Grassroots Railroad Sports?

While I'm not a big fan of EMD road switchers, the SD45 (along with the GP30) is a favorite of mine. Probably the newest freight locomotive I actually like. They were distinctive, with the flared rear radiators and they packed a big turbocharged 2-stroke V20 (the 645E3) that made 3600hp, and they came in a dizzying array of variants. Sadly, the SD45 was the beginning of EMD's losing streak to GE. Early on the SD45 developed a reputation for being unreliable, as the new 20-cylinder block would flex and brake crankshafts. EMD developed a reinforced block that fixed that, but the damage was done. They were also notorious for being fuel hogs when being worked hard, and at low-speed traction-limited hauling, they offered no appreciable difference over the 3000hp SD40. In fact, many railroads later re-engined their SD45s with the 16-cylinder SD40 engines later on to cut down on fuel and maintenance costs. Still, sales totaled over 1200, with Norfolk & Western, Santa Fe, Southern Pacific and Pennsylvania buying huge batches. Erie-Lackawanna didn't go in on sheer numbers, but they owned 3 seperate variants: SD45s, SD45-2s and SDP45s.

Great Northern bought the original SD45 and fittingly named it "Hustle Muscle." Thankfully GN #400 is preserved these days.

EMD also offered the SDP45, the P standing for passenger usage. These had a stretched frame and a longer hood with a squared-off end. This was to accomodate a steam generator for providing steam heat in the old passenger cars. Only about 52 of them were sold, as railroads were starting to bail on passenger service, and Amtrak was in no position to be buying hot new locomotives.

Great Northern SDP45 #326 in "Big Sky Blue" livery leads a bunch of F-units in traditional green and orange out of Minneapolis in the winter of '69.

A shot of #326 in her Burlington Northern days, showing the longer hood with the squared-off end. By this point, BN had yanked out the steam generator and was just using it as a freight-hauler.

Interestingly, Erie-Lackawanna bought 34 of them, but not for passenger usage. They were built without the steam generator. E-L just wanted the longer stretched frame because they could fit them with larger fuel tanks and run trains longer without stops. They instead had the regular angled end on the long hood, with a bunch of ballast mounted back there to provide extra traction.

The E-L units would survive into the Conrail days

EMD also offered an SD45-2 from 1972-1974. This was an SD45 with their Dash 2 electrical system upgrade. These were distinguishable by the lack of flared radiators. There weren't many takers of new SD45-2, with only 136 sold, although some railroads sent their old SD45s in to have them converted to SD45-2s.

The SD45X was produced early in SD45 production, before the arrival of the -2. It had a few differences, including the trucks with 42" wheels, longer radiator flares with a flattened hood end, but the big one was that it had a different turbocharger that cranked the power up to 4200hp. Southern Pacific tested 6 of them and used them for a while before unloading them. No other railroads gave them a try. The problem was, they were early in the 645E3's life, and it was still having crankshaft troubles, which the extra 600hp exacerbated. They were also even bigger fuel hogs, and still used the same alternator/traction motors as the SD40 and SD45, so they had no power advantage down low, only while moving at speed.

Still, the SD45X wasn't a complete failure. It served as a testbed for a new electrical system that would become the popular Dash 2 system. And it also had some new-style radiators that laid the groundwork for the SD45T-2 "Tunnel Motors" for the SP.

There was also an unusual passenger version with a carbody called the FP45. Unlike EMD's earlier F and E units, the body did not provide any structure but was just hung over the SDP45 frame. The reasoning was that they looked relatively sleeker, had better aerodynamics at speed and allowed crews to enter the engine compartment while moving to perform diagnostics and maintenance. Only a few were sold, just 9 for the Santa Fe and 5 for the Milwaukee Road. After Amtrak took over, Santa Fe regeared theirs and used them in freight service, while Milwaukee's went to Amtrak.

Great Northern, Santa Fe and Burlington Northern would also all order a freight version, the F45, in greater numbers (86). GN and BN rationalized that the crews being able to move inside the locomotive made them safer in cold weather climates.

