Cost benefit of Crandall cabs

Was retro-fitting the 5 E-8 Crandalls a significant savings over buying new units? And if so, why only 5?

I remember every time my train had one, I felt ripped off! Ha! "Aw, man! not that 'freight engine' again!" Evidently, I felt that if it wasn't a streamliner, it wasn't the "true" C&NW experience.

It was cheaper. The CNW bought alot od second hand units in those days.

CNW bought several former UP Es both As and Bs most of the B units were used for spare parts and 6 of the B Units were kit bashed into what was known as the Crandall. If you want to read up on it I suggest
Diesels of the Chicago and North Western Withers, Paul page 17
has a great roster in it and lots of very nice color shots four star book

They were used mainly in commuter service, and I'll admit it was a unique idea to save money. But man, those locomotives were U-G-L-Y...

"They were used mainly in commuter service"

Were there were times when they were used outside of commuter service?

Whoops, should've clarified the first time: The Crandalls were ONLY used for suburban commuter service...

They've all been scrapped I assume.

According to Diesels of the CNW by Withers all except 506 are listed as scrapped there is no report on 506

EMD E Units the P-38s of the Railroads

I do admit that growing up near the North Western North line, in the town that has the Death Star's trench, I did enjoy seeing the Crandalls go by, It was unusual and sometimes a treat next to all of the beutifull F Units and Es. By the way I did win a Slide on Ebay of the 501 up in Duluth Minn, I have this confirmed by one person that worked for the CNW and has a great web sight on the CWN .

I vaguely remember seeing one of these at Oakton St. when I was very young. When were they retired?

CNW's last day of operating commuter service was on 12/31/77, which was also the day they retired the Crandalls. The recently formed RTA took over the next day, and the Crandalls were then leased back to the CNW's commuter service under RTA ownership. Once enough of the newer F40PH's were on the property, RTA retired all of them were retired for good by mid-1983 and kept in storage until units 501-505 met their fate with the scrapper's torch in 1985. As earlier reported in this thread, the "official" disposition of unit 506 is unknown; it's presumed to have been scrapped, but that hasn't been confirmed...

I'm sure that if anyone ever did find the 506 intact, the CNW engineers who ran it would get together to scrap it themselves

As far as a cost-benefit, I'm sure it was big-time favorable - A new F40PH or SDP45 probably cost big money, and by 1970 an E9B was beyond worthless - the scrappers were probably tired of seeing them. I bet CNW got it for a steal. However, CNW really did a butcher job on 'em. RI had two E6B's that it added cabs to, and it just put windows and controls at the end of the unit like a box-cab.

Those RI units were built as B/A units by EMD. They were intended for splitting one of the Rocket trains (I forget which) to go to two separate destinations, and someone actually cared to preserve the streamlined appearance of the locomotive consist...those days are over... ...

SlowFreight wrote:Those RI units were built as B/A units by EMD. They were intended for splitting one of the Rocket trains (I forget which) to go to two separate destinations, and someone actually cared to preserve the streamlined appearance of the locomotive consist...those days are over... ...

IIRC those "box cab" Rock Island units were used for the Colorado Springs section of th Rocky Mountain Rocket.