Grassroots Railroad Sports?

Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to NickD :

We were driving through El Paso on I10 & I saw a 4-4-0 steam locomotive, tender, coach & caboose parked along the intestate. I did some googling & found this link that describes it as a 36" gauge live steam loco built by Crown Metal Products in 1963 for an amusement park. Apparently it's all available, plus some trackage for $300k. I'm still looking for pics. 
 

Edit: there's a pic here, although it shows the manufacturer date as 1965. 

They built those from '59-'90, when the new certification rules made it too difficult to construct new engines. They were fired with a propane burner. Some groups tried converting them to coal-fired for authenticity but discovered the grate size was way below optimal. You just couldn't get enough coal in there to make them steam properly.

There is a Christian camp/retreat that bought part of the East Tennessee & Western North Carolina's old narrow gauge line through the Doe River Gorge that is fixing up a Crown 4-4-0 to operate on that segment of the line. Not sure how that'll work out for them, since the Crown's were primarily designed for hauling a couple cars around flat ground at an amusement park, and that segment of the "Tweetsie" is about a 3-4% grade. 

In reply to NickD :

That'll be interesting to see the results of. If it works hopefully it'll open up opportunities for other groups to follow suit. 

Well....E36 M3. N&W #611 was still down at Spencer, NC for an event this weekend and then they were supposed to shuttle it north to PA today. While prepping #611 for the move, they found that the stoker was not feeding coal and so they have decided to postpone the move. I just got an e-mail from Strasburg that my in-cab experience has been delayed to July 16th. Also, my passenger ticket for Saturday can either be retained but with power other than #611 in the lead, rescheduled for another day when #611 is there, or refunded. Just my berkeleying luck.

In reply to NickD :

Oh that sucks :(

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

I saw on Reddit that the stoker was giving them trouble and its trip to Strasburg was delayed. I was hoping it just meant the deadhead move to PA would be a day or two later for those hoping to catch it. Then Strasburg made the post on Facebook.

An interesting parallel is that this is what happened on the N&W that brought about the retirement of steam engines. Around '54 or '55, the N&W proclaimed that they were committed to steam engines to 1969, at least. They had easy access to quality coal for cheap, they had some of the best engines ever built,  the early first-generation diesels weren't powerful or efficient enough to warrant switching, and the world's oil was going to be used up in 10 years. They had built #611 and 3 other Js in '50, and a batch of 0-8-0s in '53. And then, just a couple years later, diesels begin arriving on the property and steam engines hit the dead lines and then the scrapyard and then are entirely gone by '59/'60. So what changed the timeline from "committed for 15 years" to "gone in 5"? Well, one thing was new president Stuart Saunders, who would later go on to make ruinous decisions at PRR and Penn Central. But another factor was the same thing that bit #611 today. The N&W boys could form boiler plates and turn drivers and replace tubes, sure. But the companies that made auxiliaries, like Simplex and their stokers, and Westinghouse and their steam-driven cross-compound air pumps, and Worthington and their feedwaters, all transitioned to parts for diesels or went out of business. N&W found they couldn't get all those little bits and pieces anymore. They had to dieselize. Although in a way, it still worked out for them. They skipped a lot of the early troublesome stuff, like 244-powered Alcos and Baldwin Centipedes and F-M Erie Builts, and instead walked into a market of stuff like 251-powered Alcos, GP18ss and U25Bs for their first diesels.

On the flip side, I was surprised to learn that apparently Coffin is still around. The folks at Steamtown sent out Boston & Maine #3713's Coffin internal feedwater heater to Coffin Turbo Pump in Englewood, New Jersy to have the pump overhauled. Pretty cool.

Also, from the sounds of it, the B&M #3713 crew made big strides last year, since the Steamtown staff could focus solely on #3713, rather than having to split their attention between #3713, and keeping ahead of maintenance of wear and tear on Baldwin #26, the coaches and their diesel roster.

