A sad day in railroading

[lester perry]

GP 7s & 9s prepareing to roll while the glorious steam sits in round house.:cry:

The twisted track I just noticed is an optical illusion, It is not realy there?

 

[Ralph]

Funny, that's how I feel when watching SD45s roll by old Geeps gathering rust.

Nice pic, by the way!...and I DO feel for steam fans!
Ralph

 

[Art67]

Lester-On a happier note those Geep's are very sharp looking. I always loved that paint scheme. Who makes them?

Stuart

 

[doctorwayne]

Nice picture, Les. Those Geeps look good, but I very much doubt that their arrival will result in any steam power being cut up for scrap. Will they doublehead with those big Alleghenies of yours? While I have quite a few diesels, I seldom run them, and then, only in the company of steam.

Wayne

 

[lester perry]

Stuart they are P2K
Doc let me think for a minute here. GP7 = 700 HP
H8 2-6-6-6 = 7000 plus HP
That would be 10 GP7s = 1 H8. Is my figuring correct?
Now then GP9 = 900 HP
That would be 8 GP 9 = 1 H8
Man I don't get it . Why did they scrap all those magnificent H8s?
Les

 

[cn nutbar]

great shot les but maybe the steam should be in the foreground and the diesels in the background

 

[doctorwayne]

Les, your figuring is correct for the numbers that you used, but the GP-7 was 1500 HP and the GP-9 was 1750 HP. And whatever happened to the Geeps 1 through 6? Paducah took care of the GP-8 and -10 and then we get another gap.

Wayne

 

[Russ Bellinis]

Stuart they are P2K
Doc let me think for a minute here. GP7 = 700 HP
H8 2-6-6-6 = 7000 plus HP
That would be 10 GP7s = 1 H8. Is my figuring correct?
Now then GP9 = 900 HP
That would be 8 GP 9 = 1 H8
Man I don't get it . Why did they scrap all those magnificent H8s?
Les

Lester, your figuring is a bit off. G.E.'s model designations give will tell you the horsepower rating of the locomotive. The EMD's just give you a design order. Gp7s were designed before gp9s. The power output of a gp7 was 1250. The gp9 was rated at 1500. The reason they scrapped steam had to do with the maintainance requirements and the fact that you could not couple steam engines into multiple units without multiple crews. Diesel engines can be coupled together and when the mu connections are made they all function as one unit with one crew no matter how many locomotives are hooked up. 5 gp9s mu'd could be operated by one train crew and would make 7500 hp.

 

[lester perry]

Doc I should have researched a little in stead of assuming the horse power

Russ I know about the maintenance problems and MUing. There was also the track problem. Steam locomotives were very hard on track. The steam cylinders and drive arms caused a tremendouse side to side motion which caused damage to track. Also the larger locomotives were constantly trying to straighten curves. The RR had track crews every few miles in the steam era because of this. The C&O had one curve in Ohio (don't remember where ) with a crew dedicated to that curve because of the T1 2-10-4. Every time one went through they had to repair the track. Also it eliminated the need of the fireman, which on the C&O took many years to come about but finally did.
Les

 

[Russ Bellinis]

Steam wasn't the only thing that tried to straighten curves. The U.P. DD40x's known as Centennials were also referred to by many as "6000 horse power track straighteners." I may be mistaken, but I think the Santa Fe told the U.P. to quit using them on Cajon Pass before they were retired.