Readers of this blog may remember my mentioning the electric 3kV DC locomotives that an Italian Consortium, GAI, delivered to Chilean State Railways. Marelli delivered class 17 Bo’Bo’ steeple cab for shunting/switching, a main line class 30 Bo’Bo’ for passenger traffic and a main line class 32 Co’Co’ for freight traffic. The issue was that these clearly were US locomotives: that stairway to the roof -high-voltage heaven- next to the left-hand cab entry door was in that respect unmistakeable. Another recognition point was the bogie/truck under these machines: These were typical US drop-equalizer traction trucks of a 1950’s/60’s GE design, which tallied with the fact that Baldwin and Westinghouse closed shop in 1953/54. The Chilean locos were recognisably based on the New Haven Ep-5 and its predecessor, the Netherlands Railways class 1200. Yet a more definite link than these historical and design features was required to obtain some certainty.

Ferrocarriles Del Estado de Chile class 32 Co’Co’ number E3209.

I stumbled on the electric Co’Co’ machines that General Electric delivered to the Taiwan Railway Administration. I recognised similarity of truck features under the Taiwanese GE machines. Notably the fairly light and curvy build of the drop equalizer bars, the placement of the primary suspension at the far outside ends of them and most of all that they had shock absorbers between the truck frame and equalizer bars. See these same identifying features on the GE-built FF CC Del E, the White Pass, General Belgrano and TRA machines. So far I haven’t found this particular kind of motion damping equipment on similar other manufacturer’s trucks.

Drawing of the above machine, note the placement of the DC traction motors.

White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad 93, a narrow-gauge GE locomotive of 1950’s shovel nose design. Photograph Bryan Flint, English Wikipedia.

GE U12C on the narrow-gauge Argentine Linea Belgrano Sur network. Photograph Eduardo Canga & Maximiliano Alegre.

The 25kV 60Hz AC Taiwan Railway Administration narrow gauge class E200, 300 and 400 electric locomotive below, designed and built by General Electric between the early 1980’s and early 1990’s. The chopper driven DC traction motors are smaller, but the way they are mounted into the shorter and lower truck is precisely the same as those in the Chilean, Alaskan and Argentine machines. In the narrow gauge trucks, however, we see the reduced space to fit them in the longer inboard section where two traction motors sit opposite each other, versus the shorter outboard section where we’ll find only one traction motor. But notice those two primary coil springs, the inboard one mounted further inside the truck than the outboard one, sitting at the far end of each equaliser bars and the shock absorbers in the same place. Similar at both locomotives. The curve with which the equaliser bars rest on the axle boxes is rather similar between the two very different locomotives. I have no problem to state that the Taiwanese locomotives an existing truck design had been used. And that the Chilean locomotives have quite a large gulp of US General Electric DNA in their system, however much they were built in Italy. 

TRA 3ft 6ins/1065mm narrow gauge electric Co’Co’ locomotive for 130km/h, series E400.

This begins to solve an issue that kept me busy looking things up in literature and on the internet ever since I noticed the Chilean locomotives. I sincerely hope that at least one of those has been kept from being scrapped. Somehow I would dearly like to see the still existing machines to be brought together in a special exhibition somewhere. Too bad the PRR E2c and E3b and the New Haven Ep-5, the machines that started it all, won’t be there. The earliest preserved US loco is the Virginian El-C/Conrail E33. And that really is the end of it; a definite book manuscript (electronic or print) will be in the making if the pandemic just keeps wagging its tail.

The German Minden Deutz (MD) passenger vehicle bogie.

Another history I would like to describe is the well-known German MD bogie, mentioned already when discussing the Japanese Shin Kansen series 0 high speed trains. The original design started in 1948 to re-equip the depleted West German rolling stock. The objective was weight reduction and replacement of the pre-war Görlitz types, the factory of which ended up in the Russian occupation zone. The ride had to be as good as the pre-war types. The design work involved Westwaggon out of Köln (Cologne) Deutz and the Bundesbahn design office in Minden: hence the Minden Deutz (MD) indication. The first series application started from 1951 onward. The typical distance between the axles in the frame is 2.5 metres. The excessive length of the bogie frame was found a disadvantage for application under high-speed stock with skirts and shortening of the frame was taken in hand. The MD bogie was used in Finland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, the Netherlands, Italy, France, Spain, Poland, Romania, the USA and various South American nations, notably on narrow gauge. The US version was derived from the European high-speed version MD58 and identified as MD72 (for high axle loads).

The late 1970’s high-speed version of the original type, fitted with axle-mounted disc brakes, electric track brakes and yaw/nosing/hunting dampers for 200 km/h (125 mph) use.

Narrow-gauge version with disc-brakes.

Spanish broad gauge version with original clasp brake-blocks. Notice that a yaw damper has been removed between bogie frame and bolster.

A Romanian air-sprung version under a Diesel multiple unit. Max speed 120 km/h (75 mph).

The MD light version with disc brakes under a German carriage of the 1960’s. 120 km/h max.

Short-frame MD replacement for original type. Maximum speed 140 km/h (88 mph)

The initial short-frame high-speed development, retaining the steel secondary suspension. This set-up was used for a number of further high-speed developments. Resilient wheel-tyre failure under this type was the cause of the catastrophic Eschede crash on the 3^rd of June 1998, with 101 fatalities

The US Amtrak Superliner version, visibly based on the previous German version but with a rather simplified secondary suspension. Amtrak replaced many with US types of bogie due to the high maintenance demand of this import.

Later light-weight high-speed type with steel secondary suspension under IC2 EMU, maximum permitted speed 300 km/h (188 mph). The double axlebox location springs are the only clue.

An updated version for medium speeds. No electro-magnetic track brake, rubber primary suspension, air secondary suspension and combined yaw damper and anti-roll bar.

The final high-speed version with four disc-brakes per axle and electro-magnetic track brake, steel primary and air secondary suspension with shock absorbing and suspension stiffness equipment. Notice the four traction rods on top of the bogie frame to hold the bolster on the air bellows in place. The track fasteners (Alkmaar type) are classical Dutch; where was this picture taken?

The final blog on the US design and production of electric locomotives, plus issues concerning French and Japanese high-speed rail developments.

The trip of writing about the evolution toward Netherlands Railways class 1200 and Spanish Railways class 7800/278 through the years after the Second World War is finally coming to an end with the last electric locomotives designed and built in the USA -with US technology. There were two interesting GM-EMD electric demonstrators, but they used the ASEA traction kit and truck/bogie technology that had fitted in and under the Amtrak AEM-7 locomotives: in that respect they cannot be looked at as wholly US designed technology. The next generations of US electric locomotives for Amtrak and East Coast operators came from resp. Alstom, Bombardier and Siemens.

The US market for electric locomotives unfortunately isn’t large enough to sustain home-builds. William D. Middleton, easily the most important writer on rail electrification in the USA, wrote a concise and very clear history on the subject in the Classic Trains magazine issue of spring 2001 pages 22/29, called Electric Railroad Classics. Like no other text it spells out the differences between the way European and Asian rail operators and the North (and South) American rail operators look at electrification. And what makes electrification in the end successful: or not.

The simple answer is, of course, the way of looking at what a society wants from railways as a transport medium: is it a transport system that pays for itself at all times and doing its job reliably and profitably through transporting whatever pays suitably. This requires a short time focus on investment and organisational opportunities to change fast (no or comparatively little government interference, mostly); to be allowed to exclude certain transport streams (e.g. passengers) if those are in the way of the profitable main job (freight). Or does society want a transport medium that works in tune with governmental objectives, looking further ahead and involved in more socially focussed strategies: e.g. to do more than just transporting whatever pays best. To co-operate on certain government implemented issues like dealing with air pollution, climate change and gridlocked roads. And in certain ways accepting that the transport activities are not immediately profitable, but in a society point of view helping to make the transport needs not charge a high cost in population health, safety and air pollution. That requires subsidies to keep running the show.