Another "railroad meme" for you all:

Aaaand the latest word on #611 is that the auger for the Standard HT stoker broke in half. The rumor is that parts won't be available until next month. They'll either have to scavenge one from a display engine (appliances like air pumps, stokers, feedwater heaters tended to be standardized) or have a new one made.

https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/canadian-nationals-33-6-billion-bid-to-buy-u-s-railroad-hits-snag-01621295947

The CN/CP fight for KCS has another development. CN wants to create a trust that would control KCS until the merger is approved, but the Surface Transportation Board says no. CP is crowing that they suggested the same plan and it was approved, so clearly the STB must favor them merging with KCS.

This is the first major Class 1 merger since the STB put forth way more strict rules in 2001, which was in response to Union Pacific's service meltdown in 1997 after they purchased Southern Pacific/D&RGW.

kazoospec said:

Another "railroad meme" for you all:

I'm curious what the story is behind this pic. 

To quote the great Ralphie, "Oh ffffffffuuuudddggge" 

Apparently, this is the current state of 611.

As for the Sante Fe above, not sure what the back story is, a buddy of mine posted it on my FB page.  Tried to flex some google fu, but came up empty.  

kazoospec said:

To quote the great Ralphie, "Oh ffffffffuuuudddggge" 

Apparently, this is the current state of 611.

The "bend" is normal, because there's actually a universal joint in there. It's the break ahead of it that is the issues. If the two halves are intact enough, they could attempt to weld it back together, either to reinstall it or to make a mold for a new casting pattern. Or they find a display engine with a Standard HT stoker and scavenge the auger out of it. With the amount of use it sees, I would bet they are not going to go the route of just welding up and reinstalling it, because there would always be the worry about the welds breaking.

Its too bad it broke down in North Carolina and not up in Pennsylvania, since Strasburg's shop is extremely well-equipped and they even have a relationship with a foundry owned by the Amish that casts a lot of parts for them.

In reply to NickD :

Yeah, I figured out the "bend" was supposed to be there, probably to account for movement between the tender and engine.  The "abrupt end" on the shaft looked a bit out of place. . .

In reply to kazoospec :

They are actually three piece. The coal bunker is V-shaped and there is a trough in the bottom with the first segment of the stoker. Then there is a U-joint and the next segment goes between the tender and the underside of the cab floor near the tender drawbar. Then there is the second U-joint and the third segment angles up through the floor into the rear of the firebox. There is actually air jets to blast the air out of the end of the stoker so it feeds more towards the front and the center, rather than just plopping it all at the back. The fireman also would still wield a coal scoop to chuck coal into some of the corners or to fill in spots.

The auger design worked well because, while coal is supposed to be sized, if there were chunks that were too large, it would typically break them up into more manageable sizes. They were reversible, so that if there was a piece that refused to break or some sort of foreign object debris got mixed in, you could reverse it back up into the coal pile. David Page Morgan talks about riding in UP Big Boy #4008 over Sherman Hill and there was a very tense moment when the stoker stopped. On an engine that burned 11 tons of coal an hour, cutting off its fuel supply will kill it quick. The engineer closed the throttle down to reduce the steam usage and the fireman then opened an inspection hatch and jockeyed the stoker forward and backward for what seemed like an eternity until it spit out a 12" chunk of a broken drawbar up out of the inspection hatch. The fireman slammed the hatch closed, started the stoker again, and the engineer grabbed a bunch of throttle and away they went.

There were a couple other attempts at different designs. I can't recall the name of the company that made it, but I have a book that shows one that used a bucket chain set-up. I know it was used at least on one Frisco steam engine. Frisco found the design very troublesome, overly complicated and prone to jamming, and promptly removed it and put on a Standard/Simplex auger-style setup. I've never seen another  mention of this style stoker, so I have to assume they did not sell many.

So, I got out my copy of Frisco Power last night and flipped through it to find that weird stoker. It was a Street Locomotive Stoker. It was based off the idead that bucket chains were used heavily to move coal in coal mines, so why not adapt it to a locomotive? And it was even more complicated than I thought. It had a steam-powered coal crusher in the bottom of the tender, that coal fed into and then was broken up into smaller chunks. It then slid down a 45-degree inclined slide to a hopper under the cab floor (later ones replaced the slide with a screw setup to feed it from the crusher to the hopper, probably due to coal sticking/jamming on the slide). Once it was in the hopper, the chain bucket system would pick it up and carry it to the top of the firebox and dump it on a distribution plate. The fireman could then fire 3 different air jets to shoot the coal on the distribution plate either towards the front, left or right of the firebox. 

