Nostalgia & History > Ugliest Railroad Rebuilds?

When it comes to diesels, shop crews are often great at making a wrecked unit or rebuild functional. However, when it comes to esthetics, that can be another story altogether.

There's a long list: C&NW "Crandall" E-8A units made from UP B units, the Rock Island F unit with the top headlight missing, transplant "Christine" with the big hump, the hermaphrodite geeps that were EMDs and Baldwin car bodies in one, the Milwaukee Road homebuilt passenger loco that looked like something a toy company came up with, and the list goes on.

I suppose part of the issue is that often making something with curves is beyond the economic scope of a railroad shop and straight angles rule.

However, the ugliest units in my book are the NS research units and the humped slug.

So what is the ugliest rebuild unit in your opinion?

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/18 17:28 by wabash2800.

Hands down, the current CSX SD 40-3 rebuilds. They must've taken advice from Mr Crandall himself.

Dave

Compared to what they looked like in there first life, I say the CF7.

Agreed. the CF7s are rather ugly too.

If it hasn't been covered yet, an illustrated article with examples would be fun to see in Classic Trains or Railfan & Railroad.

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com

I vote for the Crandall cabs. CF7's and the CSX SD40-2 rebuilds in a tie for second.

GP40Fph-2 or whatever the they were on New Jersey transit. the GP40's of various heritage (some RI) rebuilt with long hoods from F45's by MK. Maybe almost more of a confused, I don't know what I want to be look, than pure ugly.

The F-40s with the rebuilt front ends that the SLRG has should be on the list.

Posted from iPhone

My first place vote is a tie for C&NW Crandall cabs and CSX SD 40-3 rebuilds.
Had C&NW rebuilt the B’s like the front of the RI’s AB6 units, they would have looked decent.
The CSX SD 40-3 rebuilds look like the tops of their cabs have been smashed by a giant hammer; they just look stupid.
Honorable mention goes to AT&SF’s square top cab CF7 and GP rebuilds.
ALLEN

How bout the off gm&o switcher built bi in ingalls?

Posted from iPhone

Yeah, very unique but not a rebuild.

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com

displacedneb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> How bout the off gm&o switcher built bi in
> ingalls?
>
> Posted from iPhone

I'll vote for San Luis Valley #D-500. It was a center-cab diesel that their shop built from a D&RGW steam locomotive tender! It was ugly, retaining the tender trucks, given motion by a chain and sprocket drive, powered by an International Harvester diesel engine in conjunction with a Caterpillar hydraulic transmission! This locomotive still existed in 2008.....does it still exist today?

The D-500 would win the domestic title but what about anything built down in Potosi by those wonderful and very
imaginative Mexican shop workers?

Out

Here's two of the 'front runners'

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Ah yes, the "We should have stuck to ships" Ingalls unit, still a distant second to the Mexican RSD rebuilds.

Out

I've never understood the logic behind th C&NW Crandall cabs... by the early/mid '70s when they were built there must have been plenty of earlier E- and F-units going to scrap. Why not just graft a cab from one of those on rather than fabricating a new one?

SSLV #D-500 is a scratch built unit, not a re-built unit because it did not start out as a locomotive.
Ingalls was built new as a demonstrator; thus not a rebuild.
ALLEN

Santa Fe's "Beep".

No vote for the CF7 from me. I loved those homely beasts.

davew833 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've never understood the logic behind th C&NW
> Crandall cabs... by the early/mid '70s when they
> were built there must have been plenty of earlier
> E- and F-units going to scrap. Why not just graft
> a cab from one of those on rather than fabricating
> a new one?

Because C&NW didn't have the money to buy more E units.
But they did have 6 B units and a shop who knew how to improvise.

But didn't the B units come from the UP?

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com


PHall Wrote:
> Because C&NW didn't have the money to buy more E
> units.
> But they did have 6 B units and a shop who knew
> how to improvise.

Excellent idea for a thread, Victor !
I may not call any motors ugly, but maybe visually disturbing.
CF-7 has always been my least favorite locomotive.

Some power is so bizarre in appearance that they are really interesting,
like those pictured above and the C&NW Crandall Cabs.

The most unusual, but maybe not really ugly, has to be the Curry Rail TP 56.
Seeing photos of it, I can't imagine it is for real.