Damaged but Surviving Gorre & Daphetid Locomotives

[J3a-614]

Hey, this looks like it could be a prototype for an EMD road switcher scheme for the G&D, incorporating red and black, with a stripe in the right place; the unit looks to be either an Army or NC&StL unit (note AAR type A switcher trucks):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dazon_blue/5763081433/

http://www.tvrail.com/resources/photos/72c6be855584927a192febb0d30567fb-m.jpg

Have fun.

[Geared Steam]

I had the opportunity to view some salvaged structures and artifacts last year from the G & D currently being displayed at the San Diego Model Railroad Museum.

[J3a-614]

Wow, more stuff!  Geared Steam, is there a story about how these items made it out?

J. Ward:  What might be your guess for switchers on a diesel-era G&D? I picture a classic end-cab job, like an EMD SW-9 or an Alco S-4 at Great Divide, but the options might expand at Port.  Such conventional switchers would work there, too, but I can't help but wonder if a GE 70-tonner, or perhaps a 70-tonner and a 44-tonner (one working the ferry, the other the industries) might also be logical choices.

Would the G&D have had use for a cow-and-calf set somewhere, perhaps on one of the local or branch jobs?  I seem to recall Lynn Wescott mentioning in The Book that someone did bring one over on occasion. . .

Continuing in this theme, what would the replacement for Jim Findley's Russian Decapod be on the connecting train from Findley's Tioga Pass?

Man, and to hear such talk coming from a steam fan like me. . .

[ryeguyisme]

Well looking at the heart breaking photos of the aftermath of the fire some elements of the layout did survive the initial inferno but not much, I'd imagine some things you see in the case were upstairs when the fire happened(it didn't burn the whole house down, it burned the basement ceiling/floor through literally destroying the layout)

Even #34 was in the fire judging from the present pics of it and the details missing but came out virtually unscathed except for the tender which I believe did not survive the fire whatsoever. John's engines were designed so you could interchange the tenders amongst the engines

[jward]

keeping in mind a possible mid to late 1950s start for dieselization,  i'd say emd sw1200 or alco t6 switchers would be appropriate. there were no sw1200 or sw900 cow and calf sets built. had the yards been dieselized first, and a few years earlier, tr5 (sw9) or tr6 (sw8) cow and calf sets would be appropriate, or alco s4s. yes, according to "the book" one of the g&d operators had a tr6 cow and calf which john liked enough to use in operating sessions. so... there is a precedent here.

had the g&d opted to buy secondhand in the early 1960s, fm h10-44s were available cheap, as were baldwin vo1000s.

for the docks at port, a ge 44 tonner. the nig railroads were disposing of these by the mid 1050s as they didn't have many jobs they were useful at. pennsy even had a few equipped with MU, so maybe a pair of those for the daphetid branch.

incidentally, i see those switchers in a paint scheme similar to boston & maine's switchers:

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bm/bm119h.jpg

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bm/bm1117g.jpg

for the tioga pass, i really don't know what their situation was, or how closely affiliated with the g&d they were. russian decapods were quite obsolete even for steam engines by the 1950s. so the tp may have been forced to dieselize earlier. if so, they may have had a roster similar to the lehigh & new england or tennessee central. a few fa1s, with the bulk of the roster rs2s and rs3s, and a few odd switchers. i think the fa1s would have been used on the run through trains with the g&d, which according to "the book" numbered 4 a day.

it is interesting to note that on the m&stl, an rs1 was considered the diesel equivalent of a 2-8-2. but you don't find rs1s used often in heavy duty service, so i don't see them climbing the sierras on the tioga pass.

[RAM]

Most railroads were almost dieselized by 1952.  John did have a high hood Alco switcher'

[ryeguyisme]

Most railroads were almost dieselized by 1952.  John did have a high hood Alco switcher'

John had shots taken for varney diesels for his ads and took photos rarely of visiting power, but John didn't own a diesel

[J3a-614]

M&St.L's 2-8-2s were relatively small (predating the USRA types), with only 55 square feet of grate area, 59-inch drivers, and just over 46,000 lbs. tractive effort.  An RS-1 had 1,000 hp. and 40,425 lbs. tractive effort.  I suspect the horsepower rating and a diesel's better adhesion may have made these units comparable in the eyes of the M&St.L's management--or perhaps the management was optimistic about the diesels.

http://www.steamlocomotive.com/mikado/?page=msl

http://www.yesteryeardepot.com/MSTL611C.JPG

http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/4034/mstl63417847.jpg

http://www.yesteryeardepot.com/MSTL629B.JPG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALCO_RS-1

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=296378&nseq=107

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=297217&nseq=92

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=296963&nseq=103

Have fun.