The end of US design of electric locomotives came in 1992 with 18 GE E42C machines of the -above shown- Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) series E400. An export locomotive built in the USA which, really, was a Cape gauge (3 ft 6 ins/1067 mm) spin-off of the General Electric 1974/1983 E60CH/E60CP and E60-2 standard gauge Co’Co’s that worked fine as far as slow heavy drag work is concerned (all out of use now) but due to misconceived bogie/truck technology failed when put on the job of moving higher speed trains up to 200 km/h (125 mph).

This TRA machine and its forebears in the E200 and E300 series in fact were very successful. The E200 was a 96 tonne (axle weight 16 tonnes) 2,800 kW AC/DC thyristor chopper 110 km/h version of this Co’Co’ design, fitted with head-end power to primarily haul electrically heated or air-conditioned passenger trains. Interestingly, this machine shares with the SNCF French Railways 2-8-2 1’D1’ “Liberation” steam locomotives the honour of having examples at the bottom of the sea: E203 and E204 sunk with their vessel on the way from the USA to Taiwan and had to be replaced with two new builds. The E300 is a similar 96 tonne Co’Co’ machine, which is not fitted with HEP and used for freight services. The success of these machines can be gauged from the fact that TRA went back to GE for 18 more of the series, the E400, which was fitted with a different transmission gear ratio to work new air-conditioned InterCity trains at 130 km/h (82 mph) delivered in 1991/92. In their looks they stem from the GE “shovel nose” design that was reinforced in the way we see on the E60 below. The Taiwanese locomotives, not required to survive enormous crashes like slamming into a fully loaded road freight vehicle or a head-on/tail-ender with another train, look decidedly better than the E60 and are the last fully US designed and built electric locomotives.

The US influence on Japanese and French high-speed developments.

Writing about how the US developed ignitron AC/DC traction technology jumped across the Atlantic to France and fundamentally changed traction power potential there, I mentioned that it influenced Japanese traction technology as well: French and Japanese high-speed technology in fact are closer linked than one initially would think: some interesting aspects merit their being mentioned here

 The background for high-speed rail developments in both nations is that in Japan and in France the post-WW2 governments were reconsidering their options with passenger transport and found that their railways were wanting. In France and certainly in Japan with its narrow Cape-gauge rail network at the time the trains were too slow as well as too expensive in running to be able to compete with the cheap aeroplanes and increasingly faster cars that, on new motorways/freeways, would outclass average train speed easily. Finding some interesting papers from both Japan and France on the internet opened up an interesting world view on high-speed developments.

In France, dare I mention it, Messrs. André Chapelon and Marc de Caso’s focus on “modern” steam power, in many aspects already proven inferior to electric traction yet still being further developed into high-power monster machines that at best were less coal, water and maintenance greedy than similar monster machines in the USA, in fact stood in the way of greater focus on electrification and increasing power of electric locomotives. As far as electric traction was concerned, the 1.5 kV direct current feed needed serious improvement (a similar discussion has been conducted during the past decade in the Netherlands, incidentally): hence the deep French interest in the German research of industrial frequency high-voltage electricity supply and use for traction. The French railways also picked up the PRR/Westinghouse initiatives with AC/DC rectifying on the locomotive and saw the potential of this way of powering electric traction immediately. Through a French Westinghouse subsidiary the ignitrons were readily available, the German 20kV (later 25kV) alternating current supply, allowing just a few substations to power long distances of track using a comparatively light overhead catenary system (a la PRR in the US),seemed too good to be true: but it was good and AC electrification was soon taken care of. Never mind that with rectifying the AC the already working DC lines could be relatively simply served with bi-current electric locomotives, albeit on reduced power. French railways and locomotive constructors did not sit still; France at the time was where to go for economic and powerful electric traction that in daily service was already used at speeds of 160 kmh/100 mph. Alsthom and Schneider Jeumont, both based in the Alsace region, delivered far and wide.

In Japan, reconstructing from severe WW2 damage to cities and infrastructure, it was similarly noticed that as far as passenger transport is concerned the existing rail network wouldn’t stand up to the onslaught of aeroplanes and motor cars. The Japanese railway traction engineers went to France and picked up the news on the rectification of high-tension industrial frequency AC there. The French more or less received them with the égards one would bestow on potential customers, but then found that by then the Japanese were well able to take care of their own rectification needs. In fact, truth be told, the French took it with good cheer and some form of competition took off between the two national networks. The French soon were zipping along at 125 mph at suitable classic lines, after finding out their bogie technology left a few issues to be desired as far as tracking stability of the heavy traction bogies/trucks under locomotives at higher speeds was concerned. Here the Japanese leaped ahead following some seriously straight thinking.

Primarily the Japanese knew that light-weight construction, diminishing track-forces, was the key to high speeds. It cut out the use of locomotives and coaches: aluminium-built electric multiple units with distributed traction throughout the train was their solution. As mentioned earlier, the Japanese national rail network was entirely laid out as a Cape-gauge 1067 mm/3 ft 6 ins system. So serious high-speed initiatives clearly required a broader gauge and potential export issues dictated the standard gauge of 1,435 mm/ 4 ft 8.5 ins. The most modern and lightest built bogies happened to be developed in Germany, where the French didn’t look as they considered their own bogie technology as entirely up to scratch for the desired very high speeds. A case of European emotions standing in the way of clear thinking: the bogie concerned was the Federal German developed Minden Deutz (MD) bogie that indeed would give the Japanese the edge. The Japanese studied this bogie; saw to the necessary modernisation issues (secondary air suspension; incorporation of traction motors and drives) and put it under a few test coaches on their Cape gauge network. In plain UK English; it didn’t ‘alf work! Another important issue was that in Japan the new high-speed lines were completely independent from the existing network, new standard gauge lines with new in-cab signalling were to be built. No level crossings or at grade rail crossings to be found.

The trains worked out of the box and showed the strength of the Japanese effort: use of whatever in the world was best and no new development if it wasn’t strictly necessary. As a result the Japanese National Railways were able to start their frequent high-speed rail operations at 200 kmh/125 mph in 1964. The 0-series 12/16-car trains came into squadron service from October 1967 and rolled till September 1999. One vehicle came to England for display in the York Railway museum, where I took the photo below.

Undeniably the French lost that part of the competition, but came back with their Paris-Sud Est TGV, directly operating at rather higher speeds (270 kmh/169 mph) on next-generation air-suspended bogies from 1978 onwards. Their maximum speed later was 300 kmh/187.5 mph, the in-cab signalling/ATP system the TVM 300 and later TVM 430 system. The original PSE fleet was fully retired in 2019. The bogie type of the original fleet were, subject to upgrades, still used on various other TGV fleets, even the original UK-French Eurostar fleet was still fitted with them. As the TGV sets were used on the classic lines as well, several level crossing crashes took place that the construction of the trains invariably stood very well up to. The only true rail accident that a TGV set was involved with is the November 14 2015 overspeed-derailment in a sharp curve at Eckwersheim in the Alsace in France during commissioning testing, when due to the 10% overspeed requirement the TVM 430 Automatic Train Protection had been switched off. Ten people on board were fatally wounded, there were 42 injured. One of the only two cases of fatalities on board a TGV set involved in any accident, the other was the level crossing crash with an 80-tonne road freight vehicle on the 23^rd of September 1988 at Voiron when PSE multi-voltage set smashed into the stranded vehicle. The accident left 2 dead. A bombing at Tain-l’Hermitage on the 31^st of December 1983 of a Marseille St. Charles to Paris Gare de Lyon set by terrorist Carlos took the lives of 2 people, but is not classed as an accident.

And that ends this particular issue of the Ruminations of a Railwayman, fulfilling two promised issues to be dealt with. Many thanks for your kind attention.

