GGI along NE Corridor

Funny, you have my name. I enjoyed a visit to Harrisburg station, seeing the GG1 parked there, as I was returning to NYC. So, at least one GG1 traveled there.

This site

http://www.spikesys.com/GG1/paint.html

delineates all the GG-1 paint schemes. Basically, green 5-stripe through 1952 (different lettering styles), tuscan 5-stripe through 1955, green fat stripe into the 1960's except for two units painted tuscan fat stripe.

The G's ran all the way to Harrisburg.

I grew up alongside the PRR main line in the area you ask about. The majority of G's in the late 50's and 60's were DGLE single broad stripe with the large keystone. Prior to that would have been DGLE 5 stripe. There were only 4 units painted Tuscan. After 1968 the black Penn Central scheme started showing up (ugh!).

During that time I saw as many G's pulling freights as passenger trains.

I saw a lot of GG1's in the 1960's, and I can't remember any other scheme except this one, at least until Penn Central arrived.  But, there were only a few red ones. All photos Washington, DC.

B&OBill

Very helpful and interesting. Thanks. 

The PRR in the 1950s intended the 10 Tuscan Red GG1s for use with the Congressionals, the Senator and the Federal all to Washington from New York City and return. The railroad soon discovered that availability of a Tuscan Red GG1 to handle one of these trains could be a problem at times so the Green engines might be on these trains as well. Occasionally , a tuscan red GG1 might be assigned to a New York to Harrisburg train but it usually was a rare assignment in those days.

Although the single stripe scheme was the predominant scheme in the 1960's not all engines were repainted when Penn Central came about in 1968. When the New Haven was incorporated into Penn Central shortly after the merger, GG1's began to run through to New Haven. There are some photographs out there of 5 stripers in Connecticut locations.

Engine number 4876 in the 5 stripe dark green scheme was at the point of the Federal in January 1952 when the train was a run-a-way as it came into Washington Union Station. The locomotive crashed through the track area and entered a waiting room which had been cleared of passengers and fell into the basement of the station. It was covered over during the Eisenhower inauguration . After the President was installed, The PRR cut 4876 into pieces and removed it from the station sending it to be rebuilt. It returned in 1953 as #4876 in Tuscan Red 5 stripe scheme.  

Thanks Steve, great info.

Living near the main line in Philly I saw mostly single and 5 stripe green GG1's. Saw tons of Penn centrals of which I really liked. But like all PC in that era not many were kept clean.

"Engine number 4876 in the 5 stripe dark green scheme was at the point of the Federal in January 1952 when the train was a run-a-way as it came into Washington Union Station. "

I just saw 4876 yesterday. It is at the B&O Railroad Museum, in Baltimore, awaiting restoration. It is not on public display but can be seen from the Museum's excursion train. 

B&OBill

i thought i had read somewhere that the B&O museum was trying to sell 4876, and if they couldn't sell it they were more likely going to scrap it. as 4876 is far back on their to do list for restoration...

where did the silver GG1 run, this is the one I ordered from trainworld.

Hi Pete

GG1 4866 was one of three painted in the Silver scheme. It is the number used by WBB for this scheme .These were intended for the Congressional trains running between New York City Pennsylvania Station and Washington DC Union Station along the NE corridor. Each congressional train set would make 1- 1/2 round trips daily between NYC and the Capitol. I Thought that the WBB silver scheme is nicely done . Its very striking in my opinion. I need to bring mine back because it has a malfunctioning soundboard. The green one is fine.

Take two; the're small!!

thanks LIRR,

I ordered the scale version, I will have to order the WBB 6 car 72" silver passenger car set to go with the GG1.

you are welcome DL&W.

The PRR Congressional trains were Budd built in 1952. These trains ran into the PC merger in 1968. As built until the early 1960's , the cars had a full length Tuscan Red Letter board with Pennsylvania in Gold letters . Coaches, diners were numbered but the Parlor Cars carried names . They were named for famous Americans many from the colonial era . Pullman operated the Parlors from 1952 to 1956 and there was a small Pullman sign at the car ends . After 1956 PRR operated the parlor cars and the sign was changed to parlor and the car number added to match the coaches and diners. All the cars always had small red keystones on the ends. The observation car had squared ends like the DL&W Phoebe snow Tavern Lounges. Since the Silver GG1's were right about the time that the parlors went from Pullman to PRR operation, either way would be appropriate in my opinion. Williams does not have a squared off observation i dont think. Sounds like it will be a nice train.  Enjoy your Congressional!!         

thanks again LIRR,

the GG1 just came today in the mail, how many cars did it pull from DC to NYC. I saw one video on youtube where one GG1 pulled a 19 car train. would like to get close to the real thing.

