Jonathan:
Though I have never seen anything official on the subject, I think it comes down to the fact that the Mechanical Department didn't trust the Alcos and Baldwins like it did the products of EMD. The railroad already had four or five years experience with EMC/EMD switchers when it was forced to take Alcos and Baldwins because EMD was not producing switchers during the war. And there was also the matter of parts availability for the "foreigners."
When new, the Baldwins were assigned to Chicago and Galesburg and they were regularly used on the Galesburg hump, where they apparently performed reasonably well. They ended up split pretty evenly between Chicago and Kansas City, and in that latter assignment to the St. Joseph Division, one or two of the VO-100s were employed in branchline service. On occasion in the late 1940s one of them worked the Red Oak-Shenandoah branch, and another worked the line from Creston to St. Joe. But those are the only instances I'm aware of where they worked in train service.
The Alcos were first assigned to Lincoln and, like the Baldwins, saw use as hump pushers. Some of them were then moved to Alliance, where they were strictly yard switchers, and by the late 1950s all nine of them were used as switchers in the Denver yards and on short industrial runs and transfer drags. The only branch operation out of Denver in which they could have been employed was the run up to Lyons, but in the mid-1950s one of the TR2 cow-calf sets was based at Denver and used on that branch, and after those units were all given cabs, several of them were based in Denver and once or twice at least a pair of them, MUed, was used on the "Buckwheat," as the Lyons Branch train was known. Denver yard crews had no problems with the Alcos, and they did quite well hauling lengthy transfers up the hill from the Q's 38th St. yard to Rio Grande's North Yard for movement on west on the Grande. But they never worked the "Buckwheat."
Again, none of this is official, just my suspicions and observations.
Hol
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
From: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2015 07:05:07 -0800
Subject: [CBQ] Diesel Assignments - the Burlington's Baldwins and ALCOs
From what I can tell, the Burlington's Baldwin VO-1000's and ALCO S-2's were used exclusively as yard switchers throughout their entire, quarter-century careers. This is in sharp contrast to other classes of first-generation diesel switchers on the Q, (almost?) all of which saw occasional road service, with some of them spending a great deal of time out on the road, typically as branchline engines. That was the case for the various EMD NW's and SW's, as well as for the GE 44-tonners and even the early oddball center cabs. Why then were the Baldwins and ALCOs so restricted in their assignments? Or were there exceptions to this rule?
Always seeking enlightenment, . . .
Jonathan
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Posted by: Hol Wagner <holpennywagner@msn.com>
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