A good day to all, a little tale of the railways in my former homeland after I left for the UK in March 1989. I write about a photograph taken by Mr. Rob van der Rest from Rotterdam, a transport photographer with a solid reputation. The illustration is a picture that shows the railways in The Netherlands in the post-Netherlands Railways time; in short, the way I never knew them.

We see the Rotterdam Left Bank freight line in action. Rotterdam harbour, up to the 1980’s, was not actually all that rail-transport orientated; it was Rhine river shipping and road freight transport that was used for onward distribution into the Continent. Rail transport was mainly looked at when the Rhine and Meuse water levels seasonally were low and shipping was hindered. Increasingly seized-up roads around Rotterdam and increasing awareness that road transport was neither the cleanest nor the most efficient way of transport, whilst river transport had its own occasional difficulties that made just in time deliveries uncertain, caused a shift to reconsider rail transport. It was immediately noticed that the existing rail line slots were pretty much used for the frequent passenger trains and that the 1.5kV DC would quite severely restrict available power for electric freight traction. Capable rail freight facilities into Germany would require better multi-voltage traction power and an unfettered connection, on which properly maxed-out trains would start their journey and not stop until their destination or the next shunting/ classification hub. Thus the Betuwe freight line, electrified with 25kV 50Hz AC and signalled with the European ERTMS/ETCS system, was constructed from Rotterdam Kijfhoek to the German border at Zevenaar, where it connected with the tail end of the Dutch 1.5kV DC electrification from Arnhem and a few hundred metres further on with the German 15kV 16.65Hz AC. In the daily operation the powering locomotives , dragging their trains out of the tunnel under the river Rhine at Zevenaar, turned out to have a problem with the rapid voltage changes from 25kV AC to 1.5kV DC and then to 15kV AC. So the 1.5kV DC connection was eliminated: the 25kV 50HZ AC coming out of the Rhine tunnel connected with the 15kV 16.65 Hz AC and the passing passenger trains pulled downs their pantographs, switching over while coasting from 1.5kV DC straight onto 15kV AC. What we see here is the electrification of the harbour line with 25kV 50Hz. Gone are the country-specific masts of old: this is more or less ordered from an international catalogue. As are today’s train sets and locomotives.

The train is an ACTS operated domestic intermodal, hauled from the northern Dutch hub of Veendam by the by now to readers of this blog well-known electric locomotive and the rear diesel. The train is on its way on the harbour line between Barendrecht and the mega-terminals on the Maasvlakte. The locomotives in Rob’s picture are interesting: A British, a Dutch/US and a Belgian/US line-up. The UK built diesel hauling the train is the only traction working here. The first thing that strikes us is the clean ballast: this is either a new, or a meticulously well-maintained line. It is in fact a new stretch in the line, to connect the Kijfhoek yard with the old main line from IJsselmonde. The surrounding neighbourhoods are protected by the low sound fences either side; the future use of 25kV electric locomotives should further reduce the noise generated.

The leading machine is a British-built diesel electric Co’Co’, known as a 58 on my stretch of track. 50 were delivered from 1983 onwards by BREL in Doncaster, weighing 130 tonnes (21.65 tonnes axle pressure) with a 3,300 Hp/ 2,460 kW Ruston-Paxman 12 cylinder prime mover engine for a tractive effort of 267 kN or 60,000 lbs. I passed out on these machines at what used to be part of London King’s Cross top steam-loco yard, then ignominiously used as a local cement distribution centre and now possibly closed altogether and built-up with housing. It was the first time I encountered those little sticks that operate the Poussoir Bouton Locomotive (PBL) train brake and straight air/ independent locomotive brake: quite a matter of getting used to. The picture above shows sister loco 58 037 at Stewart’s Lane in Railfreight coal-distribution colours: drab in comparison with the ACTS blue. Rob’s picture clearly shows the loading-gauge restrictions hampering the traditional British rail network: the electric locomotive behind it is wider and higher. 

My readers no doubt know the electric locomotive in-between: Netherlands Railways class 1200 Co’Co’. This 108 tonne locomotive with its 18 tonne axle pressure and 3,000 Hp/2,220 kW power for 195 kN tractive effort no doubt was challenged by this intermodal train. I have little doubt that its driver kept the diesel behind it going under the 1.5kV DC wires through the Netherlands, to occasionally lend a hand accelerating or climbing gradients. The diesel is controlled by a box in the cab of the electric, working the US AAR MU connection on the diesel. In yards the diesel is uncoupled to shunt/ switch the train wherever necessary; which now is incorporated in one hybrid diesel and multi-voltage multi-signalling electric machine for precisely this sort of origin to last mile delivery work. Interesting is that this ancient US AAR MU system has been used on a few more types of European loco’s.

The third locomotive, as described controlled from the electric on the way under the Dutch wires, is a former Belgian class 6200 diesel electric Bo’Bo’. 136 of these were built between 1961 till 1966, the loco of a very Belgian design and the traction as US, GM-EMD, as possible. After release from service in Belgium, ACTS bought a number of these reliable machines for work with the Dutch 1200’s. Their diesel delivered 1030kW for 212 kN tractive effort, their weight is 81 tonnes for an axle pressure of 20.25 tonnes. The picture above was taken at Antwerp Central Station terminus, before the thorough reconstruction that added two layers of platform tracks under the ones shown and also changed the station into a through station. This enormous train shed lives with the nickname “the Cathedral”. The entire series of diesels were out of use by 2003, but sales of the retired machines made a few end up as far away as Venezuela. The electric multiple units shown were of the type involved in the major crash at Pécrot in Belgium; in fact, that’s why I took the picture.

Finally:

I am now working on alterations to the text of the class 1200 electric locomotive manuscript. Information received from Chile (many thanks indeed to Mr. Diego González-Vargas) explained the link between US practice and the Italian built series 30 and 32 of the FF CC Del E Chile, whilst General Electric in fact still delivered a large series of AC electric locomotives to Taiwan in the 1970’s that predated the E-60 locomotives: that were the final delivery of them all. Those locomotives that were not successful in Amtrak high-speed service, but did fine with heavy haul jobs elsewhere.

My Pakhuisplein N-gauge buildings keep getting bigger: the present edifice is an old grocery-chain production centre and warehouse, which was sold off in sections to developers for conversion into apartments and lofts. The first section was given a lot of attention to quality and ingenuity: one demand from the local municipal authorities was that a very characteristic wood-covered hoist (used for weather protected vertical transport of food etc.) was retained, as none of these were to be found in The Netherlands anymore and it was such a nice detail within the looks of the building. The solution was to brick up the large doorways and put a window and a door in those walls, and then use the construction of the cover to suspend balconies from. In turn this led to a cutting back of the cover and use of a wood covered steel construction rather than retention of the wooden construction, as that had to be replaced in its entirety anyway due to dilapidation. The sales success was beyond expectation and the last section had its wall cut open to install a mock-warehouse hoist with wooden cover, that in former decades never were there. The interest of clients is enormous. The wood is real wood; incidentally. Very thin veneer, left to me by my father-in-law Jack Steadman.

The covered hoist, with the balconies, on the left side. I want better balcony rails but have to wait until I can visit (covid permitting) my supplier in Arnhem again. Another layer of top-floor penthouse apartments will be added on top behind the sprinkler water tower. I will prepare a blog about all the buildings done so far: the manufacturer of the cardboard building kits wants them for their website.

French success with the system.

Good afternoon all, another instalment of the blog. Ignitrons hit Europe. I never knew how they did that, but all is revealed. The next instalment will in fact deal with what followed as far as high-speed applications in Japan and France are concerned.

