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  • Best EMD Locomotive

  • Discussion of Electro-Motive locomotive products and technology, past and present. Official web site can be found here: http://www.emdiesels.com/.
Discussion of Electro-Motive locomotive products and technology, past and present. Official web site can be found here: http://www.emdiesels.com/.

Moderator: GOLDEN-ARM

 #147342  by Allen Hazen
 
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)!)))
---
*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.

 #147386  by PCook
 
Allen, there were numerous never-builts, some of them are quite fascinating. Sorry you are so far away from us, if you were in the US perhaps you could get to a showing of INSIDE EMD sometime. The program has a segment with a selection of some of the most interesting and memorable never-builts, like the AMT-125 and the SDL45-2.

 #147524  by AmtrakFan
 
SD40-2 I have always was the best unit all time.
 #147626  by Amtrak31
 
My favorite would be SD70MAC. They sound awesome when throttling up and they have great horns! :-)

 #148204  by bones
 
The GP30 is an engineer's engine!
 #148589  by Allen Hazen
 
PCook--
I was a grad student at the U of Pittsburgh in the 1970s, turning into a rail fan. (There's nothing like a Ph.D. dissertation in progress to get one interested in other things!) One day I sneaked into a conference on High Speed Rail that was held on campus, and saw a presentation on the AMT-125. What struck me was that the configuration -- streamlined "power car" at each end with 6 or 7 coaches in between -- seemed like a clone of British Rail's then-new HST, which went into service as the "InterCity 125". (The 16-645 engines in the AMT-125's locomotives would have given 3000hp [[3300 hp by UIC rating conventions?]] as opposed to the 2250 from one of the 12-cylinder Valentas in a BR HST power car, but given the difference in weight between American and British rolling stock, the power-to-weight ratio might have been similar.)
---
Other recollections from conference:
>>>>A couple of EMD engineers laughing and exclaiming "Oh, those cats!" when I told them I had gone to the 50th anniversary factory open house and seen some of the first Chessie GP40-2 a few days before they showed up on the Panther Hollow line bihind the Pitt campus.
>>>>The GE rep trying to keep a straight face when making his scripted claim that Amtrak's (about to go into service) E-60 were a "worthy successor" to the GG-1.
---
And yes, I lament my geographical challenge every time I see an announcement of one of your "Inside EMD" presentations!
 #148591  by Allen Hazen
 
SDL45-2?
Let me guess. Design sketch presented to potential customer, Saudi Government Railway, who then decided to go with the slightly more conservative SDL40-2 instead?

 #150965  by Centurylover68
 
Those GP30 in NKP or D&RGW colors looked good. I won't say a good thing about those SD70 or SD60 or anything with a safety cab. Call me old-school but you shouldn't have to look at the rear of an engine to tell who built it. All safety cabs look the same to me.

 #151297  by Tadman
 
I'm still not quite clear on how a safety cab represents "safety", or anything other than a sales pitch. Especially because the cab itself is the same width, just the short hood grew. And now that some railroads are going back to a control stand rather than a desktop, the physical layout has reverted to conventional. What do we gain other than a gimmick? Maybe somebody can clue me in, because I wasn't under the impression railroads bought things for kicks. (Although my suspicions were raised with NS and IC bought SD70's w/ conventional cabs.)

 #151301  by blippo
 
Now that they got you use to running on these wide body motors with the desktop controls now they want to revert to the control stands. I don't like the control stands on these wide body's. They should have stayed with desktops.

 #151339  by MEC407
 
Safety cabs do include a number of features that make them safer than conventional cabs, such as full-height collision posts.

 #151371  by MEC407
 
Here is Sean Graham-White's description of what makes a safety cab a safety cab (and thus, safer than a conventional cab):
Typical features that make something a Safety Cab:
- a new, full-width nose constructed of half-inch steel plate and
welded to 74, instead of 30, inch tall collision posts
- the front door is also constructed of half-inch steel and opens
outward to prevent it being pushed inward during a collision
- the cab's front windows are angled and heated. Angling the windows
prevents an accumulation of snow by deflecting it, and frost and fog
are prevented by heating the windows
- increased insulation reduces noise and makes it easier to regulate
the cab's climate
- a second door between the front door and the cab itself also
reduces drafts and increases crew protection
- high-backed chairs feature arm and footrests
- an improved electric heater below the cab, and an enclosed toilet
in the nose.
 #151834  by Conrail6016
 
I THINK THE BEST I SEEN IN MY TIME WAS THE GP35'S AND THE 38SERIES THEY WERE THE BEST ONES THEN THE SD35'S :-D

 #151983  by bones
 
Getting back to the GP30. How about the GM&O paint scheme. I think for black and white it was pretty sharp. The old GM&O heads called them "skunks".

 #175309  by Metra 47 607
 
Mine is the F40C these were very reliable locomotives a passenger versition of the SD40-2 being built on a SD40-2 frame. They were the best Metra had.
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