That's a lot of added complication over a Standard or Simplex or a Locomotive Stoker Company "Duplex" screw-types. They were also incredibly loud, and the chains were prone to snapping. That would dump the chains and all the buckets down into the hopper and require unhitching the tender and opening the hopper to reinstall it all. Frisco had them on their "spot series" 2-10-2s, and made a big deal about the stokers when they first took delivery of the engines, likely because they were the first stoker-equipped engines, and crowed about the improved efficiency, reliability and reduced work effort. After a short while, when the Street's deficiencies became known, they quietly removed the Street stokers and converted the engines to Duplex stokers. NYO&W also had Street stokers on their Class X "Bullmoose" 2-10-2s and had similar experiences. I can't find mention of them ever being converted to a Duplex or Standard or Simplex, probably because the NYO&W was hard up for money and the Class Xs didn't live particularly long lives.

There was also another one called an Elvin, which was also unique. It had a pair of horizontally-sweeping paddles, like paddles on a pinball table or windshield wipers. They slapped the coal into the firebox, and the advantage was that they emulated a fireman's shovel throws better and distributed the coal in a better pattern (you want to lay the coal in the shape of a horseshoe, banked along the front and side walls with less in the center and rear). While this is likely true, it was also likely a case of being pedantic and chasing minor gains. After all, Big Boys, Alleghenies and Y6bs made plenty of power and steamed well with their regular "inferior" screw-style stokers. The Elvins were also prone to the paddle ends burning back and wearing away from the heat, or getting brittle and breaking. From RYPN, "I have a batch of old Jersey Central transcripts of "investigations" of operating personnel, that I picked up off the floor of the old Communipaw Engine Terminal office building shortly before it was flattened in 1977. Reading through these brittle pages from the 1940s, there were the usual crews being disciplined for various rules infractions, and for delays to trains. In that category, there were numerous instances of the big CNJ 2-8-2s stalling for steam on the road due to malfunctioning Elvin stokers (paddle trouble being a recurring theme)." No CNJ Mikes exist, but SAL #544, one of the Seaboard's Russian Decapods, has one. Not sure if the other preserved Russian Decs have them. I'm pretty sure Frisco #1630 doesn't, but Frisco might have retrofitted theirs with a screw style, since Frisco was big on standardizing their motive power (they all had a uniquely Frisco look, they exclusively used Coffin feedwater heaters and Nicholson thermic syphons and Coffin feedwater heaters).

There were also a couple others that were basically a Standard or a Simplex but just enough different to avoid patent infringement. Those include the Locomotive Stoker Co.'s "Duplex", Hanna, and Berkley. N&W used a lot of Berkley stokers because they were built local in Norfolk.

Good news, sounds like they are going to be able to weld the auger on #611. According to Virginia Museum of Transportation (who owns #611, despite it living at Spencer, NC):

"As VMT leadership previously announced, 611 was near ready to depart Spencer, NC on Monday morning when the fireman discovered that the stoker screw was not moving.  The engine’s mechanical crew immediately began troubleshooting the issue and discovered a possible break in the stoker screw, a few feet into the tender. 

VMT leadership in consultation with Chief Mechanical Officer, Scott Lindsay, determined that the most responsible decision would be to delay the move so that the stoker issue could be properly identified and repaired. 

In order to further diagnose the issue, the engine and tender needed to be separated and the 35 tons of coal currently in the tender removed.  Mideast Railroad Service was called to assist with removing the coal. After removing the coal, the stoker screw break was confirmed. The cause of the break was likely a weak spot in the original casting, as an internal void was observed extending towards the edge of the stoker screw.

Mechanical personnel have removed the screw from the tender and engine, and have already begun the necessary welding and machining required to make repairs. 

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, the stoker screw will be reinstalled and tested within the next few days, engine/tender coupled and coal loaded as 611 is once again prepared for departure. 

