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  • Providence & Worcester truck trivia

  • Topics relating to the operation of the P&W Railroad, which is a subsidiary of Genesee and Wyoming. Regional freight railroad based in Worcester and operating in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York.
    Official Website
Topics relating to the operation of the P&W Railroad, which is a subsidiary of Genesee and Wyoming. Regional freight railroad based in Worcester and operating in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York.
Official Website

Moderator: MEC407

 #772802  by Allen Hazen
 
I was looking at pictures of Providence and Worcester 1801 (U18B) at George Elwood's marvelous "Fallen Flags" rail photo site
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org
the other night and noticed something. There are four photos of the 1801 there. Two older ones, showing the unit in the red-and-white paint scheme, show it with FB-2 trucks: I assume it was delivered with these? Two later ones, after the unit had been repainted into the dark-on-top scheme show it with the drop equalizer trucks that railfans incorrectly (but there is no other agreed desuignation) call "AAR type-B." So obviously at some stage P&W switched trucks. My guess is that they decided the FB-2 (which supposedly give better adhesion) would be better employed under one of their bigger (U23B or B23-7) GE units. ?
 #1247203  by Engineer Spike
 
Apparently so, Allan. Maybe they knew this unit's low power had a limited future, so they stole the trucks. Railway Museum of New England has a U23B from P&W. This was from Conrail originally. It now had motion sickness inducing trucks (FB2). This did have double equalized, as CR had tons to trade from dead Alco. Who know how much better adhesion the FB2 has. I have heard many mechanical employees complain about how hard it is to change inside brake shoes on the d. e. trucks. It could be just that simple.