Thanks for sharing Hol, very interesting and unique!
Chris
Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
-------- Original message -------- From: HOL WAGNER <holpennywagner@msn.com> Date: 2/11/21 3:52 PM (GMT-06:00) To: CBQ@groups.io Subject: [CBQ] FT Photo
I just purchased this photo on eBay. At first glance it is not a particularly interesting or high quality view, showing FT 102 on an extra freight -- all reefers, at least up front -- said to be somewhere in Illinois in the 1945-46 period. But consider for
a minute its implications. It depicts an FT AB set, numbered only 102, having been separated from another identical FT AB set also numbered 102. Both sets are presumably in operation on the railroad, carrying the same road number. The first five four-unit
ABBA FT sets, numbered 100-104, are being split in two in preparation for being mated with 10 new F2 A-units to be delivered in July 1946 and then the resulting ABA sets numbered 150-159. But before that renumbering of the FTs took place, in May 1946, two
of the sets had already been separated -- the 101 and 102. At this time the Q was not yet using letter suffixes to differentiate the individual members of a three- or four-unit set of Fs, as they were only operated as full sets under a single engine number
and there was no need for individual identification of the units making up each set. But clearly the separation of at least two of the four-unit FT ABBA sets into pairs of AB sets took place at least two months before the 10 F2 A-units were delivered. Further,
at this time -- May 1946 -- it was still planned to number the three-unit FT-2 sets 200-209 rather than 150-159. Four units were actually given those numbers when they were separated -- but not four units from the same set. Here, in order to explain what
transpired, it becomes necessary to assign the letter suffixes that were ultimately used by the Burlington's F-units. Of the two sets split apart in May -- the 101 and 102 -- the two units of the 101 set, B-unit 101C and A-unit 101D, were renumbered 201C
and 201D, while the two units of the 102 set, B-unit 102C and A-unit 102D, were renumbered 202C and 202D. That means that the two-unit FT AB set in the photograph are the pair that would have become the 102A and 102B had they not been mated with an F2 A-unit
and numbered instead153C and 153B, while the new F2 became 153A. Have I lost you? It's complex, but what it actually means is that there were not really two AB sets of FTs numbered 102 out running on the railroad at the same time; one of those two sets had
been renumbered 202. Same for the 101 set: half were still numbered 101 while the other half were now, very briefly, numbered 201. Further, it becomes a possibility that the ABA FT-2sets were never really intended to be numbered 200-209 but instead the 200s
were used merely as place-holders to avoid duplication of 100-series numbers as the four-unit FT sets were split apart. But why not just renumber them with the 150-series they would receive with the July delivery of the F2s? Likely because in May 1946 it
had still not been decided to number the new three-unit sets in the 150s instead of the 200s. And that would also explain why only two pairs of 200s actually received those numbers. The others, if in fact the remaining three ABBA FT sets (100, 103 and 104)
were actually split apart in advance of the arrival of the F2s, may have been given their actual 150-series numbers when they were separated. Who knows? But if nothing else, all this explanation serves to solidify the actual date of the photo here: it had
to have been taken in May, June or July 1946. And just to prove that indeed two FT AB sets received their 200-series numbers, attached is an equally poor quality photo of the other half of the 102 set, now numbered 202, taken by Dick Rumbolz at Lincoln, also
in either May, June or July 1946.
Hol
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