December 2017

A note about progress on the research through the history of the European versions of an American test series of electric locomotives. Unexpectedly important turned out to be my receiving a copy of D. Trevor Rowe’s small Spain & Portugal volume of the Ian Allan Continental Railway Handbooks, to which Chris Hall (many thanks Chris!) drew my attention. A copy was mine through Amazon for £ 7.50 incl. P&P only and some interesting snippets of news it contained indeed.
Any doubt that the whole issue of the Pennsylvania Railroad to the Netherlands and Spanish Railways pathway can be expelled as wishful thinking is based on two issues:
1) A small but fairly significant one; in his book about the Dutch class 1200 Co’Co’ electrics Jan Bouman shows an American artist’s impression of what Baldwin thought the 1200 was going to look like. On this drawing one can clearly see a ladder going up to the roof just behind one of the cab entrances. Whilst the Dutch loco’s never were fitted with this detail the PRR and the RENFE loco’s were. On the pictures I made of the Spanish 278 in the museum in Vilanova i le Geltru this ladder is clearly visible near the rear cab door. Over there it goes nowhere in fact; it would be quite a job, if not dangerous, to get on to the roof from it. If you look at the PRR Tri-Bo’ and Co’Co’ versions, however, you discover that a sort of steel flap covers the top of this ladder. No doubt there was a key (master key, stuurstroomsleutel) that would have to be taken out from the cab to unlock this flap in order to use the ladder and which action would drop the pantographs. Similar to a Dutch driver taking this key out when having the hotel current from his loco connected to the train: taking this key out causes the pans to come down and disconnect the hotel-voltage from the jumper cable, whilst the shunter needs it to open up the sockets on the train to receive the jumper and so enable the shunter to establish a connection in safety. I checked other US electric loco’s for similar ladders on the internet and in the various books I now have, and apart from the PRR E-3’s this ladder is not a common fitment over there either (for good reasons, I would think).Besides, the E-2 Bo’Bo’ test loco’s, built by General Electric at the same time as the Baldwin/Westinghouse E-3’s, do not have the feature either. In fact, it seems to be an unusual and dangerous issue for staff to climb on e-loco roofs under the wires, even with the pans down. So why is it there?A picture of the Indonesian ESS E3201 1Bo’Bo1′ 1.5 kV DC Cape Gauge forefather from 1924 shows a pull with a grab handle coming down from the roof above along the side of the cab. So far I work on the assumption that this is where Westinghouse and Baldwin put the main high-tension overload breaker, outside the body in case of DC-arcing; it is the reset feature after the switch activated. So, on the design for their European derivative DC loco’s they incorporated an outside DC high-tension breaker on the roof as well. In The Netherlands with its fairly low fitted DC catenary a driver going on to the roof for a reset was a no-no right from the start and the Spanish did not appear enthusiastic either, looking at their stairway halfway to 3 kV heaven. so the Baldwin/PRR E-3 AC to DC loco’s appear the only machines that have this feature. But in a roundabout way it definitely connects the European locomotives to the US version.
2) The Spanish 278 is designed very much along the PRR E-3b Tri-Bo’ design in all its designating proportions (except track-gauge and body-width, undoing the statuesque impression of the US versions somewhat) and in many details, even as far as the pantographs and their location as well as the various grab rails and handles around the locomotive are concerned. Bar the double-cab design the Spanish 278 clearly is rather more of a direct descendant from the US loco’s than the Dutch 1200, which was quite thoroughly redesigned by Werkspoor and Netherlands Railways. It is quite striking, though, that the front of the 278 noses were redesigned by Baldwin along the lines of the Dutch fronts. My working assumption is that those loco-fronts needed to be constructed in such a way that the European buffer-beam, with its potentially heavy side-loads in case of sharp curves, could be properly accommodated in the frame fronts. Which resulted in that common wide-nose look between the two and so ditched much of the original Baldwin shark-nose appearance as in the US. In fact, I have pictures of a Baldwin/Westinghouse South American diesel-electric with buffers from this same period, that shows this widening of the nose above the coupler and buffer beam rather clearly and also has quite a lot in common with the Baldwin design for the Dutch electric.Another issue is that on the Spanish machines, that have the windscreens with the top curve in common with both types of PRR machines, the tops were later painted straight across the windscreen glass, as can in fact be seen on my pics from Vilanova. A photograph in a Dutch rail yearbook for 1993 shows 278.013 at Alcazar, fitted with a circular maritime rotating window in the windscreen to keep it clear in case of rain. That picture shows this painted top edge covering the top edge of this rotating screen: I guess those cabs were hot and glary in the Spanish Sun and rain wasn’t frequently falling enough in the quantities that warranted using rotating screens. As an aside, it were the German Railways both sides of the then Iron Curtain who tried out these maritime windscreens first and decided pretty soon that they hindered driver lookout pretty much. In any case, it actually made the locomotive look much more like its Dutch counterpart instead of the PRR version with the curved top of their windscreens.