DL&W Pete:

To give you some extra flexibility in operating your silver GG1, even though the three silver locomotives were intended primarily for Congressional service, they drew other assignments as well. For example, here's the 4866 at South Amboy in NY&LB shuttle service:

http://www.trainweb.org/railpi...ix/PRR-GG1c-9-58.jpg

Bob  

There were 36 cars bought for the Congressional which made up two trainsets of 18 cars . Depending on the passenger loading, not all of them may have been used in a given train. An 18 car congressional would be authentic and quite a train on anyone's layout and probably quite a load on your WBB GG1. Probably an 8-10 car train would look really nice and could be practical for a large layout .Even the 6 car set from WBB would look like a nice train .

The cars for the Senators were similar and came from the same  order. The Senator was a joint New Haven PRR train from Boston to Washington DC. There were two 14 car sets bought for this service . PRR invested about $10M in these two trains in 1952.

Great photo's charlie! any details on that wreck?

Thanks for the photo CNJ. When the railroad created these paint schemes for the GG1's , the intention was to use them on these trains which is what they did for the most part in the early years. What happenned from time to time is that one of these red or silver  locomotives might not be available for the train on a particular day because of maintenance or whatever . So a silver or red GG1 would have drawn another assignment such as we see in your photo. Thanks for posting it.

LIRR:

I believe the Don Ball book "Pennsylvania Railroad - 1940's - 1950's" mentions that the silver G's were originally intended for service pulling the ACL and SAL "Florida" trains between Washington and New York.  The book may be wrong, of course.

Curt

this silver GG1 is sharp looking. if it did pull all 18 cars, what was the breakdown of the cars. the williams 6 car 18" set has one baggage, 4 coach, and one observation.

I just need one more goldengate car for my 2 rail Lackawanna Limited for my complete 9 car train to be pulled by my weaver pocono.

Would like to have a nice scale train for this GG1.

again thanks to all for this very HELPFUL information.

Most of the congressional would have been coaches and maybe a dinner for the afternoon/eve. runs. The trip was only an hour and a half so no need for baggage cars unless they were moving mail/freight.

The PRR Congressional/Senator is a web site with all cars in order for both train sets.

The Congo I believe took 3 and a half hours  NYC to Washington.  one and a half hours would only take it NYC to Phila.

enjoy

mikeg

I understand that there were issues with the Early GG's with vents eating snow among other things.

I think if I remember right, no more than three GG1's took a train into the Corridor. Something about practical maximum draw on the power and loads.

I would also be pretty sure by now any GG1's left would have had the so called un-friendly environmental materials removed.

I liked the wreck pictures where the N&W and B&O Cranes worked together. What fuel did these things run off of and how did they transport/supply it?

Here's the one at the RR Museum of PA:

Peter

According to my "GG1 Special" issue of Classic Trains magazine, in February of 1958 just about every G was dead due to fine snow particles getting through those low mounted vents which shorted out the traction motors.  To prevent another near total shutdown, they modified 30 G's with high mounted air intakes (just below the pantographs on each side of the  "Hoods".

My Lionel JLC model captured that modification.

one GG1 could handle the train. Train Make up was probably 2/3 coach, 1/3 parlors . Among the coaches, one could find Snack/lounge cars and a diner at the end of the coach section and the start of the parlor cars . The observation had rooms used as conference rooms and a bar/lounge. The senator was a similar arrangement but 14 cars in the trainset. These trains were generally patronized by business clientele. I would imagine that todays Acelas service is evocative of that type of service but most likely not on the scale offered on the congressional. 

