Ridgefielder wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 12:33 pmFor what it's worth, the FL9's had five axles-- four-wheel leading truck, six-wheel trailing truck. Needed to be like that to spread out the weight of the steam generator on the Park Ave viaduct leading into GCT.
NaugyRR wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 2:27 pmEven they tended to ride a little rough. My first cab ride was in the RMNE's FL9 while I was still in high school and you really felt it going through some switches. In Pentrex's Along the Hudson Division DVD they show cab footage from an Amtrak FL9 making the cross over at Spuyten Duyvil and it REALLY shows there.
Didn’t realize that. The FL9 didn’t use Blomberg trucks but rather Flexicoils, both two and three-axle - did the ride quality generally suffer with those trucks as opposed to similar locomotives with Blombergs? One of the few direct comparisons that comes to mind is the SW1500 versus the SW1504.
The SDP40F used the next generation HT-C trucks, but Amtrak specified a special hollow center bolster to reduce the weight.
gokeefe wrote: ↑Wed Dec 18, 2019 7:23 pm
Was the derailment tendency seen at switches or on main line track at speed (perhaps on curves?)?
At speed on curves. Specifically, the second unit was known to climb over the outside rail when coupled to some baggage cars.