This is from the ATSF list, pretty interesting info.
Terry
--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Wally Abbey <wabbey@R...>
To: SANTAFE@c...
Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2001 11:02:13 -0700
Subject: EMC's FTs
Message-ID: <p04320400b6c9700d8065@[166.93.38.172]>
Members,
Please, let me straighten out the misunderstandings about EMC's FTs,
particularly Santa Fe's. Fifty or sixty years of revisionist history
have really messed up the facts. The problem started when Dr. Sylvan
Wood got it wrong in his Santa Fe roster for R&LHS in the late 1940s,
and what we've seen since is that error perpetuated and embellished.
Not to brag, but I've done extensive research into this question,
from original EMC and EMD records, and if I can ever find time to get
it finished I'll have a book out on Santa Fe's FTs that will set the
record straight. Those 80 locomotives really got freight
dieselization started nationwide.
EMC conceived a freight diesel at the same time it conceived a
passenger diesel. But it couldn't proceed with the freight diesel
until (1) it had begun to take care of the market for "streamliner"
passenger locomotives and (2) it had developed a more powerful prime
mover, the 16-cylinder 567 engine. (It also needed its own assembly
plant, which it built at La Grange.) What has become known as EMC 103
was the prototype, and highly experimental, first freight locomotive
built. It was introduced in 1939, as I recall without checking.
If the freight locomotive was known by any particular designation
back then the designation was "Model F." At least, that's what EMC's
Engineering Department called it. The Sales Department, later, seems
to have introduced the terminology "FT." But regardless of what it
was called, the freight locomotive was a different breed than the
passenger locomotive. It was much more a lengthened and more powerful
passenger locomotive, geared down, than it was two shortened units
fastened together. A single locomotive containing two 16-cylinder
engines rather than two 12-cylinder engines would have been too long
and too heavy for one frame. So the freight locomotive was built in
two carbodies. It had only one set of batteries, and the physical
connection between the two "sections" was a drawbar and not a pair of
AAR type E couplers. Absent the front section, the rear section
wasn't going anywhere except in tow. It had no hostler controls or
anything else of the sort. And it had a standard coupler at only one
end. A four-section FT was two two-section "building blocks" coupled
back to back. The FT was conceived as a two-section locomotive, not
as a four-section locomotive.
Santa Fe tested the 103 for a month very shortly after it went on the
road. One of the recommendations of its Test Department was that the
locomotive be built as four entirely separate and self-sustaining
sections. That's the way the Santa Fe ordered its 100 and all of the
other 80 freight locomotives it bought--as four independent,
coupler-equipped units. This caused EMC some pain, in that it hadn't
anticipated such a modification in the original design. There was no
room at the rear of the lead section and at the front of the trailing
section for a standard draft gear, drawbar and coupler! It solved the
problem with a special coupler the shank of which curled around the
top of the traction motor. There was no draft gear. Santa Fe's FTs
ran this way until the end. Santa Fe's special design did give it
more flexibility with its FTs than other roads had (although some
other roads also ordered the Santa Fe modification, and many FTs on
other roads were later rebuilt with couplers at both ends). Santa
Fe's 100s could be coupled up in any total number of units, one
through six in actual practice. (There were reasons related to the
dynamic brake why locomotives of more than four units were a little
impractical.) Standard Model Fs could be coupled up only in twos and
fours.
But the Santa Fe paid a price for its innovation. The scene now
shifts to the labor front. But the story here isn't as it's usually
been told, either.
As soon as railroads began creating passenger--not freight, but
passenger--locomotives of more than one unit for its new
streamliners, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and the
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers began demanding what amounted to
a full crew for each unit. This hassle started around 1937, well
before the first FT was introduced. It became known as the First
Diesel Case, and it went on until about 1943, as I recall. (I'll have
the complete story in the book.) Freight diesels were hardly
mentioned in the First Diesel Case.
Where the four-section freight diesel became a problem was an
altogether different issue. EMC and some of the railroads saw this
problem coming. But those (including Dr. Wood) who assumed that the
problem was with the engine crews were looking at the wrong end of
the train. In Western territory (roughly, the railroads west of the
Mississippi), a contract rule had existed since about 1903 in the
agreements with the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen and the Order of
Railway Conductors that prohibited doubleheading if the tonnage of
the train was greater than the rating of the more powerful of the two
locomotives. Well, what was a four-section FT but two identical,
equally rated, two-section locomotives coupled back to back? A train
with a four-section FT, under the rule, could only weigh the rating
of half the locomotive!
Most, but not all, railroads in the West got around the doubleheader
rule by having EMD deliver their FTs with a drawbar between the B
sections rather than with couplers at that location. EMD offered this
drawbar as a no-cost option. It fit right into the draft-gear pockets
just as a coupler would. Four-section FTs so equipped suddenly were
one locomotive, not two. But the Santa Fe, having had EMD engineer
the drawbars between the A and B sections out of existence, was
stuck. All its FTs (most of which didn't arrive until late in World
War II) were totally independent units with couplers at both ends.
The special drawbar wouldn't work between the A and B sections.
Now you know why, as quickly as it could, the Santa Fe swapped out
the trailing cab units of the first of its freight diesels for a
third booster unit. With only one cab unit, a four-unit FT could only
be considered one locomotive. The trailing cabs of the 100 and 101
became the sole cab units on the 102 and 103. The 104 was delivered
as an A-B-B-B. So was every other member of the 100 class up to about
151. What happened to unit numbers and unit assignments after that is
another story, one based on actions taken by the government during
the war and the ultimate revision of labor agreements.
Couple other items: The common designation for the Rock Island's
little Rocket diesels was TA. These 1,200-horsepower units rode on
four-wheel trucks. I don't know what the MoP's combination
half-locomotive and half-baggage car was called. I think it late rgot
a second prime mover, but I'm not certain.
Hope this helps.
Wally
--
Wally Abbey
781 McCarthy Boulevard
Pueblo, CO 81005-9704
719.564.2210
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