3) I learned from the book that the Spanish Norte Railway, electrifying their line over the pass of Pajares between Ujo and Busdongo in 1922 with 3 kV DC rather than 1.5 kV DC as the others did up to then, went to Baldwin and Westinghouse for Co’Co’ straight DC electrics in 1924. This was decidedly a freight line reaching elevations up to 1,000 metres, 3,300 ft. So a dynamic brake would have been included to handle the mining traffic. It proves that at the time that the Dutch were talking to Baldwin / Westinghouse in the 1920’s the Spanish did the same. In how far this influenced the Spanish acquisition of the 278’s after WWII when the Dutch were doing the same under Marshall Help conditions is unclear as yet. But given the problems that Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton and the traction arm of Westinghouse Electric were in at the time I could imagine that Baldwin tried to sell the PRR design elsewhere as well. In fact, I read in Bouman’s book that Baldwin came back to Netherlands Railways and offered the Tri-Bo’ design on which they worked for Spain, but that Netherlands Railways found that the (expensive) locomotives were in too advanced a state to start altering things again. On the other side, it would have had the electrics ride on the same trucks/bogies that the Dutch class 22/2300 diesel electric locomotives rode on. I so wish that I could do a trip in a time machine and talk to those people. Not only in The Netherlands but also, notably, in Pennsylvania from where co-operation has been a mite insignificant so far.
So what’s in store next? A) What was the problem with the Bo’Bo’Bo’ design? The Spanish apparently were not enchanted with the Baldwin version but quite a bit later bought similar German and Japanese e-loco’s and the Swiss had a lot of success with heavy haul across the Gotthard using such machines. A rather later General Electric design for low-speed mining railways in the USA, a chopper-controlled e-loco, was a Tri-Bo’ with the clear advantage that the spread of the weight was much better along the entire length since there was no need for fuel tanks under the frame. B) Why was a General Electric AC to DC design based on the use of Ignitron rectifiers selected for series construction rather than the existing Westinghouse design? Had Baldwin/Westinghouse decided to quit the market by then? C) What were the reasons Baldwin decided to go and enter the market for full-adhesion electric AC to DC locomotives on trucks/bogies? Probably the interchangeability of kit on the DC side with diesel-electric traction, but studying the results of all-adhesion traction for higher speeds on bogies/trucks shows that the experience with locomotive-behaviour on the road was far from a mature science and that in the USA as well as in Europe the use of idling/running axles before and after the traction axles gave very good results re running stability. To see what could happen, incidentally, see pictures of the state of the track in France after the 331 km/h/187 mph tests with DC loco’s in 1951. Never mind that arc between the DC pans and the wires, it’s a matter of wonder that derailments of the following coaches were avoided.
And that’s where I am now.

December 2017

The General Roca South American Baldwin/Westinghouse built broad gauge diesel electric that more or less was the template for the Baldwin design of the Dutch electric class 1200 and to which the Spanish 278 also owes a few details. Don’t let that sunshade over the windscreen fool you. Imagine it away and the 1200 picture gets clearer.

