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From: <okt@j...>
To: <NPTellTale@yahoogroups.com>; <BRHSlist@yahoogroups.com>;
<gngoat@yahoogroups.com>; <westernrailfan@yahoogroups.com>;
<drgw@yahoogroups.com>; <JimBoydRnR@a...>
>
> Back to the freight units. That 1947 document came out of EMD's Field
> Service Department, which was an arm of the Sales Department if it
> wasn't a separate department altogether, as I recall. It has the
> effect of distinguishing units of the original freight model that had
> type E couplers at both ends from units that had a coupler at one end
> and a drawbar at the other. Recall, the "Model F Standard" locomotive
> was a cab section coupled to a trailing section by a drawbar. The
> term "section" is far more appropriate for these beasts than is
> "units," because neither of the two parts of the locomotive could be
> operated without the other. Neither section was wholly independent of
> the other. The batteries for both were in the A section. The A
> section couldn't be coupled to anything in regular service except a B
> section. The B section had no batteries and lacked a coupler at one
> end. As I've said, the FT was conceived not as a four-section
> locomotive but as a two-section locomotive. See my previous post on
> why many four-section FTs were drawbarred together throughout.
>
> That's the way most FTs were built and usually numbered, as
> two-section jobbies. Many roads, of course, coupled two "Model Fs"
> back to back, and some later found that this was an overly powerful
> locomotive. (Thus the two-section FT coupled to a single F2 or F3 on
> these roads.) The Santa Fe and a few other roads, on the other hand,
> had EMD build them a significantly modified version of the "Model F."
> It had batteries in both sections, couplers at both ends of both
> sections, a somewhat different frame construction at the ends where
> the drawbar would have been, a hostler control in the B unit (now we
> can call these devices units instead of sections), and some other
> changes.
>
In his discussion of the "FT"s, Wallace Abbey continues to exclude one
common variation, probably because it did not apply to the Santa Fe (which
also does *not* apply to BRHSlist, where I read his post) -
After initial introduction of the "two-section" (Mr. Abbey's term) 2700hp FT
with its permanent drawbar, EMD became aware of a market for an intermediate
locomotive between the 2700hp and 5400hp levels. Thus was born the
three-unit order: two standard FT cabs and a redesigned B section which left
off the ca. 4 1/2 overhang from the original coupler end. This modification
(retroactively designated "FTSB" by EMD), drawbarred to the two cabs,
produced a three-section locomotive of 4050hp, and was bought in relatively
small numbers by several roads such as the M&StL and the CRI&P.
The Santa Fe's splitting of FTs with the addition of new cabs to produce
3-unit power was mirrored by the CB&Q's by the splitting of 5 of their FT
lashups and addition of the only 10 Q F-2s to create the 150s.
Marshall Thayer
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