Nostalgia & History > E and F question.

I have read with interest the series of articles in Railroad and Railfan about the "trouble with E's..." and having watched a lot of them in the years when I worked along the point line in Tacoma, Wa, I did not know these venerable EMD units were twin-engined. I have been aboard the running unit at Portola and it seemed to me there was just a single 565 EMD engine aboard but I might be mistaken. Can someone bring me up to date on that?

As far as I know, Portola doesn't have any E units in their collection. Were you aboard one of the UP Executive E's? They have been totally rebuilt, having the 12-567's replaced with 16-645's.

At Portola you were more than likely to be on an F unit which has 1 16-567 engine in it, whereas the E units had 2 12-567 engines onboard.

As a follow up to my previous post, if you were indeed onboard the UP Exec Es, these locos now have a single 16-645 engine, and UP classifies these units as E38-2, as the innards are comparable to GP38-2 locomotives.

One of the E's big selling points was the fact that it did have 2 engines, versus one in the ALCO PA. If you have a train pulled by a 2-unit loco, the loss of one prime mover in the E-set will reduce h.p. by a 1/4th, whereas the PA set will lose 1/2 of its power. Could ALCO have put two of the 244 V-12's in the PA, rather than the single V-16? The earlier ALCO pass. loco, the DL-109, did have 2 engines, the in-line six-cyl plants used in the firm's swithers. The multiple engines in the E's made for some great sounds, esp. with 2 or three units on the point. The engines were not in sync, and the resulting noises were something to remember, even at idle.

The Alco PAs may have only one 16-244 engine, but they had 6 traction motors, and dynamic brakes, whereas the EMD E units had 2 567 engines but only 4 traction motors, the center axle was an idler, and no dynamic brakes until the E8s and E9s came out. Also the Es had 2 of everything else, electrical cabinets, air compressors, etc., double the components of single engine units!
NYCSTL8 Wrote:
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> One of the E's big selling points was the fact
> that it did have 2 engines, versus one in the ALCO
> PA. If you have a train pulled by a 2-unit loco,
> the loss of one prime mover in the E-set will
> reduce h.p. by a 1/4th, whereas the PA set will
> lose 1/2 of its power. Could ALCO have put two of
> the 244 V-12's in the PA, rather than the single
> V-16? The earlier ALCO pass. loco, the DL-109,
> did have 2 engines, the in-line six-cyl plants
> used in the firm's swithers. The multiple engines
> in the E's made for some great sounds, esp. with 2
> or three units on the point. The engines were not
> in sync, and the resulting noises were something
> to remember, even at idle.

2720 Wrote:
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> The Alco PAs may have only one 16-244 engine, but
> they had 6 traction motors, and dynamic brakes,
>
>

Wrong. They too had A-1-A trucks and quite a few roads ordered them WITHOUT dynamic brakes.

The MAJORITY of E-Unit orders were without dynamic brakes.

Bob

ATSF100WEST......Out

2720 Wrote:
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> The Alco PAs may have only one 16-244 engine, but
> they had 6 traction motors, and dynamic brakes . . .

The PA's had A1A trucks, as did the E units, and had four motors. You are right about the dynamics, though. One reason for the development of the E8 was to permit the installation of dynamic brakes, if specified by the customer.

And then the Southern went and added dynamic brakes to their E6Bs. They used the otherwise empty front hatch area.

If the E6B was working with an E8 the dynamics would work OK; but when working with an E6A (which I presume did not have DB), the dynamics on the E6B would have been unusable?

John Gezelius
Tustin, CA

SP tried Es on the Shasta Daylight and Cascade and soon replaced them with PAs...

There is a great book about the early diesel period on the Santa Fe titled: Santa Fe's Early Diesel Daze by John B. McCall. It talks about the decisions they made while they were developing and testing the new boxcabs, E's F's and PA's. He talks about alot of the reasons decisions were made - like two engines in an E so the diesel maintainer could service and / or repair one while on the move and so on. The dyno car comparisons of the E's F's and PA's are also really interesting. Initially the PA's really surprised the Santa Fe guys with their power and ability to start a heavy train on a grade.

Rick L

NYCSTL8 Wrote:
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> The multiple engines
> in the E's made for some great sounds, esp. with 2
> or three units on the point. The engines were not
> in sync, and the resulting noises were something
> to remember, even at idle.

True, an E did have a unique sound, probably attributable to the inexact synch of the two 567-12's. But it was still a different sound than a TR-2 or MU'd NW-2's, which according to that logic should have sounded the same as an E.

Isn't it generally agreed that a PA set would out-pull an E set? The bigger GE traction motors on the PA seem to have had much to do with that. IIRC, that is why the ALCO's replaced the EMD's on the Shasta route, and were used over Donner, as well. Does this sound right to those of you Way Out West?? Thanx from Way Back East in Ohio.

NYCSTL8 Wrote:
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> Isn't it generally agreed that a PA set would
> out-pull an E set? The bigger GE traction motors
> on the PA seem to have had much to do with that.
> IIRC, that is why the ALCO's replaced the EMD's on
> the Shasta route, and were used over Donner, as
> well. Does this sound right to those of you Way
> Out West?? Thanx from Way Back East in Ohio.

Quite possibly so, but I'd also add the dynamic braking aspect available on all "PA's".

The "E's" didn't offer that option until late, and out west, only SP and UP ordered this feature when it became available on the "E8/E9's".

Santa Fe was using "F's" on most of their "crack" trains, and their "E8m's" were not equipped with d/b's. They kept their oldest "E's" on their lines to Kansas and Texas.

With the exception of the Milwaukee, the North Western, the MoPac and the Q, none of which utilized d/b's on THEIR late "E's", most western roads had nothing newer than an "E7", and only the MoPac and Rio Grande ran "PA's". Otherwise, they all used "F's" of some flavor on the "varnish".

The Milwaukee, of course, used the Electrics on the electrified portions of their line, through to Seattle.

Bob

ATSF100WEST......Out