E-8 Pulling the Aero Train

It's pretty well known that the Aerotrain locomotive was underpowered and had problems with the full consist on any challenging route.  Oddly, this issue followed the Aerotrain to the model world, the Railking locomotive is challenged to pull ten of the 12" cars as well!

joe krasko posted:

Happened to be surfing...found "NAKED CITY" show from the late 50's,episode 31 in the beginning it shows the Aero Train being towed at high speed by a UP E-8...it's very short ,but interesting  ...joe

Don't know about the "high speed", but in Southern California, the Aero Train ALWAYS required help ascending Cajon Pass.

It's almost as if GM (not EMD as IIRC their components were off-the-shelf) designed the Aero Train specifically to chase people AWAY from trains......and into their carz.  

Hot Water posted:

 in Southern California, the Aero Train ALWAYS required help ascending Cajon Pass.

Usually, it was a GP9, based on several photographs..  As long as the geep was cut off at Summit or Victorville and returned to San Bernardino, any UPRR GP9 could be used.

After passing Barstow, the Aerotrain left the trackage rights over Santa Fe, and entered the UPRR at Daggett.  East of there, Cima Hill, Kelso to Cima, has the same tonnage rating as Cajon Pass, San Bernardino to Summit.  I was just a kid, in sixth grade, when UPRR was using the Aerotrain as the City of Las Vegas, and am not sure what they did about a helper on Cima Hill.  But, if they need a helper on Cajon, one would think that they also needed one on Cima Hill.

So . . . east of Oro Grande, to Barstow, Santa Fe had 100 MPH double track with ATS and Automatic Block System, and all passenger engines were required to be ATS equipped.  Unless UPRR had a couple of their boiler geeps equipped with ATS, the engine would have had to be cut off of the Aerotrain at Summit or Victorville, and a second helper engine would have been needed on Cima Hill.

Perhaps an E8 was tried, as a through helper to cover both hills, since it was ATS equipped, and could run 100 MPH on the ATSF high speed portion without delay to add and remove an engine on two helper districts. (??? Just wondering ???)  More likely, though, there was a problem with the Aerotrain locomotive that day, and there wasn't time to repair it before the City of Las Vegas was scheduled to depart Los Angeles.  This paragraph is purely conjecture, as I do not know any first hand facts about this unusual use of an E8 as a helper.

Does anyone know anything about the UPRR practice for getting the Aerotrain up its Cima Hill?  Or whether any Union Pacific boiler geeps had ATS?

Based on all I read about the Aerotrain, running it at 100 MPH would have been a VERY rough ride for the passengers, so I doubt they pushed it nearly that fast.

Did the Aerotrain even use steam heat?  If not, any road locomotive would do as a helper.

None of the photo's I've looked at show any evidence of steam leaking or exhaust.  Plus the coupler opening doesn't seem large enough for a steam heat connection.

Rusty

Interesting question, they sure needed heat in the NE, so they must have had something.

There are several episode "31s". What season? Time Stamp?

Thanks

The AT was bus bodies on railroad wheels.  Was not the power unit based on the GM 1200 hp switcer prime mover? And only one truck in the powered unit had traction motors.

Rusty Traque posted:

Did the Aerotrain even use steam heat?  If not, any road locomotive would do as a helper.

None of the photo's I've looked at show any evidence of steam leaking or exhaust.  Plus the coupler opening doesn't seem large enough for a steam heat connection.

Rusty

I guess I misled you by mentioning a boiler geep.

No, there was no steam heat on Aerotrain.  The reason I mentioned a UP boiler geep is that they had a few GP7's and GP9's equipped for passenger service.  What I am unsure of is whether they were equipped with ATS.  Union Pacific ran a lot of secondary passenger trains which sometimes used a geep, but not in California over the ATSF trackage rights between Oro Grande and Daggett, where ATSF would have required it.  There would not have been a reason for UPRR to have a freight GP9 equipped with ATS.

And I want to leave no doubt that I have no first-hand experience with the Aerotrain City of Las Vegas.  It passed through Pomona, 13 miles north of my home, but I was just a sixth grade kid.  My family seldom went to Pomona, but often went three miles south, to Fullerton, where I became attached to my eventual Home Road.  The only info I have on the use of helpers on that train comes from photos I have seen, and all show a GP9 on Cajon Pass.

I have a long-time friend who might know something about this, and I'll ask him when we next talk.

IIRC I read somewhere that HEP was used for A/C and lights and that there were two gensets in the engine for that purpose. Don't remember mention of heat. I am unable to figure out where I read that. 

What I read was the prime mover was 1200HP, but 300HP was used for lights & A/C for the cars, leaving 900HP to move the train.  Apparently, that wasn't enough.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

What I read was the prime mover was 1200HP, but 300HP was used for lights & A/C for the cars, leaving 900HP to move the train.  Apparently, that wasn't enough.

