fellow US Steel railway Cartier. Cartier had them 16 years, although for the last few years they were in storage. I guess the price was right for locomotives that would not be used full time. One of them went to a museum in Arkansas.

[PBenham]

Both the RS27 and C430 suffered from the same malady! They were released at a bad time. The RS27s were offered to the industry during an economic slump, and a steel industry strike that stopped Alco production at a very bad time.
The C430 was introduced too late. They performed OK, after being debugged,(aluminum wiring, air starters, and wheel slip control issues) but by then Alco had given up the ship!

[slotracer]

How about teh Morrison Knudsen high horsepower engines of a little over a decade ago....5000 hp...3 built and all on the SP.  They were supposed to be the greatest thing since sliced bread and quickly and quietly disappeared a failure......

[Kevin C. Smith]

What about steam? Maybe because they were more specialized rather than mass produced there weren't so many "misfires". A few that might qualify? Erie Triplex, C&O Allegheny or in Britian I've heard that Sidney Webb came up with a few?

[Anonymous]

What about steam? Maybe because they were more specialized rather than mass produced there weren't so many "misfires". A few that might qualify? Erie Triplex, C&O Allegheny or in Britian I've heard that Sidney Webb came up with a few?

You're right, individual designs were far too idiosnycratic, though there were a lot of lemons, e.g, almost everything with three cylinders or nickel-steel boilers.  You have to look at broad themes like U.S.R.A. designs or Super-Power.  I think one could make a good case that Super-Power steam in general was an Edsel -- overhyped, underperformed, scrapped far earlier than the conventional wisdom imagined in the 1930s.  Super-Power pretty much killed the old-line locomotive builders, who wasted their window of opportunity perfecting an obsolete technology and paid far too little attention to the new.

S. Hadid

[PBenham]

Mr. Hadid, you homered in the bottom of the ninth! Lima was doomed by success. Their"super power", WWII defense transportation production and post war restoration/reconstruction orders from Asia and Europe led them to believe steam had a future. The diesel was ignored by Lima at a very high cost!
Baldwin had such a heavy debt load from construction of the Eddystone complex, and then could not devote funding to diesel development. De La Vergne, acquired in the depths of the depression, had a good reputation in the industry, and had a solid, reliable engine (the VO) ready to go in 1940. Which was late, considering that Alco's engine builder, McIntosh & Seymour had its model 531 engine out and winning acceptance from the railroad industry in 1932! Granted, no one was ordering locomotives during the depression. Now, Electro-Motive's Winton 201 power plant's replacement, the 567, was in production in 1939. After that it was lights out for the steam giants. Alco was close to making it, but had problems that related to it being too "small" to compete with EMD and GE, both of which had access to financial resources that led to EMD's 645 and GEs FDL series power plants. Alco also didn't have an independent source of electrical equipment. Having to go to GE for electrical equipment was not going to work out. Westinghouse pulled out of the rail traction field and that hit Baldwin hard, and FM, too. But FM had tried to develop electrical equipment, but only for switchers, not high profit road locomotives.
"Smaller" steam builders were all in the industrial market, which died with the rise of industrial diesel locomotives and trucks that didn't need tracks which had to be maintained and weren't flexible enough for modern industrial applications.

[Paul Milenkovic]

As far as looks: while I don't particularly care for Cesar Vergara's designs, I agree with his point that we should not replicate the past.  . . . Production costs are part of any design, and Vergara's comments concerning industrial design are worth listening to.

I built and exhibited models of a light rail train set and of a Talgo-inspired intercity train at a local model-train show -- this was in promotion of concepts for the various forms of rail service for our region, so the first person to direct me to post on the model railroad portion of this forum gets beaten about the head with a bundle of cooked noodles.

I went for Vergara-inspired faceted faces for the light rail train, the locomotive, and the intercity train cab car on the push-pull.  I didn't make a rote copy of the Genesis design as I wanted to try my own hand at industrial design -- the Genesis is like the "dustbuster" design of earlier minivans, and I gave my Diesel and cab car more of a nose in the style of the more recent minivans with some inspiration from the F40 and perhaps those Alsthom Diesels on NJT.

Part of the idea for the models is that just everyone out there is fascinated with model trains, especially if it is some design they haven't seen before, and the model trains would get a lot of foot traffic to tell people about the need for train service and the types of trains that could serve the community. 