As for the origin of the Silver units, PRR hired an art director in 1954 to create a bold modern statement for these PRR trains. The Silver GG1's were the first creation from the director. They quickly became dirty and weathered poorly and were repainted within a few years to the darker carbody but still with the large keystone and bold single stripe.

p85h coach 8 per consist

d85ed coffee shop, lounge for coach passengers

dl856d &d85c kitchen,lounge diner for parlor car passengers

pp85 parlor car 5 each consist

pp85a all room parlor car 1 each consist

poc85b parlor lounge car 1 per consist

if you go to golden gate, Scotts congo is very prototypical in cars for congo.  if you want more than 12 cars you will have to order more than the 3 sets. 

the consist is from website the prr congressional/senator as listed earlier.

hope this helps.

i have all three sets ordered as 12 cars is more than enough despite my long length at the station; which will only take 12 cars by pushing it. 

mikeg

Included in the ZIP file are images for four complete trains, two each of the Congressional and Senator. The GG-1 locomotives and B60b baggage cars in these trains are the work of Matthew Brown.

Use the following in your user_bmp.ini

{LocoStart}FILE=[FILE-LOCATION]\PRR_Congo_L.dib;LABEL=PRR GG-1 + "The Congressional";GT=E;EPOCHE=4;ULAND=USA;OL=J;OLH=1;RICHTUNG=L;VMIN=4;EXEMPLARE=1;ZG=63;SELECTED=1;{LocoEnd}

{LocoStart}FILE=[FILE-LOCATION]\PRR_Congo_R.dib;LABEL=PRR GG-1 + "The Congressional";GT=E;EPOCHE=4;ULAND=USA;OL=J;OLH=1;RICHTUNG=R;VMIN=4;EXEMPLARE=1;ZG=63;SELECTED=1;{LocoEnd}

{LocoStart}FILE=[FILE-LOCATION]\PRR_Senator_L.dib;LABEL=PRR GG-1 + "The Senator";GT=E;EPOCHE=4;ULAND=USA;OL=J;OLH=1;RICHTUNG=L;VMIN=4;EXEMPLARE=1;ZG=63;SELECTED=1;{LocoEnd}

{LocoStart}FILE=[FILE-LOCATION]\PRR_Senator_R.dib;LABEL=PRR GG-1 + "The Senator";GT=E;EPOCHE=4;ULAND=USA;OL=J;OLH=1;RICHTUNG=R;VMIN=4;EXEMPLARE=1;ZG=63;SELECTED=1;{LocoEnd}

the aabove is copied from the above mentioned web site, hope it helps

again, thanks to all for the information. I will buy the 18"williams cars and make a 8 car train, 1 baggage-6 coach-1 observation.

ogaugeguy,

WBB 72' scale streamliners,

4 car set #43162 PRR

2 car set #43112 PRR

hey pete,

do you have those? how do you like them?

as asked by Juniata Guy, the Silver/Red GG1 paint scheme was indeed created for taking Seaboard and ACL through trains from DC to NY Penn.

the Tuscan units were the scheme created for the Congressional, to match the tuscan letterboards and trim on the cars.

It would seem 3 GG1's in this scheme would have been insufficient for handling all the Florida Trains running on the PRR at the time.

Around this period, the PRR hired a fellow as " Art Director" with the intent of modernizing the railroads image for its then new trains meaning the Congressional and Senators. The GG1 scheme with bold single stripe and large Keystone is what he came up with. There were three done in the Silver color with red stripe matching the Congressional and Senator car schemes in style , the silver being referred to as "Congressional Silver" and two in the Red color when the implementation of the project began.  I believe the Silver scheme was found to be subject to showing dirt and rust stains very quickly which is likely why only the three were done this way.

Robert L Hunt painted an oil with of the 4866 in this scheme hauling a string of silver with red stripe cars resembling the Congressional or Senator . It was on the cover of the Winter 2003 Keystone.

We know that it was difficult for the PRR to keep its roster of Red and Silver GG1's available exclusively for the Congressional and Senator Trains. So it can be that the Silver GG1 could be on a Florida train or handling commuter trains on the New York and Long Branch operation or other assignments as well.

I took the tag on this website of GG1MAN because I always loved the engine from the time I was a little boy. But, when it comes to information about this beauty you guys are the GG1 professors.

I'm going to let this thread run it's course then I'll print out and save all this great information.

Oh yea I do have something to contribute, did you know that the gg1 was so powerful that the frame on many of them started to crack from the lodes they would pull.

Also the center cab design was pushed by the union as a crew safty issue. No operator was ever killed  in a GG1, even the unit 4876 that hit Union Station in 1952 and fell into the lower level of the terminal.