Not on the VERY steep grade of Cajon Pass!

Yes! There it is in the Wiki-thingy:

Diesel power was provided by an EMD 567C 12-cylinder engine, which produced 1,200 hp (890 kW), with about 300-hp (222 kW) being diverted from the auxiliary generator to provide electricity for the train's lighting, air-conditioning, etc.

HEP was provided with an auxiliary generator driven by the prime mover rather than by a separate engine. Dumb design mistake.

Of course, Aerotrain was designed by Chuck Jordan, an automotive engineer, when he was....28yr old. He went on to "design" the '59 Cadillac, one of those monstrosities with giant tail fins. Scare quotes because what is being referenced is body styling, not the workings of the machine. It was the heyday of the appearance of an automobile being more important than it's safety&utility. It is no surprise that they didn't research the air-bag suspension wrt railroad use (hence the rough ride) and that they got something as basic as required horsepower completely wrong.  

Figuring that cars in the 60's could have two-three hundred HP, one wonders why they thought they could pull ten buses with 900HP.

Ya, those GM car guys needed to actually talk to the guys in the EMD division.

Regardless of the horsepower deficiencies and lousy ride, the Aerotrain is cool.  Very Buck Rogerish.

I vaguely remember seeing a promotional film for it on our wood-burning TV when the earth was cooling.

Rusty

I have the Aerotrain, it's a head-turner at shows, even though it was a flop in real life.

Researching Aerotrain on the internet can be confusing. There are many contradictions and misconceptions, depending on which website you visit. Being an armchair fan of the Aerotrain, I'll share what I have come to believe to be the most consistent information from separate articles and diagrams found in such publications as Popular Mechanics and Trains as well as other sources in late 1955.

The LWT12 locomotive was powered by EMD's 567C 12 cylinder prime mover rated at 1200 horsepower. It had a 2 axle front truck with both axles equipped with traction motors.  Under the rear was an unpowered single axle idler set of wheels.  A pair of smaller, six-cylinder GM Detroit Diesel engines (similar, but not identical to the engines that powered Budd RDC cars) located in the nose, ahead of the cab, provided the auxiliary power for the train's heat, lights and air conditioning.

The coaches were indeed bus bodies, manufactured at GM's Pontiac Michigan facility and heavily modified for Aerotrain.

With components manufactured by GM companies such as EMD, Frigidaire, Detroit Diesel, Delco and their Truck and Bus Division, the entire Aerotrain project was indeed a General Motors "family affair".   

Warmest Regards,

C.J.

OK, looking up the GM 4104 bus (the body of which was adapted to Aerotrain) it had a 6/71 Roots blown diesel rated at 210Hp. Including parasitic HEP loss Aero train produced 90Hp per body/coach. 

So I guess losing over half the power didn't so the performance any good?

Was the AT placed into the wrong service?  Seems PRR, NYC, and UP placed it in high speed service.  Seems RI got it right by placing in in local and commuter service.

The whole thing looks like Flash Gordan meets LRT!

I find Aerotrain to be a puzzle. How did they miss it so badly? With GM money backing EMD talent&experience they should have done much better.

Lightweight single-axle/Talgo cars do have ride problems with relatively rough American track-work but GM had much experience by then with air-suspension and they should have been able to tailor it better. 

At 16T per car the 10 car train weighed 160 tons plus the locomotive weighing   87 tons for a total of 247 tons. The LWT12 locomotive at 1200Hp is basically half an E9. A fifteen car Streamliner at 975 tons was drawn by three E9s, if not four. So yes, doing the arithmetic Aerotrain was underpowered.

Researching led me to this nugget: a link to the 1955 Popular Mechanics article about Aerotrain. The article starts on page 81:

https://books.google.com/books...ge&q&f=false

And guess what! According to the article Aerotrain HEP was provided by "a supplementary power plant" located "in the nose of the locomotive" with a fuel consumption of "only one gallon per hour per coach". A picture accompanying the article indeed depicts "a generator for auxiliary power" in the nose of the locomotive. So not robbing power from the Prime Mover! The Wikipedia article on the LWT12 locomotive was wrong. I may endeavor to fix that, citing the PM article as authority.

Ok, a little more information. At rrpicturearchives.net are photos of a three page article about Aerotrain in the July-August 1955 issue of Pennsy Magazine:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.n...ture.aspx?id=4669284

The pertinent details are on page two:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.n...ture.aspx?id=4669285

"Two other GM Diesel engines will provide current for train-heating, lighting and air-conditioning".

On the same page is another detail: "Each car will also have oil heat." In 1955 the only kind of oil burning heaters I know of are the finicky old "pot burner" heaters. That would have been a maintenance nightmare.

Fixed! I edited the Wikipedia article on the EMD LWT12 locomotive and added the two citations supporting the edit.