Nostalgia & History > AT&SF GE 44-tonners at work

GE ad for 44-ton switchers. From Railway Age, July 7, 1945.

Full size is here:

https://donstrack.smugmug.com/UtahRails/Memorabilia/Railway-Age-Magazine/i-nz7pp7G/A

Don Strack

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Interesting that the ad is sponsored by Alco/GE. I know they were partners in the products made at Schenectady, but did Alco have any involvement at all in the design and production of GE's centercab critters made at Erie?

Santa Fe continued buying yard switchers for another decade and change after that ad was printed, but despite what the glowing copy might suggest, they never bought another 44-ton. They had eleven altogether, 9 from GE and one each from Davenport and Whitcomb, all acquired between 1941 and 1944.

Wasn't the reason the 44 tonners were 44 tons was because the unions required a fireman on locomotives 45 tons and over? If the agreement had changed with the unions allowing switchers without firemen then there was no reason for such a light engine. It doesn't take long messing around with a 44 tonner before a railroad would want something a little bigger and heavier.

wingomann Wrote:

> Wasn't the reason the 44 tonners were 44 tons was
> because the unions required a fireman on
> locomotives 45 tons and over?

A labor agreement in 1937 required it.

> If the agreement
> had changed with the unions allowing switchers
> without firemen then there was no reason for such
> a light engine.

I can't seem to find a definitive answer for when the "90,000-pound rule" was relaxed. An article by David P. Morgan in the June 1962 Trains Magazine called "How Truckers, Firemen, and Lawyers are Designing Diesels" indicated that the rule was still in effect at that time but likely to soon be phased out. GE ceased production of the 44-tonner in 1956, more than a decade after Santa Fe bought their last one. Orders from Class-1 railroads in general more or less dried up after 1950.

> It doesn't take long messing
> around with a 44 tonner before a railroad would
> want something a little bigger and heavier.

Heck, by 1950 most large railroads had concluded that even a 660hp SW1 wasn't enough locomotive for their needs.