Electric locomotives keep me busy: they are fascinating machines and I enjoyed driving the BR (Southern Region) 750 V DC class 73 ED’s Bo’Bo’s. Those ED’s from the 1960’s, however unassuming their looks, were in fact very versatile and thoroughly automated machines in those days of racks of electro-magnetic relays. They offered a multitude of traction-switching possibilities to get a train moving, on the electric or on diesel. As diesels they would –eventually, downhill- take you up to 90 mph, but they most of all count among the most comfortable yard-shunter/ switching locomotives: they had four control positions (left and right either end), able to work however sharp the curves: perhaps I’ll explain working them one day. With their 78 tonnes weight, 600 Hp diesel and nominal 1650 Hp output on 750 V DC 3^rd-rail, they nevertheless were gutsy machines that could be made to take a full UK Orient Express set, complete with the approximately 130 tonnes of not-powering Bulleid Merchant Navy class pacific number 35028 Clan Line at the other end, out of London Victoria station up the steep climb to Grosvenor Bridge across the Thames to Stewart’s Lane depot, Battersea. The 25 surviving class 73 members in daily service received a thorough upgrade from 2013 onward; the 600 Hp English Electric turbo-charged 4-cylinder diesel was replaced with an MTU 8-cylinder delivering 1,600 Hp. A number of traction and external changes were put in and, surprisingly, they additionally received the US AAR 8-notch MU connection to work in multiple with class 66 GM-EMD and class 70 GE diesel-electric locomotives.

Ignitrons in France. The above as an introduction to a surprising discovery about the story of how France picked up high-tension 50Hz AC powered traction after the war. In Germany after WW2, the French came across the pre-war Deutsche Reichsbahn 20 kV 50Hz AC tests on the Höllentalbahn. Together with Swiss manufacturers Oerlikon, that before co-operated with Siemens and AEG, the French initiated an own testing ground for 20 kV (2 years later changed to 25 kV) 50 Hz industrial AC, which cut out the need to install an extra 16.65Hz feed network. When used for traction after rectifying AC to DC, in comparison with 1.5kV or 3kV DC, the possibilities of heavy haul or high speed under the lightest possible catenary with the minimum of substations was almost too good to be true. Four types of steeple cab locomotives were built: a series of B’B’ AC locomotives that used the traditional tap-changer switching gear we know from the PRR and NH efforts, a series of C’C’ locomotives that used an AC/AC motor-generator converting single-phase AC to three-phase AC, an AC/DC series of C’C’ that used two motor convertors to generate the DC for the traction motors very similar to the earlier GE Virginian El-2B and, last but not least, the by far most successful series: the AC/DC B’B’ locomotives that turned out to use ignitron rectifiers. 

This was curious, as ignitron was a Westinghouse registered trademark; yet I never heard of Westinghouse deliveries of this equipment to France. As it turned out they were manufactured by a French company named EESW, Equipements Electriques Schneider Westinghouse; Westinghouse licence holders since 1923. In addition, for those interested, that company also delivered the first French nuclear power stations according to Westinghouse principles.

Left: . Right: .

It turns out that on a world scale the Baldwin/Westinghouse E2c and E3b (and later General Electric) ignitron-rectifying electric locomotives in fact were historically rather more important than their inglorious and rather obscure existence would indicate. What pity that all physical evidence of the US originals disappeared: even the highly successful French and Japanese high-speed railways contain DNA from those early Westinghouse experimental locomotives in their systems.

The French developments with high tension industrial current for rail applications turned out the basis for high-speed trains in Japan as well as in France. The next instalment will go a bit deeper into this issue, as the Japanese applied not only French but also German technology. Stay tuned!

Pennsylvania Railroad: Centipedes at work.

Dear readers, in my previous blog about the Altoona/ Juniata works, I described the Pennsylvania Railroad Centipedes, class 58xx 2’Do’Do’2’+2’Do’Do’2’ 6,000 hp diesel electric monster locomotives. The machines that didn’t quite make the grade in their foreseen jobs, replacing massive steam locomotives at express trains, but spent about 16 useful –if track munching- years helping out with pushing freights up the grade from Altoona to Gallitzin (according to the Rand-McNally: Gallatzin to others as I just discovered).

Then I discovered the wonderful photograph below of just such a Baldwin-Westinghouse baby-face pair at work in their pusher days, as can be seen by the blanked off holes through which the train heating boilers and control equipment were removed and by the single stripe where they started life with the five Loewy pinstripes. On the machines the aerials/antennas of the PRR train-radio equipment are still there, however. I don’t know who made this photograph; it could well be John Dziobko going by the visual quality and by the fact that he is known to have been all over the place as far as north-eastern railroads is concerned.

The location is the famous/infamous Horseshoe Curve between Altoona and Gallitzin, mentioned in the previous blog; the place where more than once the wrong make-up of a freight train caused havoc when unloaded cars at the front of the train, were pulled out of the track by the weight of the train behind them. Look up the expression string lining on the internet or in George Bibel’s book Train Wrecks if you have it or can get hold of it. One of the ways to prevent string lining from happening is to attach pushers, or bankers in English rail jargon, at the rear of the train.

As far as an illustration depicting the situation and the action is concerned: everything is there. The steep grade of the track going uphill is unmistakeable; the sharp curve of the mainline with its four tracks in the Horseshoe Curve is clearly there. The Pennsylvania rode on the right-hand tracks and the locomotives are on the middle right-hand track; they undoubtedly are going uphill. The bogies are set for the curves and will no doubt let the neighbourhood know they’re grinding away at the inside rail heads (the gauge corners in English jargon). A blue haze hangs over the machines; these were the days when smoke indicated that money was being earned. This is another railway world: the one of the big locomotives in the USA of the 1940’s and 1950’s. We haven’t really seen trains like this in Europe; one of the reasons why the NS 1200 and the RENFE 278 are so intriguing is that they gave us a bit of a taste of what this sort of railroading was like.

Sitting with Lyn, drinks in the sunshine on the front deck of a Rhine cruise ship churning its way up the river Rhine, one of the things that come into a mind like mine is the difference between North American and European rail operations. You can see the left Rhine-bank tracks on the right and the right-hand tracks on the left. Trains pass by in a steady stream; passenger and the odd freight train on the right and freights and the odd passenger local on the left. In fact, much to my delight a class 01.10 three-cylinder oil-fired heavy pacific under its own power was on its way on with its support car along the left side, the sort of thing you silently hope to encounter when being near any rail line. But trains are, in comparison to what we see above, short and light yet with powerful electric traction; fast, to clear the signals in but a few minutes ready for the next train because Europe mostly is a passenger railway network. That is besides the fact that, especially these days with its various traction operators, trains no longer go from hub to hub to be taken apart and re-marshalled for in-between and final destinations. They start at their point of origin and then travel as fast as is allowed in one go to their final destination. Preferably with a multi-current and hybrid electro-diesel locomotive, which only comes off when it has delivered its train into the yard of the recipient. Despite longer distances travelled than ever before a wholly different operation from what I’ve seen in Canada and the United States when I watched a heavy intermodal freight pull out of Banff, Alberta, in Western Canada. From the moment the three diesel-electric locomotives started till the last truck had cleared the yard took 18 minutes, which probably was quick. On many European networks, however, that train would have blocked the road for some 3 to 4 passenger trains. With other words, in most of Europe long and heavy trains don’t really fit, except on special tracks such as iron ore line in the North of Sweden and Norway. In fact, I was quite surprised to find that even on the newly-constructed electrified Betuwe freight route from Rotterdam to Germany, the maximum train length still is only 750 metres. Then you realize that in Germany the train follows the old Victorian network: greater length precluded! The bit of Pennsylvania track shown in the photograph was, at the time the picture was taken, a seriously busy piece of US north-eastern four-track railway from a big city, Philadelphia PA, toward several major destinations deep inland and used by freight as well as passenger trains; as, indeed, it still is now. Yet, I don’t think that you’ll see many more trains cruising the (present) double track than 6 per hour. But no doubt they’re considerably heavier than the European version. When we can freely and safely travel again I’ll check it out.

Incidentally, if you want a nice piece of N-gauge US PRR/ European NS Baldwin-Westinghouse rail history in your office, have a look at the website of German manufacturer Piko. They offer the Netherlands Railways class 1200 electric as well as the class 2200/2300 diesel-electric in a most convincing quality of manufacture; the 1200 even with the proper Faiveley pantographs. The N-couplers can be removed and replaced with buffer beams containing the brake and main air pipes. Just a hint for Christmas.