[jward]

ram

while it is true that most railroads had started to dieselize by 1952, most were in fact not anywhere close to being completely dieselized. the tipping point for most railroads was 1956-1957. a study of diesel production figures bears this out. the resulting slowdown of diesel sales drove two builders out of the locomotive business, baldwin and fairbanks morse.

as an example of the diesel sales from the period, consider that at the end of 1952, emd sserial numbers were in the 17000s, by the end of 1957 they were up around 24000, over 6000 diesels built during that period by emd alone. it took another 3 years for the serials to reach 26000, a production rate of about half the previous 5 year period. those numbers are even worse when you take into account that in the late 1950s emd was filling its order books with overseas orders, business that emd didn't really pursue in the early 1950s.

[Doneldon]

The time tables on dieselization were all over the map. Some railroads, especially western railroads, began dieselization before World War II and had rostered a lot of new locos early on. Other railroads waited as long as possible, mostly due to limited funds and low resale values on their paid for steamers. Because of this, and the fact that every road had its own unique approach to dieselization, it's pretty hard to talk about a certain date for dieselization.

[J3a-614]

A lot of things had effects on the date of a railroad's conversion to diesel power.  They included the road's financial condition, the availability of credit to a given road (not normally a problem in the dieselization era, diesels could be resold easily if things didn't work out, making the financially weak New York Ontario & Western an early candidate for diesels, financing by GMAC), the age and condition of the road's existing steam power, the size of the railroad, and the attitudes of the management (there were some men, and not just in the motive power department, on the Norfolk & Western and the Canadian Pacific, who were steam men first and last).

Steam resale values were something of a variable.  If the power was new, that lead to a problem if its equipment trust (bond issue) wasn't paid for (a number of 2-8-4s from the Pere Marquette couldn't be scrapped for years because of this); there was also a perceived notion of waste with relatively new power.  On a road with old power, like a NYO&W or even a Ma & Pa, the financial condition would be an important factor; the steam engines wouldn't be worth much anyway, but scrap metal prices in the 1950s were relatively high, and that wasn't a problem for such a road. 

How quickly would a G&D have dieselized, and with how much?  I picture the road as being only about one division long between its two SP interchanges as originally envisioned by Allen, which would make it between 60 and 100 miles long.  I can imagine traffic dropping off somewhat in the 50s due to the increasing influence of cars and trucks, although this might not be as quickly as some other places due to no new roads in the area (a situation similar to the narrow-gauge country of Colorado and New Mexico, the tundra country of the lines to Hudson Bay in Canada, and the rugged country of the beautiful Algoma Central in Ontario).

That last one might be a prototype to adapt to a diesel G&D--road switchers and switchers only, and similar-looking country and perhaps traffic levels, although length would be somewhat longer.  The ACR only took a year or two for the conversion, with only 25 units.  Two were switchers, 21 were GP7s, and there were two GP9s (the last ones built, well into GP-18 production). 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algoma_Central_Railway

http://algomacentral.railfan.net/algoma1.htm

http://www.trainweb.org/algoma/diesel.html

http://www.trainweb.org/algoma/eroster.html

The steam roster looks a lot like the G&D, too--about half second-hand!

http://www.trainweb.org/algoma/sroster.html

[jward]

the only problem with an early dieselization of the g&d is the presence in photos of 1950s era paint schemes on freight cars. notably, a boxcar in a version of the new haven black with orange door, lettered for a fictitious road, and a hopper car in the b&o billboard scheme. these, running on an all steam g&d, would lead me to believe that g&d would have been one of the holdouts. algoma central's roster, while intriguing, is i feel too early for the g&d. move it forward 5-10 years and you have late single fan gp9s and sw1200s.  or rs11s and t6s, similar to n&w before the mergers.

as for the g&d being only one division, john allen himself had indicated on maps other divisions to the east and west of what was modelled. which would make the railroad something akin to the rio grande standard guage. with sizeable online traffic at port.....

total roster, given the number series john used, would have been about 40 locomotives. which would have been the equivalent of about 25 diesels.


doneldon,

i would direct you to my web page: http://www.trainweb.org for some emd production info. if you look at any individual road's locomotive purchases, there is a gap between the completion of dieselization and the start of diesel replacement of up to 5 years or more. by looking for this gap in purchases, you can pretty much figure out when they retired the last steam locomotives.

