Re: [CBQ] Re: Elephant Style Es

["Bill Hirt whirt@fastmail.com [CBQ]" <CBQ@yahoogroups.com>]

Charlie,

Your memory is good. The May 1952 Trains had an article on railroad commuter service. It stated the Q only had 2 Pacific-type steam locomotives still in commuter service. 14 E units handled the remainder of service rotating in between Zephyr runs.

The December 1955 Trains article on the Burlington states the Burlington had no assigned power to commuter service. All E-units are rotated off mainline trains into commuter service for no more than 24 hours. It says that 18 E units laid over at Aurora each night so the Aurora roundhouse handled any servicing needs so the units would be ready for mainline service the following day after running into Chicago in commuter service. There is a great picture on page 46 of that issue of all the E units at 14th Street in Chicago after the morning commuter rush.

Bill Hirt

On 1/13/2018 1:35 PM, cvlk@comcast.net [CBQ] wrote:

This would be an interesting Zephyr article or perhaps a Bulletin chapter if anyone would care to research it.  

It seems to me that there was an article (maybe TRAINS magazine??) that illustrated the pooling of E units.

Part of the article should include the technical points of the special wiring that the Q did to the E8 and E9 units to give them more pep in maintaining commuter schedules.   I recall the side conversation about it at one of the BRHS meets but don’t remember the specifics…just that it was something that EMD did not sanction and that the E7s could not be so modified which ruled them out of the normal commuter pool as they could not maintain the schedules with most length trains.

I don’t recall the dates (my focus on the Q dropped off when Menk the Fink took over) but the pooling stopped when units were sold to the commuter agency which may have overlapped with the delivery of enough cab cars to convert all the trains to push pull.  I was commuting on the trains from 1963-76 but didn’t take notes or interest in the “progress” of the railroad just the stuff that existed before everything focused on the stock and mergers.  I did enjoy riding the Q, NP and GN ex-C&NW 400 cars while the gallery cars were out being converted to HEP.

Much of this info was likely in the E Unit Bulletin but right now I am trying to organize my “bonus room” office and I can’t delve into my library and I’ll leave it to someone else to develop the final chapter on E Units which would involve the surviving preserved and working units and dates of scrapping of others and amplify the pooling arrangements and any other aspects that haven’t already been documented.

Charlie Vlk

 

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Posted by: Bill Hirt <whirt@fastmail.com>

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