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  • The FL9: What do you think of this classic EMD?

  • 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

 #157233  by mxdata
 
There has been a fascinating and colorful discussion going on for some time on the NHRHTA website discussion forum about the New Haven FL9's and their effect on passenger service on the railroad. I am curious how the contributors to this forum feel about these units, some of which are still out there after 45 years. How would you rate the performance of the FL9 (as a diesel) against its FM and ALCO counterparts? Do you think they helped or hindered the New Haven Railroad?

 #157770  by TheChessieCatLives
 
I believe they helped the road in one area that most railroads didn't want to tackle. That is being able to run where a normal diesel couldn't run. This is due to the fact that the rear axle has, matter of fact both truck sets, had third rail pickup capability. The Alcos and the FMs couldn't run on a railline with the third rail without wasting fuel.

 #158023  by EDM5970
 
ChessieCat, not wasting fuel wasn't the reason at all for the third rail capabilities. Those units were designed to take passenger trains into Grand Central on third rail, and also to operate system wide as diesel-electrics.

Before the FL-9s, passenger trains operated behind electrics on 11k up until reaching NYC track, where they switched to 650 VDC third rail. The mainline 11k extended only as far as New Haven; a Boston train would have to change to diesel (or steam) at NH. The FL-9s allowed one unit to run from Boston (and elsewhere) into GCT.

At the time that the FL-9s came along, the electrics were getting old, as was the wire and the generating plant at Cos Cob. The FL-9s permitted retirement of most of the electric locomotives, took some of the load of the wire and Cos Cob, and gave the railroad greater operating flexability.

 #158120  by AmtrakFan
 
The FL9's were a great unit.

 #158153  by DutchRailnut
 
Not from Operators viewpoint, The FL4 1/2 Of F**king Lousy nine.
They rode hard and were noisy, hot in summer and in winter you frose your butt off.
The Electric part was a hoax and IF IF IF it worked it broke in one or two trips.

Give me a Genesis anyday

 #158729  by Engineer Spike
 
I don't think that they were a good idea. The claim about the electrics being old is not valid. The Jets were new. The streamliners were about 15, and the last boxcabs were what the GG1 was based on (and they lasted for about 50 years). It is a fact that one of McGinnis' boys was an EMD man. He wanted to replace the roster with all GP9, FL9, and SW1200. Even some of the 500 class were only a few years old.
Power still had to be serviced in New Haven anyway. That was by this point the only heavy shop. Didn't even the FL9 need to stop for more boiler water?
I have read that the policy of running diesels under the wire was expensive. The wire was still needed for the Muts. The diesels were jsut wasting fuel and electricity, which stlii had to be generated. This is why the trustees bought the Virginians.
My uncle worked on the NH. He calls them FL4 1/2 too. He said that an engineer that he fired for said, "If I need to slow down for a 30 mph crossover, I loose the whole schedule. A Jet could accelerate out of a slow order or crossover faster."

 #158822  by Sam Damon
 
DutchRailnut wrote:Not from Operators viewpoint, The FL4 1/2 Of F**king Lousy nine.
They rode hard and were noisy, hot in summer and in winter you frose your butt off.
The Electric part was a hoax and IF IF IF it worked it broke in one or two trips.

Give me a Genesis anyday
When you say this, do you mean a P40 or P42DC, the dual-mode P32AC-DM, or just any one of those Genesis locos?

Just curious.

 #159087  by Allen Hazen
 
(For a fight about McGinnis, try posting to the New haven forum here on Railroad.net-- the pros and cons of the McGinnis régime are still controversial!)
The "Jets" (EP-5 electrics built by GE in ??1954??) were rated as 4000 hp locomotives-- whether GE used the designation or not I don't know, but they are often referred to as E-40.
An FL-9 was a 1750hp locomotive (I guess the second order were 1800), but that's power input to the traction generator: drawbar horsepower would have been closer to 1435.
Most of the New Haven's passenger trains could be handled by two FL-9, but there were a couple of very heavy trains out of Grand Central that had a note in the operating department's timetable: must have Jet locomotive or three FL-9.

