Nostalgia & History > Roamin-E's

These have been posted before but I wanted to have
a good railfan photographer,who covered the early
60's passenger scene take a look.Not as good as his
but the history is what matters.

So these are for Mr.Marty Bernard.

Photo 1) In early Amtrak days,it was anything.Here we
see the northbound "Champion" at Sanford,Fl.Leading
the train today are CB&Q,AMT,SCL and UP E units.

Photo 2) On the second day of Amtrak,the first "Southwind"
arrives at Auburndale,Fl.with two L&N E units.
The first unit has pulled ahead and is out of the
picture.Some of Mr.Bernard's post mentioned L&N
in different locations.

Uncle Joe,Seffner,Fl.

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Thanks Uncle Joe,

The CB&Q unit is E8A 9968. I have posted a picture of her pulling the Denver Zephyr.

Why is the L&N unit portholeless? While the portholes didn't let much light or air in, removing them sure killed the looks of the locomotive. Why did some roads remove them? Was the FRA window glass rule in effect? I doubt it. Were they a maintenance problem?

Anyhow here is my favorite E-unit porthole picture. My friend Ray Ballash holds membership number 1 in the Orange Empire Railway Museum and had just finished the installation of the glass in a porthole of the Museum's UP E8A #941 a couple of years ago.


Marty Bernard

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MartyBernard Wrote:
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> Why is the L&N unit portholeless? While the
> portholes didn't let much light or air in,
> removing them sure killed the looks of the
> locomotive. Why did some roads remove them? Was
> the FRA window glass rule in effect? I doubt it.
> Were they a maintenance problem?


The portholes had a minimum value in letting ambient light in. However, there were electric lights in the engine compartment.

On E-units, the portholes farthest from the side doors had hinges. They could be opened in the shop to pass tools, parts, pneumatic hoses, ventilation of fuel fumes, etc.

I also have a theory that I've never seen in practice that the portholes provided a way for fire crews to access an otherwise hard-to-get-at burning generator or prime mover if that ever became necessary.

Bob

Bob, you are saying the portholes had useful purposes but some RRs took them out. I still wonder why.

If the locomotive was in a wreck and needed new body panels where the portholes were, using a portholeless panel makes sense. I wonder if the L&N E-unit Uncle Joe posted had portholes on the other side.

Marty Bernard

Rock Island was famous in later years for running E-units that were missing 3 of their 4 portholes on one side.

The portholes themselves weren't the problem. The problem was the truly awful material the side panels were made of, and how quickly it rotted. I'm speakng, of course, of ply-metal. Sheet steel over plywood. This garbage, which was factory installed on all non-stainless E and F units, would suck up any moisture and quickly rust from the inside out. By the 70s it was completely rotten on every EMD cab unit still running. Some railroads replaced it with fiberglass. Others with proper steel. Still others with aluminum. Some bolted their new side panels to the batten strips, while others welded the sides together. Certain roads only replaced individual panels as they rotted (creating the awkward missing a porthole or two look), though most did all the panels at once. While the shops were replacing this, very few spent the extra effort to transfer the portholes over. By that point, their frames were rusty too, and it would be a bunch of extra effort to fix that and mount them to whatever new material the railroad chose. Most didn't bother. My local railroad museum has figured a way to mount portholes to the PRR installed fiberglass sides on their E unit, but it wasn't simple. Luckily it works, and looks good. For a museum going for a classic look this makes sense. For a railroad looking to get a few more years out of an old locomotive it usually didn't.

-Tim



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/21/14 21:10 by tbraun.

Thanks Tim. That makes sense. Glad you knew why.


Marty

tbraun Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The portholes themselves weren't the problem. The
> problem was the truly awful material the side
> panels were made of, and how quickly it rotted.
> I'm speakng, of course, of ply-metal. Sheet steel
> over plywood. This garbage, which was factory
> installed on all non-stainless E and F units,
> would suck up any moisture and quickly rust from
> the inside out. By the 70s it was completely
> rotten on every EMD cab unit still running. Some
> railroads replaced it with fiberglass. Others with
> proper steel. Still others with aluminum. Some
> bolted their new side panels to the batten strips,
> while others welded the sides together. Certain
> roads only replaced individual panels as they
> rotted (creating the awkward missing a porthole or
> two look), though most did all the panels at once.
> While the shops were replacing this, very few
> spent the extra effort to transfer the portholes
> over. By that point, their frames were rusty too,
> and it would be a bunch of extra effort to fix
> that and mount them to whatever new material the
> railroad chose. Most didn't bother. My local
> railroad museum has figured a way to mount
> portholes to the PRR installed fiberglass sides on
> their E unit, but it wasn't simple. Luckily it
> works, and looks good. For a musem going for a
> classic look this makes sense. For a railroad
> looking to get a few more years out of an old
> locomotive it usually didn't.
>
> -Tim


A few just used plywood on units that were almost done but not quite!