Having studied electric locomotives and their pedigree for a considerable time now, the main thing that emanated from the books and from the internet is how very much the research and construction of electric locomotives from the late 1800’s until the 1950’s was a rather mixed European/American business where manufacturers worked against or with each other on all continents.

The differences between Europe and the United States were mainly based on the purpose of using the machines: in post-WWII USA the long distance passenger trains were getting extinct. Heavy freight ruled and on the long non-electrified lines electric locomotives were only useful when they carried their own generation plant: the diesel-electric locomotive. Even if for some time it looked like the gas turbine-electric or steam turbine-electric might have something going for it. But shore-based electric power generation, distribution and traction feed with overhead line equipment required too much investment before it started to pay back, whilst upkeep and renewal took another considerable slice of available budgets. Providers of diesel fuel, which was absurdly cheap anyway due to very low taxation, could be played against each other and on delivery mainly needed a hardstand for tank-trucks in the right place on the trackside when a brace of locomotives with nearly empty fuel tanks pulled in for a refill and a crew change. That was the entire energy infrastructure needed; it is a matter of sheer wonder that the New Haven and Pennsylvania electrified line from New Haven via New York to Washington DC actually survived the onslaught of cutting costs in that era.

WWII had made certain that two things were different in Europe: the electrification before the war had already been more widespread and, once installed and operating, had made rail operations decidedly faster yet more economical. The war with its devastation merely hastened a process that had already made its mark from the 1920’s onwards: Netherlands Railways, for instance, ordered its last batches of own-designed steam locomotives in the late 1920’s. The freight traffic foreseen was coal for industry and heating plus a number of other commodities such as steel, fuel and raw materials, but even before the war road freight for smaller shipments and inland shipping had made their existence count at the cost of rail traffic. The main earners were passenger trains: that sort of traffic would remain reasonably profitable until the 1960’s. Electric and diesel trains replaced steam everywhere, whereby diesel was mainly meant to be replaced with electrification in due course.  The reasons were obvious: environmental issues due to pollution, limited space requirements in comparison to steam traction, the big need for skilled workers that were no longer available due to the toll of the war and concentration camps and last but not least, the smaller amount of raw materials needed to reconstruct the railways without steam traction.In the USA freight traffic required heavy, powerful yet fairly slow haulers with up to 35 tonnes axle weight to take long and heavy trains over long distances. In Europe, rebuilding itself and politically still very much a matter of every nation for itself, the distances worked were not comparable. The track often was incapable of taking more than maximally 17 to 19 tonnes of axle weight. Due to the stress on passenger traffic, trains were required to be quick off the mark and clear track sections fast for other trains to fulfil the need for frequent departures of local and fast trains around and between conurbations. The character of rail traffic in Europe and the United States took fundamentally different directions. Where passengers in the USA went for air traffic on the long distance and the long distance bus for places where planes wouldn’t come, with nothing in-between, in Europe the old mix of public transport held out even when the private car in western Europe finally made its inroads and extermination of rail lines, with replacement by buses if that seemed a viable thing to do, took off there as well. On the long distances, however, just in time from the 1970’s very high train speeds were introduced in Japan and France. That’s when the US started to miss out: high train speeds required a new approach to traction, train, track and signalling technology. In the US General Electric designed and built its last electric traction in the 1980’s: successful very high-tension chopper controlled traction for freight traffic, but not successful for fast passenger traffic. European, Taiwanese, Japanese and Chinese manufacturers walked in and wouldn’t go away after that: ASEA/ABB/Bombardier, Alstom and Siemens became household names for tprovision of modern passenger traction in the US.

In the previous instalment it might have looked like that US electric locomotives in the post-war years were modern machines riding on bogies/trucks. That is not entirely true, and the machine I present here displays a typical in-between stage delivered for curving track with restricted axle-weights. The machine has no “nose”, which could be considered out of the ordinary for 1943 when the delivery of the class 2000 for the Sorocabana Railway in Brazil started from Baldwin/ Westinghouse and GE. To put it in its time frame: this machine was contemporary with the last batch of GG1 for the Pennsylvania Railway and the Ep-4 version for the New Haven Railroad. When the 40 Brazilian locos were delivered in 1948, the PRR E2c and E3b as well as the Dutch class 1200 and the Spanish class 278 stood on the drawing boards. Thus, despite its modern, smooth looks, this machine firmly adheres to the technology of the GG1, which in fact goes back to the New Haven Ep-3 of the late 1920’s. At the time of their delivery the Paulista and Chilean State Railways also received their NH Ep-4 clones (V-8 and E29 resp.) plus their batch of Little Joe’s. A time of fast development, with new technologies coming on stream: indeed, as proven by the Westinghouse adaptation of ignitrons to have high-tension AC fed locomotives on trucks equipped with lower tension DC traction motors. 

The machine is the class 2000 1’Co’Co’1’, built for the metre-gauge Sorocabana line electrified at 3 kV DC along the mountainous 87 mile/ 140 km section (2% inclines and minimal 800 ft/ 240 m radius curves)between São Paulo and Santo Antonio. The locomotive shown above, the type nicknamed Loba (female wolf), was the final machine and the class at the time represented the world’s most powerful 3kV metre gauge electric traction. Delivered between 1943 and 1948 (strange as it sounds) by both General Electric and Baldwin/ Westinghouse with GE electrical equipment, the locomotives were rated at 2,000 Horsepower whilst weighing in at 130 tonnes. They were fitted to work in multiple and with dynamic rheostatic braking as well as train air brakes. Their design speed was 50 km/h for freight and 70 km/h for mixed and passenger trains. As with the mentioned US East Coast electric locomotives, along GE lines the large power trucks are coupled under the loco to avoid traction stresses having to be taken by the loco-body. The Brazilian machines were delivered by General Electric, Baldwin and Westinghouse, combined in the US Electrical Export Corporation, which in fact acted as the combined builder’s body to get these purchases financed -or guaranteed- by the US government. In Europe at the time the Marshall Plan loans were used to enable similar powers to purchase essential equipment, for which reason the Electrical Export Corporation wasn’t mentioned in the history there. Even though this machine was billed as a Baldwin/ Westinghouse product, the traction installation and the riding gear in fact contained decidedly GE characteristics. A comparison is possible when looking up the photograph of the Chilean E30 and E29 next to each other in one of these blogs: The coupler front of the riding gear of the Chilean E29 New Haven Ep-4 clone is exactly the same as that of the Sorocabana class 2000. The best article about these machines and the work they did appeared in the IEEE magazine “Electrical Engineering” volume 63 issue 8 of August 1944, pages 558 – 562 which, however, being no member unfortunately I could not fully access bar excerpts. Another good and very thorough account of the situation is given on the Portuguese language website E.F. Brasil: A Eletrifição nas Ferrovias Brasileiras -Eletrifição da Estrada de Ferro Sorocabana. The surprisingly good computer English translation is readable and interesting.

A pleasant issue to mention is the fact that Brazilian rail aficionados of South American networks work hard on preservation of their rail heritage. The photo shows number 2041 after its thorough overhaul and repaint in the original livery, previous to its inclusion in the Sorocabana Railway Preservation Society museum collection.

