Two New Haven Railroad diesel locomotives and my models of them.
During the 1950s, the New Haven Railroad owned two types of diesel-electric locomotives with the same unusual wheel arrangement. On these engines, the leading truck had two axles and the trailing truck had three, so the wheel configurations were designated B-A1A. Two axles were powered on the leading and trailing trucks, but the middle axles on the trailing trucks were unpowered. The locomotives were the Electro-Motive Division FL-9 (Classes EDER-5 and 5a) which went into passenger service in 1957 with a 1750 horsepower V-16 engine, and the Fairbanks-Morse CPA-24-5 C-Liner (Class DER-4) which went into passenger service in 1951 with a 2400 horsepower opposed-piston engine that had been used in submarines during World War 2. New Haven’s sixty FL-9s were delivered in the McGinnis red-black-white paint scheme. Its ten CPA-24-5s were delivered in the New Haven’s green/gold scheme and were later repainted into the McGinnis scheme. The FL-9s had a three-axle trailing truck to keep the axle-loading within limits required on the Park Avenue Viaduct leading into Grand Central Terminal in New York City. The CPA-24-5 trailing truck had three axles to support the additional weight of its steam generator. The FL-9s were dual-mode locomotives that could run as a diesel-electric or a DC electric for the 12-miles between Woodlawn, New York and Grand Central Terminal. The New Haven Railroad used these locomotives between New York City and Boston, and elsewhere.
I run New Haven consists powered by models of each of these unique locomotive types on my 12’-by-8’ model railroad. The FL-9 model of #2043 was made by Sunset/3rd Rail in 2013 and is powered by a single horizontal motor. The CPA-24-5 model of #793 was delivered by MTH Premier (20-20474-1) in 2015 with dual motors and MSRP $479.95. The New Haven carried a large amount of mail between New York and Boston, so my train includes two Railway Post Office cars. RPO #3283 is an Atlas O model and #3286 is a Weaver model. The passenger cars in the consist were made by Atlas O Trainman.
MELGAR
