Western Railroad Discussion > Status of SF5704 at SCRM

A post a couple of days ago discussed the status of the refurbishment of SF5704 at SCRM. About six of us are actively working to restore the locomotive back to an operational status. A question arose in that previous post regarding what model prime mover is in the locomotive. The picture shows the builders plate on the engine.

The turbo has been removed and the turbine rotor is frozen solid. The engine is a 20 cylinder model and we looked at maybe installing a readily available 16 cylinder rated turbo but decided against it. We want exactly what is supposed to be on this engine. One of our members is in the process of contacting suppliers that may be able to repair our turbo or exchange it for an identical rebuilt one. 

A comment was posted that the copper thief damage has been repaired. We wish it was completed but it isn't. What has been completed is that all of the small gauge wiring has been spliced back together. That was the easy part. What remains is to repair or replace all of the very large cable that handles high current going to the traction motors. We are probably less than 10% through with repairing the electrical system. The picture shows just a small portion of the damage to the electrical cables. 

The air compressor has a broken low pressure head. Freeze damage appears to be the case. A replacement head has arrived and is ready to be installed..

A new set of SD45-2 control printed circuit cards were donated to the project. They have been installed after repairing damage to a number of the pin sockets. 

All of the water jumpers on top of the 20 cylinder heads have been removed and replaced with new seals. The engine was then tested for water leaks by pressurizing the whole block. No more leaks were found.

The 18kW auxiliary generator has bad bearings. It has to be removed for bearing replacement and an overall inspection.

Strobe lights have been mounted but still need to be wired. The original wiring for the strobe lights was removed years ago. A new switch for the strobe lights will be added to the switch panel on the rear panel in the cab.

And we know full well that as we continue the restoration effort, we will find more issues to deal with. Hopefully they will all be small in scope.






 

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Great update and Thank you! Those are some Honkin big cables to the motors, what guage are those?
Wow an original 20 cylinder, hope those extra 4 cylinders (compared to 16) are not any extra pain for you guys to maintain.

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Jim Baker
Riverside, CA



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/27/25 08:07 by RailRat.

The cut cables have 1325 strands of #24 gauge wire twisted into small bundles that are then twisted into the final bundle size. It is referred to as 535 MCM as the gauge number. The diameter of the final bundle of twisted copper is just over .92". Very heavy and very expensive. There are six traction motors. Each motor has four large cables going to it. Two for the field coil and two going to the armature through commutator segments. So that is 24 cables cables to splice just one end of the motor leads. And there are many more because each cable also has a crimped terminal on the other end to attach to contactors or common busses. Best guess is that we will have well over 60 crimps to make using a Thomas & Betts hydraulic crimper powered by a 10,000 PSI hydraulic pump. There is nothing dainty or easy involved in any of this. And all of this was caused because copper thieves could sell what they stole for way less than $100. One single butt splice crimp costs about $40. The terminal end crimp piece can cost upward of $80. Fortunately we have some spares on-hand but will have to buy extras for the project. The real trick is to carefully select the correct crimping die to exactly match the size of the splice connector. The picture shows a good splice but that was after a number tests. Just believing what the crimping charts show for the correct dies, isn't always correct.
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/26/25 13:52 by D-Althaus.

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Lots of Amps there!
I was turning in my aluminum cans one day at the recycling center, a sketchy guy approached me and asked if I could turn in some copper stuff he had, he would pay me a cut of the money, I immediately knew enough to say No Thanks! He knew he had to show his license to Recycle copper, and was preying on some sucker to show theirs instead, and possibly risk getting in trouble for his crime.

Posted from Android

Jim Baker
Riverside, CA



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/26/25 12:56 by RailRat.

RailRat Wrote:
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> Great update and Thank you! Those are some Honkin
> big cables to the motors, what guage are those?
> Wow an original 20 cylinder, hope those extra 2
> cylinders (compared to 16) are not any extra pain
> for you guys to maintain.

Please recheck your arithmetic, as the EMD 20 cylinder 645 engine has 4 "extra cylinders" compared to an EMD 16 cylinder engine. The real difference is between a 20-645E3 engine and the 20-645E3B engine in the "Dash 2" series units (thus the difference in the turbo).

D

I'm a bit curious about that engine serial number plate, i.e. why does it show "20-645E3" instead of "20-645E3B" if it was delivered in an SD45-2? Luckily, the date is newer than "72-J" which would reflect the crankcase being the up-dated main bearing support "A-frames", which eliminated all the 20 cylinder crankshaft issues caused by broken welds in the main bearing "A-frame" supports.

National Marine (also known as "McNational") in Hartford, Illinois may be able to help on the turbo, but you are probably aware of them already.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/26/25 19:15 by Alco251.

Jack's comment is akin to mine on using the 16 cylinder version "turbo" (thing always cracked me up since it's
a whole lot more than just a ":turbo"). I don't remember the exact date when the block up dates occured, post
72 anyway and I wasn't sure if they changed the mounting interface or flange interface distance to the "turbo".
He's right on vs the parts pages, we think of EMD and stanardized parts but there were some dandy changes
even in specific model groups. The 645 import block (from Poland I believe) had the rear bulkhead substantially
reinforced to carry the larger rear bearing. 

Out 

Please double check the number of crimps you can make on those wires! NS only allows no more than two splices ourside the carbody(i.e. one on traction motor/ one on carbody side) to prevent too much resistance and wires overheating.

With so many locomotives rotting away in dead lines, is it possible to get the cables from a donor sitting at Larry's Truck, or elsewhere?  Is removing and then threading donor cable more of a hassle than splicing?  

Mouse Wrote:
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> Please double check the number of crimps you can
> make on those wires! NS only allows no more than
> two splices ourside the carbody(i.e. one on
> traction motor/ one on carbody side) to prevent
> too much resistance and wires overheating.