Reading up on the history of US electric locomotive building, ignoring those later built by General Motors (as that was in fact ASEA technology), I recently came across more Baldwin/Westinghouse/ GE electric traction for export than I gave them credit for. In South America notably GE did some very interesting things in Brazil, before the end of wholly US designed and built electric traction came with the Amtrak passenger and BM&LP as well as NdeM freight series E-60 as built between 1972 till 1983. A bit of recap may be necessary:

The one but last General Electric US built PRR E44 Co’Co’, displayed in the Strasburg museum and photographed by Amy Varias-Fordree. The machine is designed as what is known as a road-switcher. Have a look at the truck/bogie, which is a variation on the trimount equalizer beam truck that among others the Netherlands Railways class 1200 travelled on. This machine is a 1960-1963 built further development of the successful 3,300 Hp Virginian El-C Co’Co’ ignitron rectifier locomotive, built from 1955 till 1957. Both in turn were direct descendants from the Baldwin/Westinghouse PRR ignitron “rectifiers” E2c and E3b (Perhaps we remember that the New Haven Ep-5, the Dutch 1200 and the Spanish 278 also were descendants from these machines). This PRR machine was initially fitted with ignitron rectifiers, which in later versions (shown here) were replaced with silicon diode solid state rectifiers that not only saved space and maintenance effort, but allowed upgrading to 5,000 horsepower. In later days on the North-East Corridor during the 1970’s and 80’s these machines were occasionally used to travel with passenger services in case of a GG1 failure. This unfortunately showed up bad riding habits above 70 mph-110 km/h. The problems with the E60 below did not come out of the blue.

This loco succeeded the previous machine, the double-end AMTRAK version of the GE E60 in the Pennsylvania museum at Strasburg, taken by Amy Varias-Fordree. These 6,000 Hp Co’Co’ machines were designed as freight hauliers on “floating bolster” trucks/bogies. The secondary suspension sets were four steel/rubber layered silent blocks above each truck frame, the horizontally layered blocks visible just before the entry ladder on top of the truck frame and at similar level between the rearmost two axles. With the E60, meant for speeds up to 125 mph/200 km/h, this type of suspension turned out unsuitable due to the excessively heavy construction of locomotive and trucks/bogies. As a result tracking problems and consequent derailments occurred. Several mitigating measures were tried, but the locomotives were never used at their design speed since. Following the relative lack of success with these machines for higher speed operations, European technology wandered in and never left.

Recently a Dutch friend, reader of these blogs, did me the immeasurable service of putting books from his enormous library at my disposal prior to his moving home: books I had been looking for without actually knowing they existed. South American electrification and electric traction turned out rather more fascinating than I ever imagined and a number of issues have to be reconsidered. Notably the US design of electric traction turned out rather livelier than just the Spanish and Dutch Baldwin machines. The background of that was the interesting discovery that already from 1943 onwards General Electric and Westinghouse Electric co-operated in the Electrical Export Corporation for export of electric railway equipment and locomotives. The GG1, Ep-3 and Ep-4 2’Co’Co’2’ clones for Chile (E29) and Brazil (V8) as well as the enigmatic parentage of earlier mentioned Italian built Chilean electric locomotives now get relief: Baldwin/GE built electric traction for export, or had electric traction built on licence, wherever the cost of building was cheapest. The 1948 Brazilian locomotives were still built in Pennsylvania but the next series in co-operation with GE at the GESA plant in Brazil. The same applies to the Chilean E30 and E32 locomotives from the 1960’s, which look like the General Electric Ep-5 design but were said to be wholly Italian manufactured. Strangely enough, the several hundred Taiwanese electric cape gauge locomotives series 200, 300 and 400 for 25kV AC were constructed in the USA. The background likely is what’s called outsourcing in present day terms; US employees were rather more expensive to be put on manufacturing small batches of electric locomotives than Italian or Brazilian workers. Thus the Brazilian electric locomotives “Minissaia” 3 kV DC Bo’Bo’+Bo’Bo’ for Sorocabana Railway in Brazil, the “Vanderleia” 3 kV DC Co’Co’s for the Paulista Railway in Brazil and its Co’Co’ road-switcher cousins for the RFFSA federal Brazilian railways were all GE Brazil built.

Then the bogies/trucks used in Brazil. Whilst run of the mill diesel electric and electric freight locomotives sported the well-known US types of two and three axle trucks, the higher speed US and British designed locomotives sported interesting types; trimounts that are an equalizer beam set-up with a difference. Especially the bogies fitted under sixty English Electric built Jundiai/Paulista/RFFSA Co’Co’s.

English Electric number 9006 awaiting restoration, as photographed by Alex Pisciottano and published via RailPictures.net. Have a good look at what initially looks like a standard equalizer beam truck, which English Electric indeed fitted under many of their export types: but it isn’t. The straight equalizer beams are positioned on top of the axle boxes; they do not come down with “swan’s necks” with the primary suspension on top as normal. What looks like equalizer beams in that position is in fact the rigid truck frame. How the primary suspension is positioned so far has escaped my insight, but I’m working on it. Someday soon I’ll find a historical English Electric website or publication that will show. The locomotive behind it, incidentally, is a V-8; the immediately recognisable GE/Westinghouse built Brazilian version of the New Haven Ep-4 2’Co’Co’2’. That machine also was awaiting restoration at that time. 

Six of these GE Campinas SA built 4,400 Hp Co’Co’ electric road switchers were delivered in 1962, followed by an order for ten 5,196 Hp Co’Co’ passenger locomotives delivered in 1967. The photograph was taken by Cid José Beraldo. These freight machines sport a modified body from Brazilian GE U type diesel electrics. The trucks of both types look like an interpretation of the average equalizer beam truck as found all over the world. However, where the equalizer beams usually swing up and rest directly on the centre-axle, in this case that axle has a sort of pillar on top to which a “half-moon” has been fitted. From the ends of the half-moon two short and hinged swing links come down that take the inner ends of the equalizer beams with hinges, which in theory suggests that there is a possibility of a slight forward and rearward movement of the equalizer bars. Don’t ask me yet, I’m working on it.

The locomotive below, pictured in front of the GE factory at Campinas from the collection of Rodrigo J. Cunha,  is the first (US built) delivery of the passenger version; one of a series of ten of which the following nine were delivered by General Electric SA at Campinas, Sao Paulo, in 1967. They started life as numbers 350 to 395 for the Paulista Railway and, like most electric traction, ended up with Fepasa when the electric lines were gradually shut down in favour of diesel-electric operations, the last one going out of service in 1999. When we look at these machines we see the inevitable stairway to heaven, identifying them as US designed vehicles. But their main impression is in fact surprisingly European with their flat fronts, which is reinforced by the Faiveley single strut pantographs just aft of the cabs, as we knew them very well on Dutch electric traction from that time. Their trucks are the same that we saw on the previously described machine. GE did in fact market lines of flat fronted traction, known as shovel noses. What is clear is that the E-60 design as shown above does have roots in earlier GE electric traction endeavours. Why the successful trucks of these machines weren’t used  on the Amtrak machines is a matter of wonder.

The smaller Bo’Bo’ + Bo’Bo’ version of these machines, built for the Sorocabana Railway and photographed by Carlos E. Campanna for GE, is pictured below. In their later years these single-ended machines also worked for FEPASA and did in fact worked passenger trains, their rear-end shunting/switching controls with a small window in the connection door being all the driver then had to work his train. The story of the demise of electrification in Brazil is, like that in the USA, not a pleasure to read. The nickname for the Co’Co’s was Vandeca’s or Vanderleia’s. This referred to the fact that these machines, by no means small, were much shorter than theprevious types of electric  locomotives. The story has it that they were even shorter than the skirts of a well known Brazilian female singer of the period. The Sorocabana freight engines were nicknamed Minissaia, miniskirts, probably because the loco’s were even shorter than the Vandecas. A friend who once visited Brazil in fact remarked on the at times testosterone-filled atmosphere of the country.

The last picture shows a Taiwan Railways Nr. E326, a class 300 Co’Co’ for freight traffic. The very similar classes 200 and 400 are Head End Power (hotel power) fitted for passenger duties. These series of AC thyristor controlled locomotives  were direct predecessors of the E-60 machines that Amtrak intended to use for 125 mph/ 200 km/h. The picture shows the classic equalizer bar trucks that served the world’s railways well at sometimes impressive speed. Except the E-60 from 1972 till 1983 I have yet to hear of later GE endeavours to deliver electric traction anywhere in the world.

