AllenHazen wrote: ↑Sat Jan 15, 2022 10:00 pmWhich is a pity. I don't know of any other site on the WWWeb providing this sort of information on a large number of locomotive models, so this COULD be a very valuable source, but I've found enough obvious mistakes that I no longer trust it.
Indeed. I recall looking at the site quite some time back, and being very surprised to find the EMD GA12 described as being the A1A-A1A variant of the G12, which it most definitely was not. One could perhaps make the excuse that the correct information on what was an obscure export model might have been hard to find, except that there is a picture of one in the well-known book “Our GM Scrapbook”. Thus I concluded it was a case of unwarranted extrapolation, or perhaps just guesswork instead of doing a little light research by looking in the obvious places. As far as I know, EMD/GMD did not use the “A” suffix to denote A1A-A1A running gear on its export models, although Clyde (Australia) did, but not initially. (EMD/GMD used the C-suffix generally for C-C running gear with its “18”, “22” and “26” series export models from c.1966), with a prior one-off use for the GA12C, relate to the GA12. Clyde used both B- and C-suffixes from the later 1950s.)
RRATSTJ. wrote: ↑Tue Aug 03, 2021 11:50 am
This is good to have as a Reference and historic purposes, now we would like to see what the ALCO's Proposed C650DH would Look Like . Anyone here happen to have the Brochure on the proposed ALCO C650 ?
My take from Steinbrenner’s brief mention of the DH650 (p.452) is that in a general sense it would have been substantially the same as the DH643, but with uprated engines and various other detail changes. The latter could of course have affected its appearance, but probably not its basic dimensions or general proportions. I understand that the DH643 was designed with an overall length that was restricted by SP’s requirements, so perhaps Alco might have wanted to do otherwise with a general market model. But as SP was likely a target customer for the DH650, presumably the same constraint applied.
As might be expected in a book of its nature, Steinbrenner tended to put a “positive spin” on Alco events generally. For example, in respect of the large South African Railways tender of the later 1950s, which went to GE, his assertion that the South African preference for ALCO over the relatively unproven GE was well-known, just does not hold up against what is known about the actual sequence of events. In respect of the C855, he said that they were prone to nagging failures, this one reason why Alco was left out of the second round orders for this class of locomotive. On the other hand, Cockle, writing in “Giants of the West”, said that the C855 was plagued by basic design problems. Cockle may have been nearer the truth, although “basic design choice” might have been a more accurate characterization.
Cockle noted that the C-855 had a 16-notch throttle, and that the throttle handle also controlled dynamic braking. Both were departures from established Alco practice. As far as I know, it continued to sue the selector handle to control dynamic braking through the 1960s, after both EMD and GE had abandoned this, at least for domestic models. (GE stayed with the selector handle for dynamic braking on export models, I think until it adopted the AAR-type control stand.) One may wonder whether the choice of 16-notch control reflected a UP preference or was an Alco choice. In respect of the latter, the C855 had a higher per-axle power (688 hp) than any other Alco model of the time. It did not have high-adhesion trucks, and the relatively close pivot centres of the truck pairs under the span bolsters may have resulted in more forward-to-aft truck weight transfer than would have been the case for a conventional B-B unit with much greater truck spacing. So finer control of starting and initial accelerating tractive effort may have been seen as desirable. UP would have been coming from its GTEL experience, with 562 (GTEL4500) and 708 (GETL8500) hp/axle, and 20-notch control, although in that case the finer control was also indicated by the nature of the turbine-electric system itself. Anyway, it would seem that whatever the reason, Alco simply accepted the GE-style of engineer’s control with the throttle handle doubling as the dynamic brake control. (The contemporary Alco DH643 also had the throttle handle doubling as the hydrodynamic brake control, but the reasons for this might not have been the same as for the C855 case.)
Cheers,
