In The Deep Blue Underneath The Sea......EMD's

[mxdata]

We came close to this subject some time ago with the discussion of EMD engines afloat. If you know of EMD engines that are presently at the bottom of the ocean, a sea, or a lake, please consider sharing that information.

Lets skip Winton Engines and Cleveland Diesels this time around, hopefully this is not being disrespectful, but including them would make a very long string, and this is an EMD discussion. There would be many hundreds of Cleveland Diesels to list, in US Navy vessels sunk in action during World War Two, particularly when you include the many US Fleet Submarines from the war that are still "On Patrol" with their brave crews. Fortunately, many of these vessels are mentioned elsewhere on the internet.

How about the following areas for discussion:

EMD locomotives and engines lost over the side from ships.
Military vessels lost with EMD engines
Commercial vessels lost with EMD engines
Vessels with EMD engines sunk intentionally (as fishing reefs, targets, etc.)
Other EMD products sunk, accidentally or intentionally

I will start it out with a couple of examples: The US Navy fleet tugs USS NAVAJO and USS SEMINOLE, both were lost in action in World War Two. They and their sister USS CHEROKEE were the lead vessels in the USN 1938 fleet tug program and each was powered by four 12-567 "U" deck engines. Fleet tugs built later in the war got Cleveland Diesels, this causes a lot of confusion on some military websites.

USS SEMINOLE was lost in a gunnery action with Japanese Destroyers off Lunga Point, Guadalcanal on 18 October 1942, one crewman was killed in this engagement. USS NAVAJO was lost as a result of an underwater explosion, possibly a mine or torpedo, in the South Pacific on 12 September 1943, with the loss of 17 of her crew. USS CHEROKEE survived the war and served for many years as a US Coast Guard cutter, based in Portsmouth VA during the 1980s. I believe she has joined her sister ships now, returned to the USN at the end of her Coast Guard service and sunk intentionally as a target.

[DutchRailnut]

since this is a Railroad net. maybe we should stick to trains with EMD.
not ships etc.

[mxdata]

Sorry this offended you. Lets get back to those really great discussions of what everybody's favorite locomotive is! My favorite EMD is the Model 40!

Before we write this one off though, does anybody have any details on the shipment of EMD export locomotives that went swimming out in the mid-Atlantic back in the 1970s? Seem to recall they did a lot of damage to the ship that was carrying them when they went over the side.

[clutch]

There is a Western Pacific BL-2 at the bottom of San Francisco Bay. It rolled off a barge in rough weather. It was found under water near the Oakland Bay Bridge after the 1989 earthquake.

[EDM5970]

WP did not have BL-2s-

[Espeelark]

And therein why WP never had any BL2's.... LOL!

[Allen Hazen]

Vergil Staff's "D-Day on the Western Pacific" (an excellent and detailed history of the WP's diesel locomotive fleet, its utilization, and the policy thinking behind it) does not mention the BL-2. Since it does describe the consideration given to Baldwin and FM roadswitchers (including demonstration tours), and discusses WP management's agaonizing over whether the GP-7 was preferable, for their intended application, to a 1200hp switcher, I suspect that WP not only never had but never even seriously considered ordering a BL-2.
Nor do I recall from when I read the book that any WP diesel locomotive of any model was lost from a barge.

[mxdata]

I think that the legend of the sunken Western Pacific BL-2 was one of those events that began on an April 1st some years ago. The barge and tug are now lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

Regarding the shipment of EMD export locomotives that went swimming in the North Atlantic back in the 1970s, I notice in EMD export product reference listings that there is a gap in the road numbers involving three locomotives in the 1972 order built for Yugoslavia, and that those numbers were later filled in by three more locomotives from the 1974 order, with the numbers being assigned out of sequence (as if the 1974 units were built with insurance settlement money). I will have to check with JW and see if the three missing 1972 order locomotives are the units that are now sonar targets.

[Phil Hom]

Railfan & Railroad had an artwork of a "WP BL-2".

I think the NKP considered BL-2.

[Allen Hazen]

Phil Hom--
I seem to recall a "Railfan & Railroad" article a few years back on EMD's styling and paint scheme designs: was it in that article? If EMD went to the trouble of preparing a picture of a BL-2 in WP colors (most of the illustrations in the article were EMD artwork) it means THEY tried to interest WP in the model-- my reading of Staff is that WP didn't bite. WP may have ASKED for information on the BL-2, since they were interested in roadswitchers (they had one of the first EMD GP-7 demonstrators for a visit in Novemeber of 1949, and had hosted a BLW demonstrator a year earlier), but didn't actually acquire roadswithers until their first GP-7 order of 1952.

[Phil Hom]

The WP BL-2 was an April Fool artwork done by a staff member of Railfan. But there's a Southern Rwy BL-2 artwork that is now in the hands of an EMD employee (and it's on Ebay).

[mxdata]

Win Cuisinier had something to do with the Western Pacific BL2 humor.

[Agent at Clicquot]

Hi all

I had a conversation with a retired marine architect some time back who stated he'd been involved with several projects where EMD prime movers were put into ships/boats.

I recall him stating that he tried to track down where a given prime mover had been used on the r.r. EMD would purge its records every seven years, so the trail was cold.

Is it true that EMD only kept its records for so long?

* JB *
Agent at Clicquot

[mxdata]

That is pretty much correct. Having 50+ years of sales records laying around is a situation that can shut down your operations and lead to financial disaster if you are called upon to produce all your records in the discovery phase of a lawsuit. Doing a comprehensive search of an archive like that could tie up your people for weeks or even months.

EMD published notices many years ago on some service technical publications (General Service Bulletins and Maintenance Instructions) saying that the initial printing would be the only one, and that there would be no repeat print runs, so eliminating records when you are not legally obligated to keep them is not at all inconsistent with established policies in other areas.

The net result of all of this is that the technical support base for the very early EMD production basically resides with a few aging former EMD employees and some railroad people who kept their publications and records, and are still active in the industry. When they are gone, the folks looking for technical support for the early products will have an increasingly difficult time finding it.