Strasburg has announced that this summer they are allowing people to either ride in the cab, act as the fireman or act as the engineer on any of their three operational steam locomotives. I did not need to see this. https://www.strasburgrailroad.com/ride/in-cab-experiences/ I'm really tempted to take the opportunity to operate "my" engine, #90

Happy 44th birthday to the Big Blue. The early days of Conrail were cool because you had all sorts of random stuff littering the roster. Like rare GE U36B #2971, one of only 4 on Conrail's roster

Small world!  I wander back to the 'car forum' while trapped in the house, and stumble across a VERY long thread on another consuming interest.

In what passes for spare time, I play at 'railroad archaeology' on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Delaware, trying to find inspiration for my model railroad builds.  The Pennsylvania RR used to run into Easton MD, and track / structures of it and contemporaries still litter the landscape.  It's almost a crying shame that rail history is literally being erased from the DelMarVa.  If you can find anything in Virginia's portion of the peninsula, consider yourself lucky.

One subject of study early last year was a bridge crossing the Tuckahoe River, between Queen Anne and Hillsborough in Caroline County.  I thought it might make a good subject for a Free-Mo layout module.

Photographed using another minor obsession, the Nikon P1000 'super-zoom' camera, known for its insane telephoto length.

Tim B.

oldrotarydriver said:

One subject of study early last year was a bridge crossing the Tuckahoe River, between Queen Anne and Hillsborough in Caroline County.  I thought it might make a good subject for a Free-Mo layout module.

awesome....i've got extended family in Oxford.  next time we head that way i'll need to take a peek at that.  what a beautiful structure.

that reminds me.  as a little kid, living in SE PA we used to pass under the130 ft. tall and 1400 ft. wide Brandywine Valley Viaduct in Downingtown PA all the time as i lived just on the other side of town.  from what i can dig up, it used to be a thoroughfare for freight and some mainline passenger trains, and i think under the operation of Pennsylvania Railroad's Philadelphia & Thorndale Branch but also went through Penn Central and Conrail.  apparently a rather complex bridge...curved, with an elevation change, trestles, trusses, and pedestals.  i always hoped one day i'd be in the back seat and catch a glimpse of a freight train way up there crossing the bridge, but its been abandoned for some time, maybe even before i was born.  i can't figure out exactly when operations ended but tracks came up in 1990.  i do know its quite old having been built in 1904.  sometimes i think that bridge is what ignited my interest in model railroads all through my childhood.

sometime back in the heyday.

less active these days...

this historical society PDF has some cool old shots i couldn't find anywhere else.

there's a whole lot of old railroad stuff scattered all over that part of PA.  never really knew how cool it was until i had already left.

ScottyB, nice bridge.  I wonder how many crews wanted flight pay going across that bit of iron lacework? 

If you have ideas about walking the Tuckahoe Bridge, may I offer this helpful tip:  Don't.  I took the photos while standing on solid ground.  I wanted to get details of an abandoned structure, and this thing has YOLO written alllll over it.  If I get a chance this year, I'm going to fly the camera drone shore to shore over the deck.

Tim B.
 

Since we're doing rail bridges, here's the Moodna Viaduct, longest and highest east of the Mississippi. Still very much in service - since I didn't get a train to pass conveniently when I was taking photos, you'll have to take my word for it.

OK then, back to locomotives.

The Mountain type, 4-8-2 of the Standard Railroad of the World.  Last of its kind, 6755 has had its asbestos abatement completed, and with its fellow survivors, await the construction of the Roundhouse at the Railroad Museum of PA in Strasburg.  You can see the sand dome lying across the deck of the tender, the drive rods apparently in the coal bunker on this chilly February 2019 afternoon.

It had been over 30 years since I last saw 6755, on the track closest to the fence and roadway.  Then, it still wore all its boiler jacketing and running gear, having been pulled from Northumberland to join the museum collection.  That fog-shrouded slide series is somewhere in my collection, just have to scan and clean them up.