 #159114  by mxdata
 
Yes, and a performance comparison between an EP-5 "Jet" and a pair of FL9's on a train with an equal number of cars and tonnage is no contest at all. The "Jet" has more horsepower to work with and substantially lower rolling resistance.

 #160758  by ELSDP45
 
Allen Hazen wrote:An FL-9 was a 1750hp locomotive (I guess the second order were 1800), but that's power input to the traction generator: drawbar horsepower would have been closer to 1435.
Most of the New Haven's passenger trains could be handled by two FL-9, but there were a couple of very heavy trains out of Grand Central that had a note in the operating department's timetable: must have Jet locomotive or three FL-9.
If I recall correctly EMD's horsepower rating was what was available to traction, not gross output of prime mover (ex. SD-45 rated at 3600 but prime mover put out 4000, 400hp lost in parasitic losses such as air compressor and aux. gen).

 #160768  by Allen Hazen
 
SDP45--
Yes. EMD (and other builders in North America, when describing units intended for service in North America) give as the ho4sepower rating the power that the engine delivers to the traction generator: gross engine output (used in much of the rest of the world to rate diesel locomotives) is about 10% more. (I think export locomotives from American builders are sometimes described with two horsepower ratings separated with a slash: these would be the rating by the American and by the European conventions.)
The input to the main generator has to be reduced again (by about 18% for locomotives before the 1980s) to account for the energy losses in the transmission before you get the horsepower comparable to what is used in rating straight electrics. (Or such at least is my understanding.)

 #161684  by Allen Hazen
 
Trainlawyer--
Another nit, a support, a quibble, and an issue.
----The nit: The (all-diesel) FP-9 was 4 feet longer than a straight (freight) F-9. The FL-9 was another four feet longer again. (Roughly 50 feet, 54 feet, 58 feet.)
----Support: the E-33 were dirt cheap: after all, norfolk & Westerrn had discontinued their electric operation for operational reasons, and the only other customers potentially interested besides the New Haven were scrap dealers. I think I've seen the price-- can't remember it, but I think the New Haven managed to pick up five-year old 3300hp electrics at a unit price perhaps ?? a sixth ?? what new 1800hp diesels would have cost.
----A quibble: you point out that even electric locomotives need maintenance, which the New Haven could hardly afford (and the maintenance costs probably tend to increase with age). Still, the newest "old' electrics (EP-4 and EF-3) were "clones" of the GG-1. Since PRR/PC/Amtrak kept the GG-1 in service for another quarter century,
the maintenance that would have been needed to keep their electrical and mechanical cousins running wouldn't have been huge. ... My guess is that a more important factor was that the passenger DIESEL fleet -- Dl-109 and two maintenance heavy post-war models -- was coming due for replacement, and replacing them with locomotives that could play electric for the last few miles into Grand Central was just icing on the cake.
---Issue: I have read somewhere (?book called ???the fall of the New Haven Railroad?? ?) that Alpert gave as his reason for scrapping the older electrics that "someone had told him" that the railroad's own generating plant (Cos Cob) was worn out and could fail at any minute, despite reports by consulting engineers that it was sound. If the REAL reasons for replacing the electrics with FL-9 were the ones you describe (or, for that matter, if the real reasons were something that couldn't be admitted in public), this statement was just window-dressing and camouflage. Which, given its surface implausibility (at least as reported), it may have been.

 #161708  by AmtrakFan
 
Have any FL9's been preserved?

 #161858  by DutchRailnut
 
The six FL9m's are still in service, none are in museums yet.
The FL9m's are the MK rebuilts from 1996.

The preseved FL9's are:
2002-2019 at Naugy.
2006-2013 at Danbury Railway museum.
2023 at CERM at Willimantic.
3 FL9's went to Cooperstown & Charlotte RR.
and 3 or 4 went to Adirondac scenic RR.