Just back from two weeks in The Netherlands, where I visited the Utrecht Railway Museum and finally had the chance to get in a cab of a Dutch/American class 1200, offspring of the Pennsylvania Railroad class E-3c.

1) The machine involved was the 1201, the first of the breed in the early 1950’s. The front has been restored more or less to original condition as far as the headlights is concerned. The side-windows in the cab are the modern aluminium sliding types instead of the very American four sliding vertical glass slats and the main reservoir train pipe is a later addition. The independent brake and loco-train brake connection just before the number is original, all Dutch locomotive traction at the time had it. The manufacturing sign is far cleaner than I ever saw it during its lifetime. The locomotive is serviceable, as is the museum’s own 1202 in blue livery. To the left is a 1930’s streamlined EMU of a type that was typical until 1946 when the last of this breed was put in service.

2) Me in the best place of the world, even if it is in a museum. Don’t know where that gut suddenly appeared from, I lived with the happy but clearly erroneous idea it wasn’t that bad. Also, my hand is on the typical Westinghouse train brake (same as the class 47 in the UK Chris) and I forgot to put it in the release and run position, right this moment I would be executing an emergency brake application. Oversight, forgot to turn it back when the accompanying lady suddenly said she’d take pictures of me in the chair. Probably I was taken by surprise. As she was a museum guide she did take the chance to ask a lot of questions about driving an electric locomotive and about bits and pieces in the cab. The Automatic Train Protection box left, with the yellow mushroom button, under it the typical US tower with the traction controls. Above it a lovely old-fashioned speedometer seen sideways. Independent or straight-air brake forward of, and slightly above, my hand on the brake valve lever.

3) The first type of electric traction in The Netherlands, between Rotterdam Hofplein terminus, The Hague and Scheveningen seaside terminus, from 1908. It very much looks like a Prussian express train coach, which betrays its Siemens manufacture. 10 kV 25 Hz AC original traction voltage, more or less what the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New Haven Railroad used on their main lines with catenary out in the open. In 1927 these vehicles were converted to the 1.5 kV DC to which the national network had been standardised, using equipment from Heemaf and Westinghouse that at the same fitted to the 1928 EMU’s of which a coach can be seen behind the glass door, and on the Indonesian Locomotives and EMU’s that were ordered at the time. The livery of this South Holland Electric Railway Company (ZHESM) former AC traction vehicle is the Art Nouveau style with which they were delivered, technically the vehicle is in post-1927 state with the equalizer-bar trucks and DC pantographs. On the motor generator visible behind the front bogie/truck the Heemaf name can be clearly made out when standing close.

June 2017

My entry into this subject really took off when in a charity shop (thrift shop) here in my small Somerset village of Winscombe I ran into Ken Harris’ ‘World Electric Locomotives’, Jane’s Publishing Co. Ltd, London 1981, ISBN 0 531 03728 2. On page 71 an Indonesian (then colonial Dutch East India) PJKA class WH (formerly ESS class 3200) is depicted and described, delivered 1924 for the 1067 mm / 3 ft 6 ins narrow Cape gauge network of the Indonesian island of Java  for the 1920’s 77 mile Jakarta to Bogor electrification at 1.5 kV DC. This, also according further information, was the first Baldwin/Westinghouse licensed type of traction that the Dutch Werkspoor/Heemaf concern built, using Baldwin  and Westinghouse designs and partially US fabricated equipment. Having been shifted to the sidings around the 1980’s one such locomotive still exists in serviceable condition after having been found back somewhere and having been restored to immaculate technical and exterior conditions (Internet pictures can be found, look for ESS class 3200). The traction motors and traction power controls for these locomotives and the EMU railcars came from Pennsylvania, the other equipment was constructed in The Netherlands. I learned from the Internet that at least one US Baldwin/Westinghouse electrical engineer mentioned by name was present when testing of the locomotives in Indonesia started.
