The "streamline" or "lightweight" passenger car, the use of scare quotes because the were not that light and only somewhat streamlined, essentially the Amtrak Heritage Fleet: the AAR roof profile, two-axle swing-motion, pedestal journal guide trucks, air conditioned with non-opening windows, along with the matching cab-type locomotive is essentially a product of the 1930s, the 1941-45 WW-II years putting a lot of the streamline-Diesel transition on hold, with what I see has a mass Dieselization and adoption of the lightweight passenger car post war into the early 1950s. The dates and production quantities in the various Diesel Spotter's Guides are a good resource on when this all happened.
The E-7 was the biggie as far as post WW-II passenger Dieselization, followed by the E-8 for roads wanting more HP per unit and passenger-geared F-7 for mountain roads needing more weight on drivers. The big purchases of these locomotives and passenger cars must have been in the 1945-1952 time frame.
What happened is that while the railroads were swamped with passenger and other traffic during WW-II owing to troop movements and gas and airline flight rationing, and while the railroads sunk a lot of money replacing their passenger fleet with Diesels and lightweight streamline passenger cars after WW-II, the travelling public deserted the rails and left the railroads holding the bag. A lot of this happened or started happening before a lot of the Interstate even got into high gear or before the development of the DC-9 and B-727 jets for domestic service.
By the early to mid 1950s, the pickle that passenger service was in became apparent, and the acquisition of passenger equipment and motive power essentially came to a halt. There were the odd exceptions -- the Sante Fe High Level fleet was acquired, what, late 1950s? C&NW acquired long-distance versions of their commuter bilevels in the same time frame.
The "lightweight experimentals" -- the post WW-II bi-directional Talgo on the New Haven, Boston and Maine, and Rock Island, that bus-bodied GM Aerotrain, the Robert Young inspired Train-X, the low-roofed locomotive-nosed New Haven RDC's marketed as "RDC Hot Rod", the Budd-Pennsy "Tubular Train" had their debut in the mid to late 1950s, and all of this ill-fated, ill-received effort was long past the major acquisitions of conventional streamline cars and locomotives. The "lightweight experimentals", failures as they are perceived, were the last efforts at improved passenger tech that didn't have some kind of Federal government involvement.
By the late 50's, early 60's, the first-generation passenger Diesels started wearing out as Diesels do in high mileage service. The replacements, as indicated, were a smattering of things -- late model E9's, the passenger-geared steam-generator equiped SDP-35 (SCL), SDP-40 (GN), and SDP-45 (SP) along with the GE U28C (Santa Fe) (see the Diesel Spotter's guide for clarification on the roads) provided 6-axle high-horsepower hood units for passenger service, followed by the FP-45 (Santa Fe, Milwaukee Road) and U30-CG cowl units (Santa Fe). Those latter-day passenger units were very low-volume production because passenger service was on the way out and down, and the railroads were not keeping up a dying part of their business.
When Amtrak inherited what was left of passenger service, the FP-45s were fine, but they were few in number, and the railroads were most keen on keeping the workable FP-45s and handing of junker cab units on Amtrak, hence the conversion to freight service of perfectly servicable passenger power. It is not clear, however, how suited the big C-C's were to high-speed passenger service -- I saw some remark that Milwaukee Road developed a preference to run their FP-45's trailing cab units on account of concerns of smooth tracking. Of course Amtrak jumped in with both feet with the SDP-40F purchase because 6-axle cowl units is what the railroads were buying if they were buying any replacement passenger power at all, and those got retired early, and so on.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
jrbernier wrote: Murph, I think you have data/info mixed up. The E7 was produced from 1945 up through 1949. The F7 was produced from 1949 through 1954. The E7 was a dedicated 'passenger' engine. Most F7's were sold for mainline freight service, although several Western roads like to use them as passenger engines due to mountain grades. By 1954, most locomotive purchasing was freight and the hood type units were what was being purchased. Some dedicated passenger engines were still built through about 1961(EMD E9's). Some roads(N&W) came late to dieselization and bought boiler equipped GP9's for passenger service. By the mid 60's, any passenger engine needs were handled by existing power or boiler equipped SDP35/SDP40/SDP45 engines(that could be moved to freight service).Jim
Murph,
I think you have data/info mixed up. The E7 was produced from 1945 up through 1949. The F7 was produced from 1949 through 1954. The E7 was a dedicated 'passenger' engine. Most F7's were sold for mainline freight service, although several Western roads like to use them as passenger engines due to mountain grades.
By 1954, most locomotive purchasing was freight and the hood type units were what was being purchased. Some dedicated passenger engines were still built through about 1961(EMD E9's). Some roads(N&W) came late to dieselization and bought boiler equipped GP9's for passenger service. By the mid 60's, any passenger engine needs were handled by existing power or boiler equipped SDP35/SDP40/SDP45 engines(that could be moved to freight service).
Jim
Additionally, this is not to say that the E's could not be used for freight. Several railroads -- Erie Lackawanna, to name one (others have been discussed on the forum previously) -- used E's for freight service after their passenger-hauling days were over.
Meanwhile, EMD sold late-model F-units that were specifically intended for passenger duty, namely the FP7 and FP9, with the "P" signifying passenger. The frames were 4' longer IIRC, allowing for more space for the boiler and water tank.
Finally, agree with Jim that most 1960's passenger duty-capable locos were the hood units mentioned, but I'd also like to note that EMD delivered cowled FP45 units to the Santa Fe and Milwaukee Road; both of which used them for freight duty after their more prestigious days of Super Chief and Hiawatha service were done.
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
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