We would like to acknowledge our mechanical crew and partners for their assistance and cooperation: Strasburg Rail Road, Norfolk Southern, North Carolina Transportation Museum, Mideast Railroad Service, and Rowan Precision Machining."

http://www.vmt.org/2021/05/update-to-611s-stoker-issue-repairs-underway/?fbclid=IwAR1mpRaz7A9K3Sv6aQ7HxaZWqHLZ7MHYXXQMIaCYqulsR7yC-gXBS0YiWkU

Scott Lindsay is a top-notch dude, so if he thinks it can be welded, it's probably a pretty good chance. I'd still make a mold of it after it was welded back together and get a spare cast to have on hand for the future.

Happened to catch this going through Old Orchard Beach, ME a couple days ago. We were on vacation (more photos and general rambling here) and had stopped there briefly to take some photos. We parked near the train station (really just a single platform) where the Amtrak Downeaster stops in the middle of town. Done with our beach photos, we were just about back to the car when I heard a train coming, so I went to the platform to see if I could get a shot or two. I didn't see anyone waiting, and soon I understood why - it wasn't Amtrak.

This guy came rumbling through. I'm given to understand it's the Pan Am business train. Two locomotives, four passenger cars, including one with a dome. Pretty neat thing to see - reminded me how much I miss the style of the old diesels.

In reply to 02Pilot :

The Pan Am office car special train might be living out its last days if CSX has their way and merges in Pan Am. No recent developments with that one though. All eyes have been on the CP/CN/KCS tryst.

EMD had actually planned to continue the E-unit/F-unit line. After the E9 left production in '64, EMD had a plan for an E10. Instead of twin EMD 1200hp 567s, the E10 was going to use two 1250hp 645 engines. It would otherwise look the same as an E7/E8/E9. They pitched it to the Union Pacific, who had bought the most E9s and still had a sizable passenger service, but UP was uninterested and so was pretty much every other railroad, since they were cutting back on passenger service. Illinois Central, for example, had placed a decent order for E9s, then cut back their order to just 10 A-units and 4 B-units, and a lot of other railroads instead bought SDP35s, since they could be used for freight use without any changes if/when they were allowed to bail on passenger obligations.

Amtrak actually approached EMD about reviving the E10 program in the early '70s, to replace some of the more worn-out E8s and E9s they inherited. These would have included Dash-2 electronics along with the 645 engines. Unfortunately, EMD had disposed of the tooling for the E-unit bodies after the E9 left production and no one bought the E10. Instead, EMD threw together the SDP40F, which became infamous for it's series of derailments and were almost all bought back by EMD and reused as donors for the much more successful F40PHs.

EMD also had a few ideas on continuing the F-unit line. One was the prototype FG9, which they began constructing but never sold. GM, and the rest of the world at the time, was big into turbine technology and had been playing with free-piston engines as gasifiers to feed a turbine (this was the same tech they were using in the XP-500 concept car). 

The FG9 was built on an FL9 platform and mounted a huge GM free-piston engine, feeding its exhaust into a turbine, which then turned a standard EMD generator and fed four traction motors, generating 2000hp. EMD was in talks with Union Pacific, who was planning to buy sets of FG9As and FG9Bs and send them off across Sherman Hill. The program never got much beyond the testing though. EMD quickly discovered that the pressure blasts from a huge free-piston engine, even with a surge tank, the turbine, and a muffler, were still hideously louds. The free-piston engines also generated intense vibrations, that if they had tried to feed multiple gasifiers into a common turbine, would have damaged the turbine, so it was never going to match the big GE turbines in power. The free piston engines were also more expensive and difficult to maintain. The FG9 also ran into the same issues that turbine locomotives in general had, chief being poor efficiency at anything less than wide-open throttle. As the petrochemical industry changed, Bunker C oil also became much more expensive, and second-gen diesels were approaching the performance level where even the hugely poweful GE turbines became not worth the trouble.

There was also the proposed FL18s. New York Central was intrigued by the New Haven's FL9s and was considering purchasing them to eliminate the engine change at Croton-Harmon out of Grand Central. NYC borrowed some NYC FL9s in '65 and did a bunch of testing. EMD was going to call the new unit an FL18, and it would feature some refinements in tech that had emerged in the 8-9 years since the FL9 came out. But NYC ultimately decided that the minor amount of time saved on passenger services that were already costing the railroad money was not worth the expense of new locomotives. The irony was that in 1969, the ICC crammed New Haven into Penn Central and the FL9s ended up operating out of Grand Central anyways.

