Things are so very quiet nowadays, that I’m going to have to dive into the archives for a post or two….
Below is a picture which can’t be replicated: a Penn Central GG-1 electric locomotive pulling a southbound freight on the Northeast Corridor back around 1972. The location is near Aberdeen Maryland:
A bit of history about the GG-1: It was 79 feet 6 inches long (about the length of a standard passenger car) and weighed 475,000 pounds. The frame of the locomotive was in two halves joined by a ball and socket joint, allowing it to negotiate sharper curves. The body rested on the frame and was clad in welded steel plates. Control cabs were near the center of the locomotive on each side of the main oil-cooled transformer and oil-fired train-heating boiler. This arrangement, first used on the PRR’s Modified P5 class, provided for greater crew safety in a collision and provided for bi-directional operation of the locomotive.
A pantograph on each end of the locomotive body was used to collect 11,000 V, 25 Hz alternating current (AC) from the overhead catenary. In operation, the leading pantograph was usually kept lowered and the trailing raised to collect current, since if the rear pantograph failed it would not strike the forward pantograph. A transformer between the two cabs stepped down the 11,000 V to the voltages needed for the traction motors and other equipment. At the time of the GG1’s introduction, railroad passenger cars required steam from the locomotive to operate heating equipment. The GG1 had an oil-fired steam generator to provide this to the train’s “steam line.”
The mechanical design of the GG1 closely followed the New Haven EP3, which had been borrowed earlier from the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad by the PRR for comparison with its current standard electric locomotive, the P5a. In 1933, the PRR decided to replace its P5a locomotives and told General Electric and Westinghouse to design prototype locomotives with the following specifications: a lighter axle load and more power than the P5a, a top speed of at least 100 miles per hour (160 km/h), a streamlined body design.
The first designer for the GG1 project was industrial designer Donald Roscoe Dohner, who produced initial scale styling models, although the completed prototype looked somewhat different. At some point, PRR hired famed industrial designer Raymond Loewy to “enhance the GG1’s aesthetics.” The final design is retrospectively labeled ‘Art Deco’ – as we know it today.
Both companies delivered their prototypes to PRR in August 1934. GE submitted their GG1 and Westinghouse submitted their R1. The R1 was essentially “little more than an elongated and more powerful version of the P5a” with an AAR wheel arrangement of 2-D-2. Both locomotives were tested for ten weeks in regular service between New York and Philadelphia and on a test track in Claymont. Because the R1’s rigid wheelbase prevented it from negotiating sharp curves and some railroad switches , PRR chose the GG1 and ordered 57 additional locomotives on November 10, 1934.[12] Of the 57, 14 were to be built by General Electric in Erie and 18 at the Altoona Works. The remaining 20 locomotives were to be assembled in Altoona with electrical components from Westinghouse in East Pittsburgh and chassis from the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Eddystone. An additional 81 locomotives were then built at Altoona between 1937 and 1943. and a single (central) control cab.
Incidents were few. Major ones included Train 173, the overnight Federal from Boston, which was approaching Washington behind GG1 4876 on 1/15/1953 and crashed into Union Station. It was caused by a blizzard which swept across the northeastern United States in February 1958. The storm put nearly half of the GG1s out of commission.
In 1968 the PRR with its 119 surviving GG1s merged with the New York Central Railroad, to form Penn Central. After its creation in 1971, Amtrak purchased 30 for $50,000 each
Amtrak attempted to replace the GG1s in 1975 with General Electric’s E60, but they were not a success: a 102-mile-per-hour (164 km/h) derailment during testing had to be investigated (the E60 used the same trucks as the P30CH diesel then in service with Amtrak), which delayed acceptance, and the hoped-for 120 miles per hour (193 km/h) service speed was never achieved
It was not until Amtrak imported two lightweight European locomotives – X995, an Rc4a built by ASEA of Sweden and X996, a French design – that a replacement was found. The ASEA design, initially nicknamed the “Swedish swifty” or the “Mighty Mouse”—and later referred to often as the “Swedish Meatball”—was the winning design. Electro-Motive Diesel, then a part of General Motors, was licensed to build it and it became the basis of the AEM-7. With AEM-7s on hand, Amtrak finally replaced its GG1s. GG1 service on Amtrak ended on April 26, 1980.
Penn Central went bankrupt in 1970 and its freight operations were later assumed by government-controlled Conrail, which used 68 GG1s in freight service until the end of electric traction in 1980.
Fifteen production locomotives and the prototype were preserved in museums. None are operational, as they had to have their main transformers removed due to the presence of PCBs (a hazardous carcinogen) in the insulating oil.
So now you know!
Hugs, Mandy
Mandy's Miscellany 