Official Naugatuck Railroad thread (NAUG/RMNE)

[oibu]

Any idea if 2019 will continue to power the train for the next week or two?

[H.F.Malone]

NH 2019 is scheduled to operate on Tuesday 10/13, Saturday 10/17 and Sunday 10/18. It may continue through the following weekend.

[Otto Vondrak]

To pick nits, probably closer to 50 years ago...
A century from now, the ditch lights and HEP/control boxes will be causing historians fits.

To pick nits, the unit has been restored as CDOT 2019, in its rebuilt configuration, not as 1960-built NH 2049. So the ditch lights and other appliances are correct.

-otto-

[jaymac]

otto-
To pick nits of nits,

Otto Vondrak » Tue Oct 13, 2015 10:54 am
jaymac wrote:
To pick nits, probably closer to 50 years ago...
A century from now, the ditch lights and HEP/control boxes will be causing historians fits.
To pick nits, the unit has been restored as CDOT 2019, in its rebuilt configuration, not as 1960-built NH 2049. So the ditch lights and other appliances are correct.
-otto-

...was in response to

BM6569 » Wed Oct 07, 2015 11:41 am
Looks like it was taken 40 years ago!

...which seems in the pre-CDOT era. My post was an indirect comment on how spotting features don't always get documented and the documentation doesn't always get stored so it's accessible -- especially for a century from now.

[Otto Vondrak]

Just joking around... There's an FL9 running in its native land, I encourage everyone to buy a ticket and enjoy themselves this weekend!

=otto-

[jaymac]

FL9s helped those of us of a certain age and of more than a certain interest in things NYNH&H feel that good things could happen between Boston and New York. Unfortunately, the Dan'l Webster helped temper that feeling.
Get powered by an FL9: It'll help you feel younger and empowered!

[CannaScrews]

Thanks to the Naugy's ace Cracker Jack mechanic, 2019 now makes transition - a pleasant perk.

And for you photographers, the sun angle is lower, nicer nose shots. Please bring a bow saw & cut that sapling down at the south end of Chase Bridge, it gets in the way of the shot.

[Noel Weaver]

FL-9's to and from Boston were not really much of a mark of progress, they could not do nearly as well as a PA or later on in Penn Central E-8. They were rather hard riding and had a difficult time getting up to any really decent speed. Too much weight for the HP. I really wonder how important it is to make transition on the Naugy but I am glad the good folks there got it running as intended. They are doing a good job at keeping the spirit of the New Haven alive. To bad they are about the only ones doing this.
Noel Weaver

[MEC407]

They were rather hard riding and had a difficult time getting up to any really decent speed. Too much weight for the HP.

I once heard someone derisively refer to the FL9 as an "FL4.5" — in reference, I assume, to what he felt was inadequate power.

They do look nice, at least. I've enjoyed riding behind them on the Maine Eastern.

[CannaScrews]

Noel:

The reference to being able to make transition is that in their former life at CDOT, at some point, the transition circuits were "disconnected", "modified" or "crippled". I don't know the proper term or exactly what happened, only that our mechanic discovered the fact & set them back to what the wiring diagrams indicated. Why they were set the way they were is open to futile speculation.

Obviously, it makes no difference running on the Naugy (maybe except a little better fuel utilization), but it is as it should be and sounds as EMD (Chrome Crankshaft?) intended on acceleration between 16-18 mph.

[Noel Weaver]

Noel:

The reference to being able to make transition is that in their former life at CDOT, at some point, the transition circuits were "disconnected", "modified" or "crippled". I don't know the proper term or exactly what happened, only that our mechanic discovered the fact & set them back to what the wiring diagrams indicated. Why they were set the way they were is open to futile speculation.

Obviously, it makes no difference running on the Naugy (maybe except a little better fuel utilization), but it is as it should be and sounds as EMD (Chrome Crankshaft?) intended on acceleration between 16-18 mph.

I totally agree and in addition if arrangements were ever made to use 2019 on a off line passenger train it would be absolutely necessary for these circuits to work as intended. Good job!!!!!
Noel Weaver

[CVRA7]

The source that I heard "FL 4 and a half" from was the late "Uncle" Harry Vallas, who began his railroad career on the New Haven but was "legislated out of his job" as a diesel fireman in 1964 and ended up on the Long Island R R where he was set up as an engineer.

[CannaScrews]

I got to witness a pair of FL-9s head south from a stop at the Milford Station with maybe 6 coaches around 1990. It was painful. Notch 8 & barely accelerating.
Eventually, when the governor decided to supply some amps to the traction motors, the consists s-l-o-w-l-y started to pick up speed. Lotsa show, no go.

[Noel Weaver]

The source that I heard "FL 4 and a half" from was the late "Uncle" Harry Vallas, who began his railroad career on the New Haven but was "legislated out of his job" as a diesel fireman in 1964 and ended up on the Long Island R R where he was set up as an engineer.

Like my good friend Harry Vallas I was also legislated out of a job firing on the New Haven in 1964. Harry and I both went and talked to the Chief Road Foreman of the Long Island that spring and we were both offered jobs as a result. At the very last minute I decided to stay on the New Haven where I was temporarily a tower operator. I actually liked working in the towers but they cut too many firemen and as a result I got back firing later that year. I often think back where would I have been better off? Today I don't really know, I had ten wonderful years in Albany and working between Selkirk and Buffalo right across the heart of New York State, absolutely my best railroad experience of all in a very good career. As for FL-four and a half, I don't know whether Harry was the first one to use that reference but it was a good fit. As diesels of the period go they were not a bad diesel but they were not nearly as good as others of the period. The big mistake was trying to replace a good fleet of older but very reliable electric locomotives that did a good job with anything they were called on to pull with diesels that could not match them in performance. The railroad had a wonderful electric locomotive shop at Van Nest that could do anything necessary to keep the motors running. The McGinnis/Alpert bunch saw fit to do away with this good operation and go all diesel and it was a mistake from square one. That some railfans today seem to worship that bunch of gangsters and no nothings is repulsive to me and probably other old timers who remember what the New Haven was before they came on the scene.
Noel Weaver

[jaymac]

To expand a bit on my observation that FL9s helped make it seem that good things could happen for the New Haven, I was posting as what most of us on this website are -- observers and not participants. As first a student and then -- for couple of years -- a worker at Northeastern University, I got to observe the FL9s/FL four-and-a-halfs make their progress both eastbound and westbound as I was driving along Columbus Avenue in the early- and mid-60s. If I had been less aware of the visual display, then I might have been more aware of how the FL9s seemed to be making slower westbound progress out of Back Bay than their less dazzling cousins, the GP9s. I might have also stopped to puzzle about why the Merchants seemed to always have ALCOs, either DL-109s or PAs, at least that's the way I remember the Friday-night Merchants as it zipped by NU and towards Back Bay, sometimes a bit off the advertised and wheels shooting sparks for the stop.
The late and unlamented PBM was a wizard, but wizards are doomed work their wonders for only so long before -- as another wizard of note demonstrated -- the curtain gets pulled back and reality is revealed.
That people wanted then and want now to continue being railroaders despite all the cruel uncertainty, no small amount of which was and still is deliberate, amazes this observer.