Most people just came up and gave the trains a look, but one woman took me aside and laid into me with her critique of my designs.  I guess I am not a professional designer and I am not Vergara, but I was told my trains "looked like household appliances" and had all of the "appeal of a washing machine" and that I needed better styling to get people interested in riding the trains.

I guess I should take it as a compliment if at least one person took my efforts at industrial design seriously enough to offer a critique.  On the other hand, do people base their decision on whether to ride Amtrak on the shape of a Genesis locomotive?  People want to know if the trains goes to where they want to go at the right times, if it is on time, if it is clean, if the seats are comfortable and so on.  But I guess if I want to make a splash by showing cool train designs I need to have cool train designs.

 

 

[JSGreen]

Most people just came up and gave the trains a look, but one woman took me aside and laid into me with her critique of my designs.  I guess I am not a professional designer and I am not Vergara, but I was told my trains "looked like household appliances" and had all of the "appeal of a washing machine" and that I needed better styling to get people interested in riding the trains.

Perhaps the best irony of the argument of "easy to manufacture" vs "appeal" is that to get the support of projects like this, you need the "Romantics" to get behind the project, and in my narrow experience they are the ones who long for the exciting designs.  But to make it profitable, you need the average Joe who needs to commute to use it consistently, and typically most of them dont really care how it looks, as long as it will get the job done, with some pervceived benefit over competing modes of transportation.  (Cost, time, etc) 

[dansapo]

How about teh Morrison Knudsen high horsepower engines of a little over a decade ago....5000 hp...3 built and all on the SP.  They were supposed to be the greatest thing since sliced bread and quickly and quietly disappeared a failure......

Somebody correct me I'm wrong. 2 things
1. Didn't MK go bankrupt pretty much after these came out?
2.Didnt they have big trouble with the CAT engines?

[Paul Milenkovic]

Another locomotive lemon -- the EMD DM's on the LIRR -- what ever became of them?

[Murphy Siding]

Another locomotive lemon -- the EMD DM's on the LIRR -- what ever became of them?

     What's a DM?

[nanaimo73]

Another locomotive lemon -- the EMD DM's on the LIRR -- what ever became of them?

     What's a DM?

Dual-Mode passenger locomotives built by EMD to run with diesel engines or third rail shoes. The February 2006 Trains seems to suggest that after several years of operation most of the bugs have been worked out.

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/locoList.aspx?mid=1012

[daveklepper]

My latest communication from the LIRR says that there are two dual-power trains each way each day into Penn Station using the two double deck Kawasaki cars and a locomotive on the east end with a cab car on the west end, into New York in the morning and out in the evening.   They say they intend to add more such trains as reliability and availability improve, so we can learn that they are still not quite up to expectations, but still good enough to reliably get through some very hot and vital tracks, particularly the E/ River tunnels.   I am not sure whether both come from Port Jefferson or one from Port Jef and one from Oyster Bay.

[Murphy Siding]

     It seems like a lot of these "Edsels" lead a longer life than I would have thought.  Are there some "edsels" out there on the rails right now, that have defied the odds?

[alfadawg01]

What locomotives would you consider to have been "lemons" (Or Pacers)? 

I seem to recall that BN couldn't get rid of the cabless GE B30-7A's too soon for them.  ATSF was totally displeased with their B36-7's.

[Murphy Siding]

What locomotives would you consider to have been "lemons" (Or Pacers)? 

I seem to recall that BN couldn't get rid of the cabless GE B30-7A's too soon for them.  ATSF was totally displeased with their B36-7's.

     Why would the B units be any less desirable than the A units?  Or were the B30-7A and B36-7 A units unpopular too?

[timz]

there are two dual-power trains each way each day into Penn Station using the two double deck Kawasaki cars and a locomotive on the east end with a cab car on the west end

Last I looked there were four trains each way-- or is it five now? LIRR trains into NY Penn always (?) have a DM on each end.

[daveklepper]

If there are 4  or 5 each way, where are the eastern origination points now?

[coalminer3]

IIRC BL2s were in use for a long time.  Don't think they qualify as Edsels in nthat regard.

New Haven FL9s and EP5s (continuing the AMC thread) wer both full of "gremlins." 

 work safe