I was having a relatively decent day today and then I went onto Railpictures.net and then saw this photo of several old BN E-9 commuter units being scrapped...what a real bummer for somebody who spent years watching these venerable units pound up and down the "racetrack"...may they live in memory forever.
I don't know which is worse, seeing what I just saw in this picture, or seeing a historic locomotive, whether it be steam or diesel, sitting in a park and taking a lot of abuse from worthless punks who get their kicks out of vandalizing things. There is a former BN U-Boat, possibly an x-CB&Q unit, in a park in Gillette, Wyoming which I photographed a few years ago and it is in sad, sad shape. It's headlights are gone and the cab was heavily vandalized.
CANADIANPACIFIC2816
Look on the bright side.
All that steel might just be recycled into some nice new six-axle superpower locos.
Chuck
How about that Gulf, Mobile, and Ohio loco.
rrnut282 wrote:If things (and people) didn't die, why would we celebrate and embrace life?
Wow rrnut282, that is just way too deep for me this early in the morning, perhaps after a second mug of coffee?
Sorry, I was already on my third cup when I wrote that.
It's not all bad news though.
On the bright side there are, literally, a bunch of E8s and some E9s that have been saved from the scrappers torch. Unfortunately those two prime movers under the carbody make E units very expensive locomotives to maintain.
Remember the New York Central E units that were in that railroad museum in Tennessee? The museum could not afford to maintain them and are now with another owner.
I think I know how you feel as I'm an E unit fan myself.
"I like my Pullman Standards & Budds in Stainless Steel flavors, thank you!"
daveklepper wrote:I agree. If I am ever in a position of influence and need to order passenger diesel locomotives, I assure you I will do everything possible to make them look like E or F units with bulldog noses or like E5's and E6's with the longer slant version.
Price is the reason why it won't happen, even for you. The compound curves of the bulldog nose are difficult to fabricate and include a fair amount of body putty in the final product. Alco's flat nose, on the other hand, was designed with assembly practices in mind.
Jim, when and where was that taken?
I know that a few of the BN E9s were preserved. I guess we should be thankful for the rebuilding program that extended the lifetime of all of them in the 1970s or 1980s.
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
What year were these taken out of service? All at one time? What replaced these?
I, too, like the looks of the EMD E7s and it's brethren; something right and pleasing about the lines they have. The earlier E6s, and the others with the slanty noses, seem a bit too 'snooty', sort of aristocratic.
But for rugged beauty, the ALCO PAs stand alone. I was modeling the steam era on my HO scale railroad, but I just had to have an Athearn PA. It's not in GM&O colors but it does sport the ATSF Warbonnet scheme, a railroad that was involved significantly in my travels and work locations, Illinois and New Mexico.
Art
CShaveRR wrote: Jim, when and where was that taken?I know that a few of the BN E9s were preserved. I guess we should be thankful for the rebuilding program that extended the lifetime of all of them in the 1970s or 1980s.
August 1997 at NRE in Silvis, IL
Nice picture.
I happen to love the E's as well. I had the privelege of riding in a couple not long ago and discovered firsthand why they are not so popular with engine crews. The first thing one notices is getting up into them. It's a vertical climb on a narrow ladder into a fairly narrow door. This makes straps on grips mandatory, although I have seen some pretty accurate throws into the door from the ground.
The other shortfall of the E's and F's is visibility. There are mirrors hung outside the cab which give you a view of what is going on behind you, but it isn't easy to see behind you. You can crank down the side window like a car (it's manual, not electric. There IS a crank) and stick your head out, but it is much easier on a hood unit just to swivel around and look out the window behind you.
I also got to observe a pair of F's being coupled up and MU'd. The control lines appeared to be fairly easy to access, but the large power line (?) ran from a socket to the right of the rear door of the engine room to a matching location on the other unit. I watched an engineer climb a ladder on the back of the unit and wedge himself between them as he wrestled with the power line.
To add fuel to the fire of the continuing EMD vs. GE controversy, the maintenance guys on this railroad swear by EMD's. They said that the EMD's were built tough and heavy. Parts for the F units were running thin, so I'd love to know where those units in the picture were taken. I would suspect that they had been stripped long ago of useable stuff, but you never know.
Erik
ndbprr wrote:. That being said, BN tried to unload them for years. Several were bought. Two I know of became the CN and IC units. What should they do with the rest? The taxes on them alone resulted in their demise. .
They did. The BN sold them in the early 1970's, to a commuter group that owned and maintained the locomotives. It was an early version of the RTA, except the group was just for the BN line.
Bert
An "expensive model collector"
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