[J3a-614]

J. Ward, I'm going to have to either get Wescott's book or dig my out my "musty magazines" (that's what my wife calls them).  Your comments about other divisions and the more modern cars certainly suggest a later conversion.  Such a late changeover, as you suggest, would be all road-switchers, likely no cab units, and would be Alco or EMD, (there would also be a very faint chance it could be F-M) but don't know if it would be split between two builders for a road this small.

Depending on the initial diesel order, the paint scheme could be railroad designed (which was the case, I believe, of the later New Haven scheme you suggested), or it could be a factory scheme.  Interestingly, the Iowa Interstate scheme you illustrated earlier (representing a second-generation possibility) could be something like an EMD scheme from the late 1950s.  By this time most main line roads had at least started on the diesel changeover, so most of the new paint schemes coming out after 1950 or so from EMD were for shortlines and industrial roads. 

You would pick different colors, of course, but take note of the pattern on this switcher (SW-1200) from the Bellelfonte Central in Pennsylvania, which incorporates a standard EMD grey and Southern green scheme:

http://bellefonte.com/heritage/BCR/5624byBlair.JPG

http://bellefonte.com/heritage/BCR/ColevilleTrain.JPG

A new railroad, built in only 1951, was the Quebec, North Shore & Labrador.  This road was all-EMD from the beginning, and used a factory scheme that was an adaptation of the New York, Ontario & Western F-unit scheme (which was also an EMD scheme):

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1034040

NYO&W FT units for comparison:

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/nyow/nyow807ade.jpg

The colors are different, but check out the pattern  (in green and yellow) on an F unit from the Chicago & Northwestern:

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/cnw/cnw4071.jpg

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/cnw/cnw4078Cdsa.jpg

Another EMD scheme, from the Tennesse, Alabama & Georgia:

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/misc-t/tag707.jpg

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/misc-t/tag708.jpg

What was likely the last EMD factory scheme was for one of the last railroads to convert to diesel--Northwestern Steel & Wire (industrial road), which did not convert to diesel until the 1980s!

http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/nwsw2.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4031/4531364203_7a5a21693f.jpg

General image search results for Northwestern Steel & Wire; check out the steam photos, most of which may appear to be from the 1970s!

http://www.railpictures.net/showphotos.php?location=Northwest%20Steel%20and%20Wire

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dd/NS%26W_80.jpg/776px-NS%26W_80.jpg

http://th09.deviantart.net/fs42/PRE/i/2009/114/4/0/Northwestern_Steel_and_Wire_by_classictrains.jpg

http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/6/4/4/6644.1287066780.jpg

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8226029@N06/3244860053/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8226029@N06/3244859579/in/photostream/

An Alco designed scheme, in this case on a Century series switcher (demonstrator):

http://www.playle.com/pictures/ETEXBILL7448.jpg

The same on a set of road switchers:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/drgw/2865263363/

http://www.american-rails.com/images/Alco_MB_Demo.jpg

For comparison, an EMD demonstrator from the 1950s:

http://www.rypn.org/articles/layout/060301cook/images/GP7-DEMONSTRATOR-400PIX.jpg

A later variant, using EMD classic blue and white colors:

http://www.daveswebshop.com/cards/rp862.jpg

This one is just cool:

http://www.toytrains1.com/images/trains/emd499.jpg

Have fun.

[ryeguyisme]

this thread has just gone beyond hopeful discussion for me.... diesels......

[RAM]

Well I did some more checking on the diesel on the G & D.  It is not a Varney picture.  Varney never made such a locomotive.  I would say it was an old Walther's casting.  Anyway it was taken on the old part of the railroad which I believe either became a branch line or a short line.  Anyway it is lettered Rockande Mtn #502.  Now it may be a visiting locomotive.  Ant way it was in with pictures of the G&D locomotives.