HO FA2 and FT-A Body Shell Compatability

[hbrown]

so . . . does anyone know if the body shell on the Bachmann HO Alco FA2 Diesel Loco DCC SoundTraxx Equipped is interchangable with the Bachmann HO Diesel FT-A with DCC.

[Desertdweller]

Why would you want to do that?
Even if it fit, you would wind up with an EMD loco that sounds like an ALCO.

[hbrown]

ha . . . you are being nice and logical . . . here is my issue, there is no room in the belly of the ft-a beast to put a speaker big enough to hear (without demolishing the chassis).  its easy to change the sound chip though . . . .

[Jhanecker2]

Have you consider putting the speaker in either a baggage car or a box car ?  J2

[hbrown]

oh, i have done that . . . and this . . .(nyc fta/b passenger with huge sound)

http://themagiccloud.com/nycp.jpg

[mhampton]

The center-to-center distance on the trucks of the FA2 is larger than the FT (3' in the real world. about 0.4" in HO), so there's your first major mismatch.  Alco trucks on an EMD wouldn't look right, either.

[hbrown]

there is the answer . . . thanks.  and you're right . . . it won't look scale.  i won't be doing that. 

i'll keep tooling the fta/b as is for more volume. 

ordering one of these sound equipped diesels now . . . just to have it  . . .

[jward]

do yourself a favour and get both the fa2 and the s4 if you can offord them. they are both great.

[jettrainfan]

That'll be an interesting match up if you get it working, an EMD FT-A with alco trucks, who here knows Wheeling and Lake Erie railroad? They actually had GP35s with alco trucks on them, and that was mostly from The Southern Railroad. Besides, it could be a pretty neat kit bash, a short line bought an EMD shell to put on an old Alco FA-2 body and motor.... you see where I'm going with this? 

[hbrown]

ahh, yes i do. 

regarding the purchase of an fa2 and an s4 . . . i just checked out with an s4 in the cart . . . fa2 next week.  i have to be careful . . . i can afford the trains, but every time a new one comes, my wife runs to the coach store . . .

[jward]

jet,

in order to understand the wheeling gp35s and why they are not applicable to ft's and fa2's you need to understand what they are and why they are that way.

a little diesel locomotive history is in order.

the ft was the first successful road diesel for freight service. they were produced from 1939 to 1945. the only real diesel competition they had during this period was alco's ill fated dl109, which was powered by two 539 turbo engines. those were the same engines used in the highly successful also s2 and later s4, but the dl109s were a failure. alco needed to develop a better engine for road diesels but ww2 intervened and set their research back several years. when they were finally allowed to develop a new engine, they hurriedly came up with the 244 and rushed it into production as soon as wartime restrictions were lifted. the result was the fa1, and rs2. in 1950, improvements in locomotive design brought the revised and slightly more powerful fa2 and rs3. in the meantime, emd was steadily improving their design resulting in some of the most popular locomotives ever built, the f3 and f7.

the alco 244 had some severe design flaws, and after trying numerous revisions to fix them they developed a whole new engine, the much improved 251.

by the late 1950s, the ft was obsolete, and railroads started trading them in on new locomotives such as the gp20, gp30 and gp35. why not just rebuild the ft's? the newer emd models were much more powerful, and allowed the railroads to use fewer locomotives on trains. trading in the ft's allowed components like trucks to be reused under the new locomotives.

by the early 1960s, the fa's were also wearing out, and some railroads like the southern, gm&o and soo line used them as trade ins on new emd gp30s and gp35s. once again, components such as trucks were reused under these locomotives. thus, the alco trucked gp35 as used by the wheeling. the use of alco trucks under emd locomotives required modification of the bolsters. emd trucks and alco trucks were not interchangeable. the replacement of the alco trucks with emd ones required the rebuilding of the bolsters, and was not commonly done. emd's with alco trucks usually had them for life.

it does offer some interesting possibilities for us now that bachmann has the alco trucks. i haven't tried yet, but i bet they could be used under a gp30 or gp35.

[Desertdweller]

Jeff,

I would not consider the DL-109's failures.  They held down some demanding passenger schedules, and served as both passenger and freight power on the NH.

The 109's used proven engines, 539's.  They followed the successful formula used in the EMD E-units: a pair of 1,000hp switcher engines.

The PA's were an attempt to duplicate the 109's power output using only one engine, a 2,000hp 244 V16.  This was a new engine that fell short in durability.  ALCO might have been better off if they had continued with the DL-109, or at least repackaged the DL-109 in a stretched version of the PA.

Another option (though maybe a little too much like EMD) would be to build a twin-engine PA using a pair of 244 V12 engines.  Apparently, the problem with the 244 V16 lay in its long crankshaft.  Considering that the 244 V12 engines used in the FA's produced 1500hp (later upgraded to 1600hp) it would have given ALCO a real beast: a 3,000 hp passenger unit.

It took a little work to use Alco BB trucks under an EMD, but the advantage was the robust GE traction motors.  The ALCO BB trucks (AAR Type B road trucks) were more difficult to work with, changing brake shoes for instance, than EMD BB road trucks.