It was the first indication that the Dutch post WWII class 1200 electric locomotives had a history that was rather older then what it initially appeared like. For instance, during the early 1920’s 1.5 kV main line electrification in The Netherlands itself started as well, which included conversion of the 1908 vintage 10 kV 25 Hz AC Siemens electrification of the ‘Hofplein’ line from Rotterdam via The Hague to Scheveningen beach. The order for electrical equipment for these EMU railcar trains was shared between Heemaf and Vickers Electric from the UK, of which I didn’t know until recently that they were another Westinghouse electrical equipment licensee. Hence the fact that the electrical components only marginally differed and worked perfectly well together. They both also were involved with the AC to DC conversion of the originally Siemens equipped and beautifully Jugendstil/Art Nouveau liveried EMU railcars for the Hofplein line. Vehicles of both types found a place in the Utrecht railway museum.
During the initial post WWII years The Netherlands were engaged in making good the damage the German army had caused when the tide started to run against them. A rough estimate is that two thirds of the Dutch railway network, its signalling system and its rolling stock were damaged beyond repair or had been looted and taken into the central European areas where the German army considered they could hold out against a further onslaught of the allies and the Russian army. Fortunately they were wrong on that score, but the damage inflicted was enormous and a massive amount of new equipment was required to get the nation’s railways rolling again. In 1950 the Westinghouse/Heemaf combination put in an offer for 75 electric locomotives based on the 1920’s Baldwin/Westinghouse Indonesian box-cab design, 3000 Hp 1,5 kV machines of 1Bo’Bo1′ axle configuration at NLG 700,000.- apiece. These were not appreciated by Netherlands Railways (Nederlandse Spoorwegen, NS) traction engineers because of the dated design that with a Swiss-designed type based on German pre-war electric locomotives just had led to very dis-satisfactory performance, the obsolete technical specification and the fact that the machines were not modern all-adhesion machines but had idling wheels. Werkspoor consulted with Baldwin/Westinghouse, who right that moment were engaged with the E-3 versions for the PRR. As a result a thoroughly revised machine was offered based on the PRR E-3c, albeit a full DC machine and not an AC to DC rectifier machine. Seeing that the power of the 1200 and the E-3c are the same, one could say that the 1200 is the DC part only of the E-3c, to which a resistor traction control system has been added and the transformer, tap-changer equipment and twelve ignitron rectifiers have been taken off. The price was also NLG 100,000.- apiece higher, something not appreciated by the governmental paymasters who, despite the Marshall-help offered, had to furnish the expensive US dollars for later payback. As the well-known French firm of (then) Alsthom, now Alstom, offered technically rather more advanced machines for that money, but to be paid in cheap French francs and accompanied by large French orders for vessels for the internal waterways for the Dutch shipyards, the order for US electric locomotives was cut from 75 to 25; much to the loud chagrin of Heemaf/Werkspoor and probably in their turn for Baldwin/Westinghouse who, as I understand, badly needed orders.The 1200’s, though, were looked at as solid, well-engineered and reliable machines. The main issue with them was that the weight had been cut to 108 metric tonnes (from 378,000 pounds to appr. 250.000 pounds) and that the 500 Hp per traction motor had the habit of causing unnoticed but severe and prolonged wheelslip, especially under wet conditions. Therefore wheelslip-control equipment was added in 1959, something that together with silicon solid-state instead of the ignitron rectifiers in the USA probably would have been a game-changer with much improved traction power and therewith hauling capacity of the PRR E-3 series had they been series-built. Bear in mind that the Swiss were running their Ae6/6 AC six-axle machines at 6,000 Hp for the run through Alpine areas and that German Railways were already putting four-axle electric locomotives of 5,000 Hp in service. With US axle-loads these improvements would more than double hauling power, as was much later demonstrated when the Swedish AEM7’s took over from the GG1’s. Other changes to the class 1200 machines in The Netherlands concerned the headlight configuration, the side-windows in the cabs, which were changed from the very US four-part glass-slat type to aluminium-framed two-part sliding windows that were considerably more silent and wind tight. The side-grilles were replaced by French types that let in less water.The US wasn’t cut out of other rail orders altogether, though. Most of the funds went to manufacturers as General Railway Signal for automatic half barrier equipment on grade crossings, automatic daylight colour-light signalling and NX traffic control equipment in stations and yards. Even the Dutch automatic train protection equipment (installed after the serious Harmelen collision in 1962; it’s in the book) had a US system at its basis. Incidentally, the above-mentioned Jane’s book shows Netherlands Railways electric locomotives, including the class 1200, on pages 87-89. And finally, there were Baldwin switchers of the Bo’Bo’ configuration that were license-built for NS Netherlands Railways in The Netherlands and France as NS class 22/2300, fitted with main line drop-equalizer trucks as per the Spanish electric machines, for faster mainline use.
