More Chilean Baldwins

December 2017. Just a few more pictures on the subject of the previous posting.

1) Co’Co’ 3202 showing its front with the door that probably was a draught nightmare to any pair of knees working these machines in winter. The nose-ends of the class 37 Co’Co’ diesel-electrics in the UK were well foamed-up for that reason. When I was in Utrecht recently and was allowed into the cab of 1201, that nose door problem revealed itself in all its glory even if I must admit that I never heard that draughtiness was a major problem to NS drivers. Incidentally, my NS driver friend Jan Thonen, the man who organised my last trip ever at the controls from Nijmegen via Arnhem, Utrecht, Amsterdam CS, Alkmaar to Den Helder and back in 2005 (all VIRM double-deck EMU), passed away about a week ago at 70 year’s of age. One important source of knowledge of Dutch operations at the sharp end gone.
2) Bo’Bo’ 3017 with a Co’Co’ behind it. Notice the way the brake-cylinders have been fitted to the bogie-frame, very unusual for this US-type of equalizer-bar trucks. Probably the sheeting around the bogies was in the way when fitted in the normal way. On checking with pics of the 278 in Vilanova in Spain it turns out that the bogies otherwise are fully the same as those fitted there. Or the ones under Dutch class 22/2300 Bo’Bo’ diesel-electric locomotives that also came from the Baldwin stables but were built in The Netherlands and in France.
3) Traction motor and transmission. In the light of the story around the Dutch machines (and probably the Spanish, must find that out, actually) we notice here that these were fully suspended traction motors instead of the usual nose-suspension of the time. In the Bouman book about the 1200 I read that in 1950 the Dutch in fact wanted full suspension, but Werkspoor and Heemaf protested at the late change of mind and probably would have charged still a lot more if that idea would have gone ahead. In the USA this would have been called a quill-drive and it was a fact that PRR fitted this to its electric traction right from the beginning. So, looking at this, it makes me wonder what the reason was Werkspoor didn’t offer this straight away rather than nose-suspension of the traction motors. Especially in the light of the fact that Alsthom locomotives came with full traction motor suspension straight away.
4) Clearly, in Chile these locomotives are being scrapped as well. Hope to find a few individuals somewhere in a museum if I get the chance to go over one beautiful day. What you can see is that parking-brake wheel against the engine-room bulkhead, precisely where it sits in two-thirds of all locomotives in the world. We would pull the radio-telephone handset off its cradle and hang it on the parking brake wheel to indicate which side the parking brake was wound on. On a British Rail class 37 that took about a 100 revolutions before they were properly set, but none of the others were that hard to pin down. Later types had electro-hydraulic parking brakes anyway.