Nostalgia & History > Dick Smith's F40PH work

1.) Double header San Diegan with F40 #224 and the ubiquitous Amfleet.

2.)  214 which I believe had the pass thru cables to be compatible with the SDP40F's.

2.) Check out this night shot!  F40 #220 at San Diego, CA. Not bad for B&W!
     It looks like the Overland trainset laying over on the right.

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mp51w says...

>>>>2.)  214 which I believe had the pass thru cables to be compatible with the SDP40F's.

I'm confused by why 214 would need pass through cables.   Would there be pass through steam lines on 214?   Or did the SDs have pass through HEP cables?

Looks like Orange, CA, LAUPT and San Diego to me. I "think" SOME of the SDP's MAY have had pass through cables but the F40's did not have pass through steam lines. On exSanta Fe lines for the first year or so of Amfleet it was often the opposite with power as the SDP's often led because they had ATS equipment when the newer F40's did not and this was required on units leading trains running on Santa Fe.
​JB

Tominde Wrote:
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> mp51w says...
>
> >>>>2.)  214 which I believe had the pass thru
> cables to be compatible with the SDP40F's.
>
> I'm confused by why 214 would need pass through
> cables.   Would there be pass through steam lines
> on 214?   Or did the SDs have pass through HEP
> cables?
Yeah!  I kind of guessed on that, knowing it was really a steam line issue.  But it was a leader in this instance....

IIRC, some SDP40F's were equipped with pass-thru 480V cables 
that may be whhat the OP is thinking of
there were some interesting lashups ( er, engine consists as Hotwater says lashups 
is not an accepted term ) during the transition from steam to HEP

there would be no issues in that picture of the 214 added ahead of SDP's on a steam heated train !

While we're on the subject: did ALL SDP40Fs have HEP pass thru cables?  or just "some".  I thought all did but were not heavy enough to handle a full superliner consist "load" of current.

I don't think ALL were so equipped, and I don't think they came with it.

KA7008 Wrote:

> While we're on the subject: did ALL SDP40Fs have
> HEP pass thru cables?  or just "some".  I
> thought all did but were not heavy enough to
> handle a full superliner consist "load" of
> current.

EagleChampion1 has expounded on this in the past:

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,1594321

The short answer is that the SDP40F's all came with HEP pass-through cables that were too light, but in 1980 a batch of 21 received their last overhaul and were refitted with heavier cables.  For at least half a year after the Southwest Limited converted to Superliners in October 1980, it was possible to catch mixed sets of F40PH's and SDP40F's.  The combination I remember seeing most often was F40PH-SDP40F-F40PH, but there were others where an F40 had to pass HEP through one or more SDP40F's to get to the Superliners.  The train in the second photo above is steam-heated, so that's not an issue, but I do wonder how personnel were distributed on a train like that.  The SDP40F's only had anticlimbers up front rather than front platforms with handrails to facilitate crossing between units, so did someone ride in the SDP's all the way to tend the steam generators?

As most know, the SDP40F's were intended to have their pair of steam generators replaced with a pair of gensets for HEP but that never happened because of the derailment problems.  The ones traded to ATSF and a few retained by EMD excepted, they were scrapped with major components reused in F40PH(R)'s.   My question is whether the intention was always a full conversion of steam to electric or if they intended, at least at the start of this hypothetical conversion period, to replace single boilers with single gensets, leaving one boiler temporarily, creating units that could furnish steam or electricity.  That would have come in handy during that transitional phase where some trains still needed steam.  Ulimately, with lots of new HEP engines and some trains still needing steam, they did the boiler car thing with old E's. 

I have never heard this in the SDP40F saga and it is likely not the case but physically it would have been possible and would have been very handy to power dispatchers.

filmteknik Wrote:
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  My question is whether the
> intention was always a full conversion of steam to
> electric or if they intended, at least at the
> start of this hypothetical conversion period, to
> replace single boilers with single gensets,
> leaving one boiler temporarily, creating units
> that could furnish steam or electricity.

While being "handy", I don't think that would have been the best plan nor would they have pursued it.  I'm basing this on the fact that as F-units aged, they didn't have enough steam gen ability and needed to be augmented by other units.  Not for HP but simply for SG ability.  Reducing an SD's ability to half would have brought back similar issues.  On the other side of the equation, recall how the first order of F40's didn't have enough HEP power?  I wonder if the rating on the SD with only a 1/2 size unit would be any better.