I do apologise for the long radio silence with respect to electric locomotive history in the past months, but things are livening up again with the receipt of books about the USA, Brazil and Spain. Books about Australia and France, as well as the East Coast electrification in the USA, still are waiting in the Netherlands for Covid-19 to finally pack its bags and just go. Many sincere thanks go to Arie Reedijk, Leonard de Jong, Bill den Beste and Wim Coenraad. Incidentally, if anyone has access to -or knows about- articles or books concerning electrification in Chile (never mind the language used), please let me know writer, publisher and subject. I still am quite short on detail information with respect to those three series of post WW2 locomotives built in Italy. Another quite important publication I’m still looking for is William D. Middleton’s Encyclopedia of North American Railroads. Many sincere thanks in advance and of course, payment where necessary guaranteed!

The fact that writing about Level Crossing issues temporarily took over again didn’t leave much time to study electric traction, despite the generous amount of time available due to the Covid-19 lockdown. The house, however, is ship-shape Bristol fashion and the garden looks like a garden rather than a bit of Brazilian rain forest before it is burned down. The buildings for the Pakhuisplein former industrial estate are almost ready and how to put them together into a diorama that can be used on the N-gauge layout is now the thing that keeps me pleasantly busy. But nevertheless, the work on electric locomotive traction still advances with small steps at a time.

To start with quite a little nugget of quiz knowledge: who really was first with electric railway traction? Scots chemist Robert Davidson of Aberdeen was the first to propel a railway vehicle with electricity through using galvanic battery cells in 1841; only some 20 years after the first steam trains made their tentative trips. He built a larger (7 tons) vehicle that he demonstrated in 1841 at the Royal Scottish Society of Arts Exhibition and hauled a load of six tons at 4 mph (appr. 6.5 km/h); we Dutch saw our first line only open in 1839. The Scots electric locomotive was tested at the Edinburgh & Glasgow Railway in 1842, where the machine proved hindered by its short operating range but was nevertheless destroyed by railway workers, who saw it as a threat to their job security. They thus proved that they noticed the potential to simplify railway operations by this machine. Werner von Siemens presented his electric locomotive at Berlin in 1879 and transported passengers on it at 13 km/h (8 mph). From then on there was no longer anything really special about electric traction; lines were opened in Europe from 1881 and in the US from 1888 onwards. AC traction was running in Hungary around Budapest from 1887. In 1891 Charles Brown (of mixed Swiss/ British parentage, hence in co-operation with Walter Boveri the Brown Boveri Co. Ltd. electrical engineers, nowadays for rail traction part of the Bombardier group via Asea/ BBC and ABB) ran the first practical AC locomotive. Kandó over time extended his work with the possibility of phase-converting with rotary converters. 

As far as my continuing attempts to reveal family histories of electric locomotives are concerned: a number of strands tentatively begin to reveal themselves. The first one is that it were the United States and Europe (as, despite the political blindness toward the benefits of peaceful co-existence at the time, all of Europe: Britain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, France, Hungary with Kálmán Kandó and Serbia with Nikola Tesla) where the initial research and construction of equipment took place. The second is that this happened in unexpectedly close co-operation; use and exchange of each other’s technology was quite free. As a result, although the USA did score some excellent operational results very early, it wasn’t as if any of the other parties had to run hard to catch up. Never mind the fact that quite a few European electro-technical engineers worked either temporarily or throughout their working life in the USA; Siemens was very active in the US and Nikola Tesla is a well-known representative of that order, even if after his death his papers and some other items ended up back in Beograd/ Belgrade. Through ignorance I didn’t visit that museum when I ended up in Beograd a couple of years ago, so I’ll have to return when travel is possible again. Hope to do that on another of those marvellous river cruises one day; the Danube is a delight to travel by cruise ship. The same issue, incidentally, applied to the railway museum collection at Budapest; it was closed for refurbishment all three times I was in that beautiful city but should now be open again. Some good book as well as model train shops can be found in Budapest and Bratislava, incidentally.

Thirdly, perhaps oversimplifying developments (angry protests and arguments to the contrary invited), one can say that Sprague and Edison (the man behind General Electric) were the drivers behind US and their export DC electrification and that European nations applying DC often based themselves on established US practice. Hence the world-wide remarkably similar voltages: 1.5 kV, 3 kV for overhead and 600/800 V for third rail electrifications. The AC electrifications, on the other hand, despite Westinghouse vigorously marketing it in the States (PRR and NH), derived technology from European research or US research by engineers of European descent; notably Siemens, Brown-Boveri, Kandó and Tesla were important. The USA (NH, PRR and Westinghouse) was very early (1907) to see successful rail traction application of 2×22 kV AC auto-transformer feed and around 1913 the first application of on-board mercury arc rectifiers, which would pave the way to economically use high-voltage AC feed with lower voltage DC traction after WW2. Later, notably through increasing disinterest in railway passenger transport, the US lost out to European (and later also Japanese) engineering around traction control electronics. Present day US developments are based on European and Japanese technology.

Fourth: This brings us to the disappearance of US modern electric railway traction engineering from the 1950’s onward, to the benefit of their work on jet aerospace work (Westinghouse also went –unsuccessfully- into construction of turbo jet-engines). This is in fact what gave European electric traction engineering the commercial breathing space to successfully develop its lead in this field. That turned out important as far as high-speed passenger traction is concerned, where Japan took the initial lead but where France very quickly caught up, followed by Italy and Germany. In all cases high-voltage (25 kV) AC was used at 50 or 60 Hz frequency was used for high-speed operations (300 km/h or 187.5 mph and faster), which in fact established the outcome of the French post-WW2 electro-technical developments as today’s world standard. It should be noted, though, that the French, in co-operation with Swiss interests, in fact used US mercury vapour rectifier and German pre-WW2 industrial frequency AC developments -as tested on the PRR and the Höllentalbahn through the Schwarzwald (Black Forest) -which ended up in the French-controlled military zone after WW2- for their base AC to DC rectifier technology. The German developments in turn were part-based on Kandó’s much earlier work in Hungary around Budapest and in Italy.

Next instalment: The locomotive families.

The usual excuses;

I once more apologise for the time it took to write again, but things were a mite difficult due to this lockdown imposed on us all. Not writing had yet another background: to start with there were books that I could not use as they were in Oosterbeek, NL. Then there was the pleasurable work on the thoroughly re-arranged Metcalfe cardboard models for the 1:160 N-gauge industrial area called Pakhuisplein (I wrote about them earlier). This work is nearing its finished state now, complete with fiddly 1:160 benches, chairs and tables on the roof terrace of the main building. I’m happy with the result, even if it took partial demolition of the first two main buildings in order to fuse both into one, but the edifice has become rather impressive. More importantly, the space required in the layout has been reduced by a third, which created space to add further buildings to complete the site with sheds etc.

Progress with the study of electric locomotives;

As far as looking up the history of electric locomotives on the US North-East Coast lines is concerned; despite really missing the book on the New Haven that still is resident in Oosterbeek, NL, the necessity to surf the internet actually made evident how important the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad was for development of electric traction in the USA -and to a certain extent even in Europe. Yet, what is baffling is that, besides the NH part of the Northeast Corridor of which the electrification was designated a National Historic Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1982, next to nothing is left of the electric traction of this railroad. Let’s be frank about it; the celebrated PRR electric locomotive GG1 was, with minimum technical re-engineering as far as control equipment, traction motor and transmission set-up is concerned, an upgraded and visually smartened up clone of the New Haven EP-3. Yet, whilst there still are quite a few GG1’s around, there is no longer anything from NH. More to the point: up to the advent of the GG1 the PRR was not actually that successful with its electric locomotive designs. Whilst initial running problems bothered NH with its Ep-1, their later electric locomotives bar the ignitron rectifier EP-5 never gave major problems. Which, until the advent of the GG1, the PRR types certainly did.