EMD also prepared pricing and specifications for both an F18 and an F20, which would have been F-units that matched the technical specs of the GP18 and GP20, respectively. But by that point, railroads were all about road switchers and there wasn't enough interest in carbody units to warrant their construction.

It would be a shame if what must be a fairly unique example of such vintage equipment in regular service was put out to pasture by CSX. Frankly, I'd be happier if all this consolidation stopped dead regardless. It seems there are fewer and fewer small railroads these days.

In reply to 02Pilot :

Especially because CSX's Office Car Special is kind of lame. They just use a set of F40s. Which is still better than BNSF, who sold off their E units and went to just any SD70 or ES44 that they have on hand.

If the merger goes through, and if the Pan Am F-units get sold, whoever gets them will get a sweet deal. I don't know the specifics on the Pan Am units, but those OCS units tend to be extremely well-maintained and pretty trick. I know the ex-NS F-units are basically GP38-2s under the skin. 2000hp 645 engines, Dash-2 electronics, HEP generators, ditch lights. Reading & Northern ended up with 2 and they are sweet. Same with the UP E9s, which UP converted to single 2000hp 645 engines (in place of two 1200hp 567 V12s) with Dash-2 electronics and HEP generators.

At least F and E-units are pretty much safe nowadays. They really don't face scrapping that often anymore. Adirondack had some FL9s they bought and scrapped around 5-10 years ago, but they were rumored to be pretty much junk. Metro North had used them as parts donors, Adirondack took even more parts off them and sent them to the scrapyard. Juniata Terminal scrapped a B&O E8 earlier this year but Bennett Levin said it was beyond junk, rust holes in the floor, holes in the roof, no engines or generators or motors. He just bought it to use as a nose donor for his Pennsy E8s in the event they had an accident. I know Indiana Transportation Museum's ex-Milwaukee F7A and F7B sound like they are doomed. They got left behind at Logansport when ITM was evicted and Logansport is cutting up most of what's left. They were operational fairly recently but are currently both out of service with mechanical troubles. 

You could make the case that F7/F9s and E8/E9s are way over-represented in preservation. Even just going off EMDs, the early E3/E5/E6s are represented in ones and twos and somehow there is only one E7, despite the E7 being the best-selling E unit. On the F-units, there are very few FTs (two FT-As and 3 FT-Bs) and only two operating true F3As (there are a couple that were heavily rebuilt into "FP10s"). And that's not mentioning cab units from other manufacturers; 4 Alco PAs, with only two in the US, zero Baldwin baby-faced, two Baldwin Sharknoses sequestered away in non-operating condition, no F-M Erie-Builts, one stuffed and mounted F-M C-liner in Canada, no GE P30CH "Pooches". 

Some other intriguing locomotives that, like the E10, FG9, FL18, F18 and F20, were catalogued but never built/sold:

EMD RB3600: Proposed in the early '60s, before the development of the 645 engine family and the Dash-2 electronics, the RB3600 was a pair of 1800HP V12 567D3s, each turning their own generator, on a 6-axle chassis with no cab. At the time, EMD's hottest offerings were the GP30 and the SD24, which put out 2250hp and 2400hp respectively, and both of them essentially used GP7/SD7 electrical systems that were cobbled together to hold up to those levels of power. The idea was that you could replace two SD18s with one RB3600 booster or two SD24s with 3 RB3600s, while being more reliable. Southern Pacific looked long and hard at the RB3600, but ultimately passed. The idea of two engines on a single chassis for one high-powered unit was revisited by EMD with the DD35, DD35A, and DDA40X "Centennials" though.

EMD DH2: EMD took a single SW8, #105, switcher and replaced the generator and traction motors with a hydraulic transmission drive in May of '53. I would guess that the idea was that a hydraulic transmission would offer better low-speed operation than DC motors (DC motors tend to burn out during prolonged operation at extreme low speeds). Whatever the reason, no one subscribed to the idea, and #105 was converted back to a conventional SW8 and served as the EMD plant switcher until 1968.

