Hello, Marshall.
Sorry for the slow response, but I had to put work
ahead of one of my hobbies. 8-)
> You should be chairman of the "Good Questions
> Committee", Bill!
Thanks, Marshall. I do keep trying!
> I *do* know the following, though - for locomotives
> which might have extended shut-down times (such as
> branchline service GPs and SDs or some switchers,
> the Q installed "overnight" heaters (the
> box-and-stack arrangement behind the cab) which
> served to keep the engine coolant from freezing
> during shut-down.
Back in July, 1973, I read a story in TRAINS titled
something like "The Case of the Plugged-In Train
Master." It was about how some railroad somewhere
used one of these heaters on their Fairbanks-Morse
unit. I thought the whole idea was interesting, if a
little strange.
> One other Q-fact may come into play here. The CB&Q
> had a unit-usage program that was a model for the
> industry.
Didn't the Q carry this idea over into the BN and its
freight diesels? It seems to me that I read something
about this in TRAINS back in the 80s.
> You mentioned a unit-freezing incident on the Rock
> Island in 1968. The Rock Island in its last few
> decades (sorry, RITS co-subscribers) was a rather
> poorly managed road, and had inherited problems as
> well.
My only intimate contact with the Rock Island was the
Twin Star Rocket. But i saw signs of the problems
during the span of my riding the Rocket -- 1954 -
1969. The first sign to me was the disappearance of
that glorious Rocket paint scheme. I thought the Rock
Island units were even more beautiful than the Santa
Fe warbonnets. More than once, I wished that the Q
had had a bit more color on its passenger diesels, but
with those stainless steel sides, I guess that the
railroad felt it didn't need any more color than that.
> For one thing, it was unit-rich and
> assignment-poor by 1968. Extended engine shut-down
> without protection is what causes the problem you
> described
OK. That would explain it. I thought that they would
take the power off of, say, Friday night's train to
Kansas City and put it on Saturday morning's train to
Minneapolis. If they indeed had a unit glut, then
that would be the last thing they would do.
Thanks for your time, Marshall. I always enjoy
talking with you.
Bill Chambers
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