|
A few comments concerning E units on the Q and some of the recent speculations. The Q never considered hood units for the Suburban Pool because of the redundancies of the Dual engines, generators, etc built into the E8/9 design, which would minimize road failures, particularly on the congested Suburban territory. This came from the late Grant Arrasmith, a graduate of the Q Mechanical department during the tenure of Henry Urbach, who oversaw the transition from steam to diesel during the 1940s-mid 1950s. When the E-units were retired in the mid-1990s, Grant commented on the attempted slight of hand EMD committed by designating the replacement F units as E-10 in the operating manuals to quiet the protests that having single engined units in the suburban pool might raise among former Q employees. Concerning a possible lack of maintenance as motivation for the elephant style consists, that was simply not the Burlington's approach to operations. TRAINS magazine editor Fred Frailey has quoted Louis Menk that, during his short time with the Q, " he had never seen such an over maintained property in his railroading experience." In a similar vein, upon the inauguration of Amtrak in 1971, Q engineers in Denver were universally appalled by the condition of Union Pacific E units now assigned to Denver Zephyr service. As the sheer number of trains decreased into the 1960s, more units were available for protection purposes on premier trains. By having a fleet that rostered no E7/8/9 B-units, any Q consist that had more than two units would by definition have some in the Elephant-style configuration. This is also evident in the photo record as no examples have ever seen print of two E-units being MU-ed nose to nose in train service. The use of control cars starting in 1965 guaranteed that the power would be pointed west with the control car facing Chicago in that service. By that time it would be extremely rare to see an E7 in commuter service. By the nature of the Zephyr -Pool, a majority of units would be pointed facing west to ease movement from one type of service to the other. These comments will not lay speculation to rest, but I hope that it does provide some insight as to why the Q operated as it did. A Co-conspirator on Burlington Bulletin No. 10 Jim Sandrin ---In CBQ@yahoogroups.com, <tubaman21@...> wrote : Group, The following question was posed on the IlliniRail list and has generated some discussion there. "The Burlington isn't unique in this, but it seems like throughout much of the '60s it increasingly ran the E8s elephant-style in the streamliner consists. Was there an operational reason for running them more elephant style rather than back to back?" I know this was done increasingly for potential unit failures enroute, but the question of suburban service keeps coming back up. How much did the suburban rotation play into this? I seem to recall seeing a diagram of how units were cycled through suburban service in a Bulletin, but of course I can't locate it now. I also found a post by the late Ed DeRouin that I used to add to the discussion on IlliniRail, and once passage added more confusion as well. "A very reliable source once told me of a letter issued in the fifties about how E units were to be prepared for service, and elephantstyle was not discussed. In short: two units - back to back, three units - front and rear back to back, middle either way, four units - front two facing forward and rear two facing rearwards. If you look at photos, say pre-1964 of Zephyrs except the overnight KC and Omaha trains and the CZ, you will find that most all fit the above letter. The CZ became an exception about 1964. Its units were assigned to Denver for maintenance. I suspect that Chicago would not pay to turn the Denver units and so they ran that way. " Were the Denver Es not used in the suburban rotation and just went right back out with the next CZ? Were they turned with the rest of the CZ at Canal St? It seems that the increasing use of elephant style running started at about the same time the first batch of cab control cars arrived. Was this also a contributing factor? Thanks! Bryan J. Howell __._,_.___ Posted by: jamessandrin@yahoo.com __,_._,___ |