EMD TR9 and TR12: EMD had previously offered two cow-calf units (a pair of switchers, one with a cab, one without a cab, semi-permanently coupled with a drawbar) called the TR1 and the TR6. The TR1 was two NW3s with EMD FT motors for 2700hp total, and they only sold two pairs, both to Illinois Central. The TR6 was more conventional, just a 1600hp cow-calf set of SW8s, and they sold 12 of them. Perhaps they were hoping that third time was the charm when they listed the TR9, which was an 1800hp cowl-calf set of SW900s, but no one stepped up to the plate. EMD would also later offer a 2400hp cow-calf set of SW1200s, called a TR12, and again no one purchased any. Having learned their less, EMD never offered another TR unit.

EMD SD40-2B: Union Pacific actually ordered a batch of 23 cabless SD40-2s, with the intention of sticking them between pairs of DDA40Xs for high-speed intermodal service. Before they were built though, Union Pacific backed out and then instead ordered a set of high speed-geared SD40-2s, nicknamed "Fast Forties". Now, SD40-2Bs did actually come into existence later, when Burlington Northern rebuilt a bunch of wrecked SD40-2s into cabless boosters, but no SD40-2Bs ever rolled out of the EMD factory.

EMD GP50T: While there were never any 4-axle Tunnel Motors actually built, EMD did plan to build a dozen GP50s with the Tunnel Motor cooling system for the Denver & Rio Grande Western. But Southern Pacific's takeover of the D&RGW put the kibosh on that plan, and the GP50T remained unbuilt.

EMD F45B/FP45B: When Santa Fe was on their cowl-unit buying spree for both passenger and high-speed intermodal service, they apparently requested that EMD cook up matching B-units. Santa Fe, or any other owner of F45/FP45s, ever purchase any, perhaps realizing the limited usefulness of them. But an A-B-B-A set of F45s in Warbonnet paint would have been something to see.

The "other guys" also had some units that they offered but no one took advantage of.

Alco PA-3: While typically just called an Alco PA, there were actually two versions, a 2000hp V16 244-powered PA-1 and a 2250hp V16 244-powered PA-2. The PA-3 was cataloged in 1954 and going to run the 2400hp 244H out of the RSD-7, which Alco called a 250 engine, to try and distance itself from the early 244's bad reputation (the 251 engine was actually in production by this point, but the 2400hp version wouldn't arrive for a couple years). This would have made the PA-3 a real hot rod, since they were much lighter than an EMD E-unit by only running one V16 engine and one generator, as compared to the E-unit's two V12s and 2 generators. The Alco PA was also cheaper because of the reduced number of parts, and used less fuel. It was just the reliability woes that kept the PA from being the sales leader. Sadly, by the time Alco marketed the PA-3, railroads were increasingly weary of Alco and were retiring their PAs or downgrading them to freight service, and so no one purchased any PA-3s.

Alco C620: All of the Alco 6-motor Centuries that people are familiar with were big, heavy, high-horsepower maulers. But Alco did actually catalog a C620, which was the popular 2000hp C420 but with C trucks under it. The low horsepower 6-axle market was not a particularly strong one at the time, with EMD only selling 52 2000hp SD38s and 54 2250hp SD39s and GE only moving 53 of their 2300hp U23Cs, so it makes sense that Alco, who was third in sales, failed to sell any C620s.

Alco C624: The C624 was actually supposed to be one of the original Century line models. Alco had always banked on the fact that they outpowered the competition, but by the time the Century line rolled out, EMD had finally gone the way of turbochargers and was making equal power numbers, and GE jumped into the market with their turbocharged 4-stroke engines that matched Alco on power as well. Alco killed the C624 off before they sold any, and then cranked the horsepower up to make the C628. Realistically, the C624 probably would have been a better seller in the long run, as the C628 was just too big and heavy for its own good. Railroads that had beefy enough infrastructure to support them loved them, but they scared off a lot of other buyers.

