MEC 407--
Probably not a bad choice. The SD30-T2 is SO far from actuality that it's hard to make reasoned guesses about the characteristics it WOULD have had IF it had existed: after all, the "Tunnel Motor" radiator option wasn't introduced until about a decade after GP30 production ceased. It's not like, say, the "SD59" which-- even though it was never built or (as far as I know) designed or offered to the market-- we can be be fairly confident about: IT would have been something filling in the "equation"
X:{GP59,SD60)::SD39:{GP39,SD40} !
In general I feel the "almost real" unactualized possibles are the most interesting: one can learn soething about the principles of locomotive design and application by thinking through what they would have been like (and WHY they were never built).
(((Which doesn't mean I don't ALSO occasionally enjoy far-fetched* possibilities like the SD30-T2, so thanks for the picture (and subsequent explanation)!)))
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*One of the foundational works on the logic of counterfactual reasoning, the late David Lewis's book "Counterfactuals" uses "far-fetched" as a technical term! David, who was a professor of Philosophy at Princeton, was also an avid railfan: he was disappointed that his publisher wouldn't let him have, as jacket art for a book on the metaphysics of "possible worlds," a picture of one of the locomotives the Great Western Railway (Britain) had designed but which was never built because of the nationalization of British railways.
Probably not a bad choice. The SD30-T2 is SO far from actuality that it's hard to make reasoned guesses about the characteristics it WOULD have had IF it had existed: after all, the "Tunnel Motor" radiator option wasn't introduced until about a decade after GP30 production ceased. It's not like, say, the "SD59" which-- even though it was never built or (as far as I know) designed or offered to the market-- we can be be fairly confident about: IT would have been something filling in the "equation"
X:{GP59,SD60)::SD39:{GP39,SD40} !
In general I feel the "almost real" unactualized possibles are the most interesting: one can learn soething about the principles of locomotive design and application by thinking through what they would have been like (and WHY they were never built).
(((Which doesn't mean I don't ALSO occasionally enjoy far-fetched* possibilities like the SD30-T2, so thanks for the picture (and subsequent explanation)!)))
---
*One of the foundational works on the logic of counterfactual reasoning, the late David Lewis's book "Counterfactuals" uses "far-fetched" as a technical term! David, who was a professor of Philosophy at Princeton, was also an avid railfan: he was disappointed that his publisher wouldn't let him have, as jacket art for a book on the metaphysics of "possible worlds," a picture of one of the locomotives the Great Western Railway (Britain) had designed but which was never built because of the nationalization of British railways.