The history of the Spanish Bo’Bo’Bo’ 3 kV DC machines is rather less clear as there is considerably less serious documentation available, neither in Spanish nor in English, whilst what’s available on the internet is far too much in the locomotive-fan corner and far to devoid of reliable technical and historical matter. The machines, built from 1960 onwards, are technically clearly based on the E-3b’s as far as the DC side is concerned and on the 1200 as far as the design of the locomotive and the DC traction-control side is concerned. Their power again is exactly that of the PRR and the Dutch loco’s. I read that they were used on the curvy and up-and-down (they had resistor brakes, see the large grilles in the roof line) coastal line in Catalonia mainly, hence that I saw one in the Vilanova i le Geltru railway museum not far South of Barcelona on that coastal line. Strangely enough they were considered heavy on the track and mainly pulled light freight trains. The latter perhaps an indication that the wheelslip-control the Dutch put in their class 1200 was not included with the Spanish class 278 and so precluded use more suited to their pedigree? Still, they too lasted a long time, in true Baldwin/Westinghouse fashion.
You might have already noticed that there are quite a few areas where more information is wanted. For instance, who were involved at Baldwin/Westinghouse with the ESS class 3200, the PRR E-3, the NS class 1200 and the RENFE class 278 programmes? What were the specifications and what was the brief? Based on what did they come with the machines they presented; for instance why did they choose the old-fashioned drop equalizer type of trucks instead of the already available low weight-transfer trucks such as the Blomberg? Why were there two types; the Bo’Bo’Bo’ and the Co’Co’? The twelve-wheel trucks are generally seen as heavy on curvy track, which makes the three four-wheel trucks a reasoned choice since no fuel-tanks under the frames were required so the space was there, but the fact that the Spanish thought that they were track munchers makes the technical side rather intriguing. I would like to find out more about that, thinking it wasn’t their wear of the track in curves but wheelslip that they had to contend with. But what did PRR think of it? Also because the Bo’Bo’Bo’ configuration went on the be very successful elsewhere in the world whilst Baldwin/Westinghouse combined four such four-wheeled trucks under the Virginian heavy coal hauling electric locomotives (another issue that requires more study in this context). So the PRR in all likelihood wasn’t disappointed for that reason. Was it PRR’s penury only that stopped the E-2/E-3 development? Keep the old machines going and at the same time gradually drop electrification in favour of the cheap diesel-electric power on offer? Why did the Virginian carry on with their electrification, in that case? But were the GE E-2 and the Baldwin-Westinghouse E-3 types considered technically worth-while, in the light of the fact that the technically quite similar GE-delivered New Haven EP-5 ‘Jet’ electrics knew rather a lot of problems with overheating due to the narrow confines of the carbody versus the heat-generating equipment installed. Their nicknames tell something about the noise their powerful ventilator-fans made when they pulled away from a stop.
Anyway, where the Dutch and Spanish think that a particular development using US electric traction technology started in the 1950’s, US people interested in rail technology at the same time see a development of electric traction coming to an end. Yet the truth is that it lived on, in The Netherlands even now a 1200 can occasionally be seen out and about and both in the Utrecht museum as well as in a rail museum in Augsburg, Germany, examples have been taken into the permanent exhibitions. Of the Spanish machines: I heard at least two are available for inspection in rail museums, among which the one I saw in Vilanova near Barcelona. Even older Baldwin box-cab electric traction can occasionally be seen in action on the isle of Java.

