What are the Popular GE Models since the U25B?

@Rich Melvin posted:

The throttles in early GE diesels (the U-boats) were not vertical. It was a long horizontal lever that extended out of a control stand in a fairly normal fashion.

I worked for the P&LE back in the 60s. Our road locomotives were a fleet of U28-Bs. No vertical throttles.

Below are a couple of crude photos of pages from a GE Universal Series operating manual, showing the engineer's control stand with the 16 (actually 17 when you include the "IDLE" position) notch throttle.  This appears to be a later version of the GE control stand, as I recall a longer "dog leg" type throttle lever on some U Series units I operated 40+ years ago (....reaching back that far to recall some of this stuff gets more challenging every day).  

C.J.

Aww, jeez, don't get me started!

Create a reef...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

________________Sink a U-Boat_____________________________________________________________________________

Big Jim,

I agree. Personally, when it came to operating/occupying them, I did not care for the U boats. Some shortcomings I recall were that they were much noisier in the cab (especially the horn), and rode rougher at speed when compared to EMD models of the time. Not to mention the unique 16 Notch throttle design which was simply something that tended to confuse most engineers. 

They had narrow walkways along the long hood which made it nearly impossible to walk down the side of the locomotive without getting your clothes filthy by brushing up against the Dynamic Brake screens at the rear of the locomotive due to the dirt and grime accumulated on the screens there. The carbody door latch design was poor and many times long hood doors would simply be flopping in the wind as the units went down the line as they did not stay closed well. They also had narrower cab entry doors than EMD. As I recall, some of the heavy set men struggled to get into and out of the operating cab.

Of the units I remember, the "necessary room" or toilet compartment was located in the short, low nose and was not "user friendly" in any way shape or form, as one had to first open the small access door from the cab to the short nose, then it was necessary to pull up a hinged section of the cab floor, directly in front of the short nose access door, in order to fold yourself up and hunch over to step down and enter the compartment. Many men simply could not fit down into the compartment.

As Number 90 mentioned, my experience with the GE U Series locomotives is pretty much the same........... they were not very well liked by the operating crews.......

 C.J.

Sorry for the interruption. I did not catch the joke Jonathan. 

HW, I would think that any of those conditions generating heat alone would surpass the bug, let alone multiplying.

I see videos of VW engines used out in the desert sand. I can only guess that they stay cool enough to continue operation. I don't think they generate any big horsepower. So I should have known he was joking.

Out of my league here, I know. I love to follow these topics to learn more. I'll go back into the shadows.

I can only recall of one Engineer who liked u-boats. He said the Division Road Forman was to big to get through the doors to come in and check his books.

I am pretty familiar with the E-L U34CH's, as I was the customer liaison with E-L for this order.  The E-L Chief Mechanical Officer was John Day.  I asked him why he wanted a 6 motor loco for passenger service, and his reply was that he also intended to use these units for freight.  The loco was equipped with a "Schenectady made alternator" to supply Head End Power (HEP) for passenger service.  That alternator was shaft driven by an output shaft from the traction alternator.  The units had a "rheostat" type throttle.  At idle, the engine ran at 450 rpm.  At any other throttle notch, the engine ran at 960 rpm.  This was necessary in order to provide 480V 60 cycle power for the HEP to the car lights, heat, and air conditioning.  (There was a slight gear ration change in the gearbox that drove the Schenectady alternator, and this permitted synchronous 60 cycle at 960 rpm engine speed instead of 900 rpm, and also permitted the engine to provide power near its design rating of 1000 rpm, which was 3600 HP.)

Layover noise as a potential issue with these units, as GE wanted to apply a ten pole GTA11 alternator, but the layover rpm to a cold train early in the morning would be 720 rpm.  We had to resurrect a GTA9 alternator for this application, which permitted a 600 rpm idle speed and lower noise level.

I never saw a photo of these units on freight, and suspect that they spent their entire lives in commuter passenger service.

Here is the overhead style throttle used by the first two GE Demos, high hood R/Nos 751 and 752.

Thanks 5432 . Looks like no horn valve, They still used pull cords even in the '60's? Instead of a chime horn, UP was still using single note honkers on these engines and the U50's.

Sorry to be such a newb, but where does the AC6000 fit into the mix?

I think the railroads which ran passenger service, intercity or commuter, wanted locomotives which could be used for freight service.

SP commuter locomotives were weekend warriors;  the SF-San Jose units worked freights.

At GE the 6000 HP units were a brainchild of our GM of Engineering and our VP.  There were a huge qty of SD40-2's in service, and both GE and EMD wanted to displace those with new units, and the only way the economics worked was a one for two locomotive displacement.  GE wanted to increase market share.  EMD wanted to replace their SD40-2's with a  much more fuel efficient unit with an AC traction system.  The much higher HP (than 4400) was perceived as an advantage also for unit reduction on railroads that favored high HP units such as UP.  That's it in a nutshell.....

 6,000 hp GE's! The WDG-6G. There are other ~6000 hp GE locomotives for the international market, but this is rather cool looking example. Many of us run our O-gauge consists with just a single locomotive and the neat thing about India Railways is that they often avoid multiple unit operation and have just a single locomotive pulling the train.