Alco C636F/C636P: During Santa Fe's brief fling with cowl units, Alco also tried to get in on the action. They proposed a cowl-bodied C636 that could be used for passenger or freight use. By this time though, Alco was fully circling the drain and the regular C636 had failed to really impress any buyers, particularly Southern Pacific where the C636 demonstrator burned up a traction motor on three of its four test runs. Nobody wanted to get stuck with troublesome units from a manufacturer that had one foot in the grave, and so they remained a curious footnote. There are blueprints which have allowed artists to conjure up images of what if things had turned out differently.

Alco DH650: Listed in a catalog from late in Alco's life, the DH650 was an update of the diesel-hydraulic DH643. This unit supposedly would have replaced the twin 2000hp 251C V12s with two 2500hp engines. But by this point the hydraulic drive experiment was pretty much over. The Krauss-Maffei ML4000s were marching their way off to the scrapyards and the three DH643s weren't much farther behind them.

Alco C860: This one's existence is a bit more debated, but there are those who swear it was actually offered. Again, this was just an upgrade of the massive C855s that Alco had built for Union Pacific. The 2750hp V16s from C628s were swapped out for 3000hp V16s from C430/C630s to make an additional 500hp. Union Pacific had never been very enthused with either Alco's C855 or GE's U50Cs and U50s, so its not surprising that they passed on a C860.

Bombardier HR series: Bombardier scooped up what was left of Alco and Montreal Locomotive Works in the '80s and tried to hop into the locomotive market. They did produce an HR412 (a wide-cab, 2400hp 251-powered B-B road switcher) and an HR616 (a cowl-bodied 3000hp C-C road unit), but those were only two of the cataloged 5-model lineup.  The other three were the HR416 (A 3200hp B-B road switcher), HR618 (A 3600hp C-C road switcher), and the HR406 (A 1200hp switcher). All but the switcher had the Canadian comfort cab and included cowl options, and like the HR412, the HR416 could be equipped with HEP. But reliability issues with the HR412 and HR616 turned off prospective buyers and so none of the other models were ever constructed.

GE U18BT/U15BT: Alongside the U18B "baby boat", GE offered a version that was supposed to be an end-cab switcher/transfer unit. There was also a U15BT, that was downrated to 1500hp to compete with EMD's MP15DC/MP15AC. By this point, EMD had had the switcher market all to itself for years and it was going to be tough to get a foothold. GE failed to attract any buyers of the U18BT and U15BT, and the U18B itself wasn't a real sales success either.

GE B18-7: Even after the cool reception to the U18B "Baby Boat", GE fully planned to offer a 4-axle Dash-7 locomotive with the unique 1800hp 8-cylinder FDL engine. But while it shows up on the catalog the for Dash-7 locomotive line, nobody purchased any. The big issue was that the U18B and B18-7 were aimed at branch line usage, and that's never been a strong market. Railroads just don't want to plonk down cash for shiny new locomotives to operate on branch lines and their typically low profit margins. They'd rather just relegate older engines to that service. GE learned the lesson and did not offer an 1800hp Dash-8.

GE U56: Similar to Alco's proposed C860, GE planned to sell a U50 with the engines uprated to 2800hp each by applying the same tricks to them that they had used to convert the U25B to the U28B. In fact, GE and UP are said to have done this to one of the U50s that UP already owned as a feasibility test, but it was later downrated back to 5000hp. But the U50s were just too big and heavy for even UP, and they also had some reliability issues, so UP never purchased any, nor did SP, who owned 3 U50s as well.

GE B40-8(B): Santa Fe actually ordered some cabless B40-8 booster units from GE to go with their GP60Bs. But when GE told them that the B40-8(B)s were actually going to cost more than a regular B40-8, Santa Fe had the order converted to conventional B40-8s.

A rare sight of Southern Pacific GE U50 "Baby Huey" and a DD35 at Bloomington, California in '77. Espee only owned 3 of the U50s and 3 of the DD35 boosters, and completely skipped the U50Cs and DD35As

The #9952 awaiting its fate at the Bull Ring, the nickname for SP's Cornfield yard. Check out the the gear drive for the valve train and injection pump on the partially dismantled GP7 in the foreground.

End of the line for the #9950. The U50s were doomed by their size and weight and lack of flexibility in usage.