Tim B.

Thanks Youtube algorithm!

oldrotarydriver said:

OK then, back to locomotives.

The Mountain type, 4-8-2 of the Standard Railroad of the World.  Last of its kind, 6755 has had its asbestos abatement completed, and with its fellow survivors, await the construction of the Roundhouse at the Railroad Museum of PA in Strasburg.  You can see the sand dome lying across the deck of the tender, the drive rods apparently in the coal bunker on this chilly February 2019 afternoon.

It had been over 30 years since I last saw 6755, on the track closest to the fence and roadway.  Then, it still wore all its boiler jacketing and running gear, having been pulled from Northumberland to join the museum collection.  That fog-shrouded slide series is somewhere in my collection, just have to scan and clean them up.

Tim B.

I saw poor #6755 this fall. She's pretty sad. But supposedly, once they complete the cosmetic restoration of K4s #3750 (Who pulled Warren G Harding's campaign train and funerary train) and L1s #520, the #6755 is next to be restored. Seeing the job they did on E6s #460, which according to the team restoring here was an absolute pile of junk, hopefully the #6755 will be looking good. 

On the topic of bridges, we always used to see the Erie's Starrucca Viaduct in Lanesboro, PA when headed down to visit family friends in New Freedom. All stone and double-tracked, it was built in 1847. These days, the New York, Susquehanna & Western has usage of it.

I need to make a swing by Nicholson, PA to see the DL&W's Tunkhannock Viaduct.

The Erie also built an impressive iron trestle over the Genesee River fall in 1875. It was 963ft long and 240ft tall.

Then, in 2017, Norfolk Southern replaced it with a new span. Theirs is even more impressive because its an arch that never touches the water. NS tried to build it as eco-friendly as they could, so no sinking piers in the river, and they had seismometers in place during all the blasting and excavation to make sure they kept it below a limit so as not to disturb wildlife in the area.

A Ford Motor Company-owned Alco S3 switches a carload of new Mustangs. Ford had a number of Alco switchers, because Alco was direct competitor to EMD, who was a division of GM.

Nevermind the load of secretary cars, check out the Lincolns...

In reply to NickD :

Wow! Happy times there! That photo is so full of awesomeness!

So who would the guys in suits be?

Danny Shields (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to NickD :

Wow! Happy times there! That photo is so full of awesomeness!

So who would the guys in suits be?

Plant or yard foremans for a PR photo? Dealership owners touring the factory? Hard to say.

In reply to NickD :

Not sure of the exact timeline and I'm fuzzy on the details (it's been a long time since I heard the story), but my great uncle was the head of Ford's transportation division around that time. IIRC, Ford Motor spun the transportation division off at some point - the same great uncle ran the new company.

My cousin still has the Thunderbird he had Ford put some sort a race engine in. I have the watch Ford gave him when he retired.

Before the Alcos, Ford had bought some GE 125- and 132-ton switchers in 1937. While most GE switchers had flat ends and were rather utilitarian, Ford had theirs built with rounded grilles that were supposed to resemble a '37 Ford, as well as a large headlamp with a chrome bezel, a raised body line, and one-piece handrails that wrapped around the end.

Of course, the most well-known GE is arguably the little 44-tonner. Its odd then, that as popular as they are, they weren't that big of a seller, with only 386 built. And they also gained a reputation for ruggedness and reliability, being on the job long after they were built, but that was mostly because a lot of them went to short lines that ran them very little. In regular conditions, they actually had engine troubles. The chief mechanical officer of Strasburg said that they finally retired theirs because the Caterpillar D17000 engines were notoriously prone to cracking heads and Caterpillar no longer supports them. After their #9331 cracked the head on one of its engines, they grabbed 4 or 5 old engines being used for irrigation pumps, and found that only one of them had a good cylinder head. They swapped it on to their GE and then some time after that head cracked and they retired it.

GE 44-tonners are about all that's left of NYO&W locompotives these days.