Next to US manufacturers a number of European businesses were competing for orders on the US market. Neither AEG nor Siemens from Germany, or SLM and Brown Boveri from Switzerland (PRR class L 7801-7807), were unknown in the US for electric traction and line-side equipment. All these companies also worked in Europe, in fact surprisingly often with each other’s licences; the exchange of know-how in the electro-technical manufacturing world must have been lively, which touches the present subject of my writing.

In 1907, when New Haven had installed its single-phase AC overhead lines using Westinghouse technology, the first 41 locomotives, built between 1907-1908, were the Baldwin-Westinghouse EP-1 Bo’Bo’s that initially did not give a good ride at speed until their bogies were lengthened with a non-powered axle and changed to 1’Bo’Bo’1’ (!) axle configuration. The question of further electric traction arose and NH ordered four experimental AC electric locomotives, again from Baldwin and Westinghouse. From the described experience one of the issues that exercised NH’s mind was good behaviour at speed, which according to experience at the time required a long wheel base of the bogies or the loco-frame. However, a long wheel base, three or even four driving axles mounted fairly rigidly in a loco or bogie frame, caused problems with wear of rail in sharper curves. On steam locomotives the use of generously sideward sliding axle boxes (e.g. the Cortazzi type) and divided connecting rods between the driving- and the coupled axles, as well as thinner flanges on intermediate axles, sorted out most problems. Side-rods, however, are not efficient; they tend to distort the riding at higher speeds whilst the bearings with which they connected to the driving wheels use up a good amount of the generated traction power. Unless inefficient rod-drives were used with electric locomotives, riding curving track with them turned out fairly problematic. Electric traction motors, fitted in the body or the bogies with nose suspension, geared quill or non-geared quill drives, were connected to the driving axles through gear wheels that usually provided limited capability for sideward motion of the axle in relation to the traction motor. Often the problem was solved using expensive and intricate traction drives for the job. For that reason PRR electric locomotives with four frame-mounted driving axles had a reputation of being prone to derailment in yards: the 1’BB1’ rod-driven class L did get involved in curving derailments, as did the later class R type 2’Do2’.

The electrics with the 1’Do1’ axle arrangement, all pre-WW2, that gave none of these problems are the not very successful PRR class L6 and the very successful German designed types E-17, the German E-18 and E-19 plus its Austrian E-1018 and the Norwegian El-8 derivatives, which had vertical traction motors moving sideward with the axle. Then, of course, there was the successful Swedish class F 1’Do1’ from 1942. On none of these networks was the 1A’BoA1’ axle configuration ever used; the closest was the class E15.01 1’Bo’Bo’1’ boxcab as the first German experiment with individually driven axles following promising Swiss trials.

The initial implementation in the USA and Europe.

NH was looking for solutions and ordered four experimental electric locomotives from Baldwin and Westinghouse. Of these number 069, delivered in 1910, had been articulated through having only two axles fitted in the locomotive main frame. The first and fourth driving axles, together with a non-driving axle, were fitted in a kind of truck/bogie either end; the axle chart reading 1A’BoA1’. The machine was not considered a success and consequently not built in series, but did last its course. In how far it were American or Swiss ideas that informed the choice of the axle arrangement for NH number 069 in 1910 is by no means clear. Given that the New Haven machine technically was quite different from the Büchli-inspired later Swiss, Austrian and Czech machines, I assume that the American machine must have been the first to use the axle arrangement. I think, however, that Swiss engineers visiting the US East Coast knew about the New Haven machine when they were involved with water-driven electrical power plants as well as traction equipment for the PRR class L.

In the 1920’s, when the Indonesian and European versions are built, the name of well-known Swiss electric traction engineer Jakob Büchli (Chur 1876–Winterthur 1945) surfaces. His 1A’BoA1’ solution, mentioned on the Internet in fact as a Swiss invention, became known as the ‘Java bogie’. Who built the original version? The time-lines between the US (NH 1910) and Switzerland (ESS 1924) do not agree.

In around 1925, the Dutch operated Electrische Staats Spoorwegmaatschappij (ESS) in what was then the Netherlands East Indies (present day Indonesia) were also experimenting with electric traction for their Cape-gauge curving track. They bought four Swiss 1A’BoA1’ SLM/ BBC boxcab machines, historically described as the first with this Büchli axle arrangement and hence the name Java-bogies. At around the same time the ESS ordered three German Borsig/AEG Bo’Bo’s (class 3100 & 3300) plus the earlier described ESS class 3200 1’Bo’Bo’1’ electrics from Heemaf/ Werkspoor/ Baldwin and Westinghouse, which we already encountered in the NS class 1200 history. In Indonesia the Swiss class 3000 with its 1A’BoA1’ axle arrangement apparently did not satisfy the company’s needs, as was the case with two similar SLM-built Cape-gauge ED54-2 machines delivered to Japan in 1926. 

Work with the 1A’BoA1’ axle-arrangement for Swiss and Austrian interests (ŐBB classes 1570 and 1670 from 1925 and 1928 onwards) went on through the 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s, with various small batches of electric locomotives for the Swiss SBB and Austrian OeBB State Railways. In the Czech Republic a 1A’BoA1’ design ran as CSD series E466, built at Șkoda works in 1928. The need for rather generous use of lubrication oil is mentioned as one common disadvantage on all these machines; I heard it mention in the Netherlands as well. Some nevertheless remained in service for a long time.

The post-WW2 situation in the Netherlands.

Netherlands Railways had already decided in the early 1920’s that steam traction should be gone by the 1950’s at the latest, which suggests that the electric locomotive experiments in Indonesia were not purely for local benefit. The first electric locomotives that Netherlands Railways ordered in 1938 were for unclear reasons, the experience with the Indonesian version had not been entirely positive, technically DC clones from the 1A’BoA1’ Gotthard locomotive class Ae4/6. Preliminary work on that type of locomotive, however, had only started in 1938. As a result, at the moment of the Dutch order this machine cannot have been past design stage, had neither been tried nor tested and was scheduled for delivery from 1941 until 1945. Start of delivery of the Dutch machines, three built at SLM Winterthur in Switzerland and the rest built under licence by Werkspoor in Utrecht, was scheduled for 1942; a non-starter due to WW2. Design work for the entirely successful SBB Re4/4 Bo’Bo’ electrics were underway at this same time too, just as an aside.

By the time the delivery of the Swiss-built Netherlands Railways machines finally started in 1947, Like in the USA traction development had rendered big, frame-mounted driving wheels and non-driven axles in pony-trucks or bogies under electric locomotives obsolete: they now rode on bogies and preferably had all axles powered. Netherlands Railways did indeed attempt to get the Swiss locomotives delivered as Co’Co’s, which didn’t work out as it would have entailed a complete redesign at high cost. Thus these locomotives came with the obsolete 1920’s 1A’BoA1’ Java-bogie axle arrangement and, quite like similar machines elsewhere in the world, did not fulfil the promise of economy and high speed. At 100 km/h-60mph maximum permitted speed they mostly hauled freight, their lack of reliability keeping them close to their Tilburg works repair base. Yet how fascinating: two very different types of post WW2 electric locomotives in the Netherlands, both having roots going back to Dutch colonial days in 1920’s Indonesia where their American and Swiss forefathers also worked side by side.

One of the readers of this blog is the retired director of the Netherlands Railway Museum in Utrecht, Ms. Cisca Simons. We are researching various aspects of railway electrification worldwide and find to that there is a surprising lot that is actually not known about the subject. If one of our readers has knowledge of, access to or experience with historical railway electrification in terms of provision of energy, transmission and traction we would sincerely appreciate if we could hear from you, in order to gently pick your brains about facts, literature, collections, archives and museums. In short: who did what, how was it done and where can we find information about it?

Many thanks for reading this blog and for helping us out!

Peter van der Mark, Winscombe, Somerset, UK.