I'll 2nd that as good advice, I've seen too many times this was done and you end up spending hours and hours tracking down ground relay faults. But again, understanding what might be labor and budget constraints, well the whole situation sucks. Probably be ok to just run it light or with light load. The whole process of doing it right probably isn't realistic for the effort and cost involved, nor the results (short term anyway) needed.

As to:

Author: g-spotter1 

With so many locomotives rotting away in dead lines, is it possible to get the cables from a donor sitting at Larry's Truck, or elsewhere?  Is removing and then threading donor cable more of a hassle than splicing? 

 
That is simply not a feassible or good idea due to the labor involved and likely condition of the used cable and many other reasons.. And short splicing that much used cable in is just beyond crazy.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/27/25 06:55 by train1275.

Corrected and thanks HW

Posted from Android

Jim Baker
Riverside, CA

D-Althaus Wrote:
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> A post a couple of days ago discussed the status
> of the refurbishment of SF5704 at SCRM. About six
> of us are actively working to restore the
> locomotive back to an operational status....

Thank you for your efforts, both in the restoration and the posts on the challenges.

I am learning a lot from this thread, especially about the cables.

Did these units use strobe lights or Prime Strato lights? RG


> Strobe lights have been mounted but still need to
> be wired. The original wiring for the strobe
> lights was removed years ago. A new switch for the
> strobe lights will be added to the switch panel on
> the rear panel in the cab.
>

Posted from iPhone

=15.6pxYes, the number of splices per wire is important, not only from a reliability point of view but from a labor point of view. The plan is to use one splice in each of the four motor leads goung to all six motors. Those splices will be on the outside of the frame where there is easy access to work. Then new Polyrad XT flexible cable will be used to reenter the air room, go under the electrical cabinet, then up directly to the reversers and contactors. So, only one splice per wire. The flexibility of the cable is critical. The original damaged cable is so stiff that it's almost impossible to pull out. I can see why the copper thieves only stole what they could easily cut into pieces. 

We will buy new cable. Old used cable is almost impossible to work with when having to route it around sharp corners, through floors, through clamps, and then bend it bend for perfect alignment of the spade connectors. So, no old cable will be considered. 

Regarding the question pertaining to the model of the prime mover. It is 645E3, not a 645E3B. And the turbo charger model also correlates directly to a 645E3. 

we

I don't recall the exact name and model number but had them in stock. And they match the pictures of the strobes that were on the loco in 1976. This is a picture of one of them. The question that I researched at the time had to do with synchronization. Did they both flash at the same time or not? I then found a video on YouTube showing them not synchronized. Then I called the company that made the strobes and verified they are not designed to synchronize with each other. But there is a model now that does have that option. 
 

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PE-717 Wrote:

> Did these units use strobe lights or Prime Strato lights?

The SD45-2's were built with Prime 8901 beacons with Acutek "Stratolite" domes - the familiar amber beacons seen on Santa Fe road power in the 70's and 80's.  The road wasn't averse to experimenting with alternatives, though, and around 1975, they started retrofitting SD45-2's with pairs of white strobes instead of the beacons.  Quite a few blue and yellow SD45-2's and eventually all five of the bicentennials got them.  At least a few bicentennials were released with Prime beacons and no strobes - see 5702 on page 128 and 5703 on page 145 of Route of the Warbonnets (photos taken May and April 1975).  Photos of these units with beacons are scarce, though, so they were apparently quickly retrofitted with strobes.  The 5704 was the last to be repainted red-white-and-blue in January 1976, and I haven't come across a photo of it with anything other than a pair of white strobes.   

I'm not aware of other types of Santa Fe power getting pairs of this particular kind of white strobe, and while some SD45-2s that had them lasted well into the 1980's (see below), the Prime beacons remained Santa Fe's standard "warning light" (such as it was) until the railroad started removing them en masse in late 1989.  

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The strobes that have been installed on the 5704 are 200BC strobes that were manufactured by Star Headlight and Lantern, now under another company. And as of earlier this year have been discontinued in favor of an LED model. These units have an internal power supply, and simply need a 72V power source to function. These are the common strobes seen on anything from the F40 to the Siemens Charger. The older strobe seen in photos of the Bicentennial units, I believe is a Whelen model 2700RR strobe that was manufactured for locomotives. They used an external power supply. I have only seen a few of the whelen sets ever for sale. And none have ever included the power supply.

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Evan & Andrew
When 5704 arrive from Kansas after it was painted, I tried finding pictures of the locomotive during the time it had strobes on it. I don't recall where I found it but did see a group photo of the bicentennial SD45-2's and looking at almost the pixel level, could see they were white or clear. Then as we looked through our spare supplies storage area, we found a selection of the clear Star units. But we had no way of proving what was on the locomotives in the 1970's. What we did know from the photo was that they were supposed to be clear. So our obvious choice was to use what we had on hand, knowing it may not be the exact model that was on previously. When we mounted the strobes we realized the wiring had to go through the cab roof or have exposed conduit on top the cab. Evan's picture cleared that up. The wires go directly through the cab roof and get routed above the ceiling panels back to the electrical cabinet. Then the question arose regarding synchronization. I could find no one that knew the answer to that. Then I found a YouTube video showing the strobes operating. They were not synchronized. Which fits the Star model we had on hand and mounted. The newer Star LED model does have the synchronization option.  As always, Even & Andrew, I'm blown away with the level of minutia detail you guys have stored away. Thank you.
 

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The 200BC's are the best possible replacement available today. Only a small handful of people will notice the difference. Unfortunately finding the period correct strobes in working order would probably be close to Impossible.

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