Western Railroad Discussion > EMD 50 series. An imperfect locomotive?

Hi All
Seen some postings recently that castigate the GP/SD 50 type locomotive. Indeed it seems a lot of roads are either storing them or disposing of them.
From here in the UK where the railway industry seems to think everything from GMDD is the best thing since sliced bread; it would be interesting to hear why the 50 series is unpopular.
If anyone is into technicalities of diesels, I would be glad to learn of specific faults/glitches.
Meanwhile in UK new GMDD products continue to infect the railscene here. Oh! I wish the GE salesman would call!!

Thanks. Paul R.

I think the most proeminent defect in the 50 series is the 16V-645F3 prime mover, rated at 3500 or 3600hp. The popular and reliable 16V-645E3 was rated at 3000hp and it is running very fine, and some Amtrak F40PH have been uprated to 3200hp, apparently without much decrease in reliability. But trying to get a few more hundred hp resulted in engine stress and defects, such as cracking cylinders. To avoid this, some roads like BN derated their GP50 to 3000hp, so they hardly pull better than a GP40-2, and are more complex to maintain.

This maintenance issue arise because the 50s were among the last line of locomotive to be built without microprocessor control (the GP59/60/SD60 and all subsequent series do have microprocessors), and they have a complex electronic system that require high maintenance vs the simple SD40-2 or the microprocessor equiped SD60 or SD70.

The 50s were rushed onto the market to face GE's 3600hp competing models B36-7 and C36-7 (more powerful, but Dash-7 were considred as crappy by many, despite their good pulling ability). Had EMD stayed with the reliable SD40-2 until the 710 prime mover and the SD60 were available (late 1984), maybe GE wouldn't be #1 now and EMD distant 2nd. Were these added 600hp really necessary, even for high speed service?

Another factor that explains the 50's unpopularity might be the relatively small amount of GP50 and SD50 locomotives in the fleets (a direct consequence of their bad performance). Consider that UP had 78 GP50 and 111 SD50 at one time, and more than 1200 SD40-2 or related models on the roster. So it's a standardization issue as well.

JF

It's interesting to note that CN (42.5% owner of EWS for the time being) hasn't had nearly the problems with their group of SD50F's as have many of the American roads. There are a couple differences:
1- CN's units were the only 50 series units built at the London ON plant. All of the others were built at La Grange.
2- They were built later than most other 50 series locomotives (40 in 1985 and 20 in 1987), after the 710 (60 series) was available. It seems that by that time, GMDD had worked a lot of the kinks out of the 50 series.

Interesting too that CN recieved the 4 testbed SD60F's (actually designated SD50AF) at the same time as the first order of SD50F's. They decided to exercise their option on the second order of 20 SD50's before finally taking 60 SD60F's in one group four years later in 1989.

None of CN's 50 series units have been retired as of yet, in fact I saw class unit 5400 and sister 5425 leading 5000 feet of pigs and stacks on hotshot Q12111 16 last night westbound through Truro NS. Nice to see a matched pair of "covered wagons" for a change.

Mark

It has nothing to do with London or La Grange or when they were built. Santa Fe's 45 GP50 were built at La Grange and are still going at 3500 hp after 20 years. The factor is railroad maintenance policies. BN and CSX had little in the way of preventative maintenance. CSX especially was notorious for trashing units then wondering why they became so unreliable, a lot like not changing the oil in your car and wondering why it didn't last 100,000 miles. Santa Fe, CN, Rio Grande, and Southern, all of which had a more positive experience with the GP50 and SD50 had much more aggressive policies. Santa Fe overhauled it's units (all types not just GP50's) about every 3 years.

The 50 series was not unpopular. They were built during a major slump in locomotive production. The sales figures for 4 axle units from first GP50 (May 1980) until the 60 series took over are as follows (US units only and the numbers are a quick count of the individual orders, not official figures):

278 GP50's
202 GP38-2's
72 GP39-2's
97 GP40-2's
226 GE B23-7's
154 GE B30-7's
120 GE B30-7A B units
222 GE B36-7's

So the GP50 was the most popular 4 axle unit of it's time. The same holds true for the SD50.

427 SD50's
407 SD40-2's, including SD40T-2's
209 C30-7's
133 C36-7's

In Canada, the sales were as follows:

95 GP38-2's
60 SD50F's
25 SD40-2F's
6 SD40-2's

The current retirements are due to age and relatively low production numbers. The Dash 7's are fading just as fast as the 50's. Santa Fe's are gone except the B23-7's, BN's B30-7A B units are retired, and the BN C30-7 fleet has cut down to next to nothing. UP's C36-7's preceded the SD50's to the dead lines. The same trends are visible on other roads.

atsf5704 wrote:
>
>
> In Canada, the sales were as follows:
>
> 95 GP38-2's
> 60 SD50F's
> 25 SD40-2F's
> 6 SD40-2's

An interesting side point to this discussion is the SD40-2Fs. These were built to satisfy Canadian Pacific desire to stay with the tried and proven SD40-2s but were built after production had otherwise ended on the SD40-2 line. Anyway, they had a lot of trouble with them when they were new.

Another point is that at this time EMD began outsourcing engine
component production without installing a rigourous quality-control
process for the outsourced parts leading to problems. Also note
that MotivePower Industries is planning on installing new 16-645F3
engines in the commuter locomotives it is building for METRA in Chicago. Another problem which may lead to mass retirements is that
many of the units are now due for heavy overhauls and will thus be
required to meet EPA Tier 0 emission standards.