February 2017

The subject of the parentage and the reason for their existence of the Dutch class 1200 Co’Co’ as well as the Spanish class 278 Bo’Bo’Bo’ electric locomotives didn’t, as was to be expected, leave me alone. Having gone through a lot of Internet pages and printed literature on the subject I came as far as this, and that is where as far as I am concerned it gets stuck for the foreseeable future. There is very little on both the Pennsy bit of the story (We’re closing down most electric traction because we’re buying diesel from here on) and the Dutch bit. As far as the Dutch bit in the available literature is concerned; somebody apparently thought that they build nice locomotives in America so let’s try and get some, which patently was nonsense. Technically both European types are not very different from their Pennsy forefathers as far as the DC traction side is concerned, six DC traction motors served in three groups of two as far as feed and overload protection is concerned. The Spanish locomotives, being mountain machines, additionally have dynamic braking, as is clear from the centrally located roof grids to cool the necessary resistances.
The story definitely started in 1924 when the Electric State Railways (ESS, Electrische Staats Spoorwegmaatschappij) in the then East India colonies (nowadays Indonesia) ordered six 1’Bo’Bo’1′ 1.5 kV DC locomotives from Dutch companies Werkspoor/Heemaf. Both of these do no longer exist under those names any longer, Heemaf ended up as part of Holec which, to the best of my present knowledge, is now part of Alstom traction, and Werkspoor closed its railway construction activities sometime in the seventies and went on to build marine heavy diesel engines until being taken on as part of the Finnish Wartsila marine diesel activities. The companies mentioned already had license agreements with Baldwin/Westinghouse and as a result the locomotives for Indonesia were true Baldwin box-cabs with a lot of Dutch-built license kit. One actually still exists, believe it or not. It was found in the way things go in the far-East and it was pain-stakingly restored to exhibition condition. The usual Baldwin longevity shows through in the fact that in 1974 only the last one bowed out from service, to be replaced by Japanese and Dutch built 1.5 kV DC EMU railcars.
Both European types of locomotives, that started out this craving for information, have clear family relations with two types of Pennsylvania Railroad E-3 AC/DC test locomotives: Here it gets interesting. In the early 1950’s Pennsy ordered test locomotives from both General Electric (GE, E-2 Bo’Bo’s) and Baldwin/Westinghouse (E-3b Tri-Bo’ and E-3c Co’Co’). Clearly these machines didn’t do a lot to swing Pennsy’s mood toward further electric traction initiatives and as a result the locomotives remained obscure. Little photographed and even less mentioned and described items in the inventory, to be scrapped in 1964. The GG1’s from the 1930’s lasted a lot longer than that, I saw one in service at Wilmington, Delaware, in 1981.
I have described earlier that the E-3’s were AC to DC machines, They took 11 kV 25 Hz AC from the wires, transformed it down to variable lower voltage AC. On the secondary winding s in the transformer taps were fitted along which a contact moved that took AC of varying voltage of these taps, the so-called tap-changer. A very normal way to run AC electric locomotive traction until the advent of power-electronics with the Thyristor (see ASEA Amtrak AEM-7, based on Swedish Rc). The varying voltages of AC were then fed through rectifiers, at the time still the only available and on board traction not at all convenient mercury-arc “Ignitron” high-power rectifiers. Later solid-state silicon rectifiers just came that bit too late in the US, the step toward diesel had been taken, the GG1’s did everything electric quite satisfactorily and last but not least, Pennsy as well as New York Central were on their way to failure and the Penn-Central/Conrail history already. 
