Makes sense. Thanks
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As I said they had MANUAL transitioning, so it could be tested as to how to set up the transitioning on the new units.
I guess another question that comes to mind is why the Q would use 9950A in tests when the first set of E8s, delivered in 1949, were already on the property?
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Steve is quite right; C&S 9950A was definitely not surplus power in 1950-51 and in fact quite the opposite. Even the Dec. 1952 purchase of E8s 9981A and B by the FW&D did not completely correct the shortage on the Western
subsidiaries. So for several years the C&S received a number of Q surplus units in an attempt to eliminate the shortage. At first the units assigned to the C&S were the 1936 DZ and Twin Zephyr shovel nose units, including the two DZ B-units. The two booster
units were used for a couple of years, but eventually all of them proved not well-suited to the profile of the C&S-FW&D, so Q E-units began to be rotated over the subsidiary lines in a pool of sorts. At this same time the subsidiaries both acquired boiler-equipped
SD7s that were used to power the secondary trains, 7-8, in addition to their primary freight duties. Finally, beginning in 1955, the Q sold surplus E5s to the C&S to give it and the FW&D sufficient passenger power once and for all. The original subsidiary
E5 pairs -- C&S 9950AB and FW&D 9980AB -- were geared 57:20 for a maximum speed of 85 mph, while all the Q E5s were geared 52:25 for a 117 mph top speed. That gearing didn't work particularly well on the subsidiary lines and most of the former Q E5s were
eventually regeared to 57:20 (and this would prove to be a completely unsatisfactory gearing for the drag freight service -- over the Palmer Divide, no less -- the units were assigned to during their final months after the discontinuance of the last passenger
service on the C&S-FW&D in 1967). So the appearance of C&S 9950A in Q suburban service is hard to explain -- unless the Q wanted to know of the 57:20 gearing worked better in that service. That's the only explanation I can come up with.
Hol
9950A was not surplus on the C&S in 1950. It was regularly assigned to the Texas Zephyr. Until additional E5s came from the Q, there was not enough diesel power to operate the TZ all the way to Dallas so steam was used from Fort Worth.
Were 9950AB and 9980AB geared differently from the other E5s since the TZ was a slower route and had Palmer Lake Hill?
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Here are just some thoughts on this question. By 1950, Burlington management was considering replacing the
old, worn out, steam engines in commuter service with diesels. There was a concern as to how the diesels would perform, in the start-stop service.
So why not use a surplus (for the Q) engine in a test?
There is a well known characteristic of reciprocating steam engines, stationary or mobile, that they have maximum torque (read acceleration)
at zero speed. Series wound DC motors (like traction motors) share this characteristic. However, locomotive traction motors are not purely series wound motor. If they were, only low speeds would be possible. To overcome this, locomotives have “transitioning”.
The E-5’s had manual transitioning, which made them perfect for the experiment. Later Q E-8’s and E-9’s had their transitioning modified for the stop-start operation. Anyone who ever rode an E unit powered dinky knew the engineer could really “pin her ears
back”. So it wasn’t as easy as just taking an off the shelf E unit and putting it in combination service (my dad used to say “Nothing in this world is ever SIMPLE”).
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Posted by: Stephen Levine <sjl_prodigynet@yahoo.com>
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