Why the Dutch went for the Baldwin/Westinghouse/Werkspoor/Heemaf route has a lot to do with the mentioned Indonesian boxcabs. Indeed, initially the machines offered in 1950 were, believe it or not, 3,000 hp 1’Bo’Bo’1′ boxcabs. By then, incidentally, Dutch Railways were already talking to the French for a batch of Alsthom (notice the h, Alsace Thomson!) 2,580 hp Bo’Bo’s based on pre-war machines of that type. Indeed, a few of those in fact came to The Netherlands (like LNER 10000 “Tommy” did) to help alleviate the serious Dutch traction shortage caused by the retreating German army a few years before. An additional problem was that the initial 10 Swiss/Dutch 1A’Bo’A1′ class 1000 electrics turned out no good at speed: rather unstable. So there was a certain urgency to get things rolling quick.
As far as I can make out the reason to not order 75 but only 25 3,000 hp class 1200 Co’Co’s is a political one. The French offered a lot of work for Dutch shipyards to build up their inland waterways fleet again (a lot of barges destroyed in the course of setting up that whacky operation Seeloewe, sea lion, to take a German invasion army across the Channel to Britain) and could deliver proven machines quickly as well as rather cheaply off a production line already active for French and Moroccan railways. The resulting class 1100 Bo’Bo’s, dreadful to work on or watch one come wobbling past at speed, they were nonetheless very capable machines power-wise and able to do much that a 1200 Co’Co’ would do. Later a series of 11 Alstom Co’Co’s (class 1300) was added off the production line for the French CC7100 (plus further Moroccan, Spanish and nothing less than Russian electric locomotives). These could be tuned to 4,800 hp but were kept at 3,800 hp in The Netherlands, again very capable machines plus they left the physical constitution of their drivers in better nick and well able to run on their own with the heaviest trains Netherlands Railways would throw at them (the 3,300 tonne ore trains from Amsterdam and Rotterdam to the German Ruhr area, rather good to watch coming past at 100 km/h-60 mph near Oosterbeek where I lived in those days). In the meantime, I understand that the Werkspoor/Heemaf combine had upset governmental powers in The Hague by getting noisily angry about the French orders, whilst they also were fighting cheap French Francs with expensive US dollars from partial Marshall Help arrangements that had to be paid back later. Another problem added to that was that the 1200’s by then cost an extra 10,000 on top of the price quoted for the older type of machine. Furthermore, a lot of that welcome but costly Marshall Help went to big orders for signalling kit from the US and through US licensing as well.
Alstom did well in The Netherlands as far as locomotive traction is concerned. From 1981 onwards they delivered two further series of by then electronically driven (thyristors) electric locomotives, the B’B’ classes 1600 and 1700. Right this moment locomotive traction for passenger trains is a dying occupation and all former NS 1.5 kV DC electric locomotives are now being scrapped bar a few taken over by private interests. As Netherlands Railways is now purely a passenger operator they’ll do everything with EMU railcars and therefore do no longer need electric locomotives and loco-hauled coaches, except on two international jobs, the “emergency” services from Amsterdam to Brussels (awaiting delivery of Alstom EMU railcars after the well-publicised “Fyra” debacle) and the hourly trains from Amsterdam to Berlin (also awaiting new rolling stock which probably is going to be some form of EMU medium high-speed railcar). This last gasp of Dutch locomotive passenger traction is done with a leased fleet of Bombardier Traxx multi-voltage locomotives hauling leftover Dutch and German coaching stock. Soon to vanish indeed.
So the funny situation exists that a very interesting Pennsylvania Railroad initiative to modernise its electric traction after WWII was dumped, in favour of keeping by then already geriatric machines they had at work. But the basics of the 1950’s Pennsy machines turned out moderately successful yet thoroughly appreciated by train buffs in Europe. If US electric traction buffs want to see what Baldwin/Westinghouse “modern” electric traction could have been like, they’ll have to come to Utrecht in The Netherlands for the Co’Co’ version and to VilanovaI Le Geltru in Spain for a peek at the broad gauge Bo’Bo’Bo’ version. If you want to see a narrow gauge (Cape gauge 3 ft 6 ins 1067 mm) version of the boxcabs, incidentally, then go to a railway museum on the island of Java in Indonesia. Perhaps it is arguable that one of the Dutch machines should find a home in the Strasburg PA collection, actually.