[HN Gopher] 1955 Union Pacific EMD E9 - The Last of the Classic ... ___________________________________________________________________ 1955 Union Pacific EMD E9 - The Last of the Classic Diesel Streamliners (2012) Author : Lammy Score : 40 points Date : 2022-12-12 19:02 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.curbsideclassic.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.curbsideclassic.com) | euroderf wrote: | In the days before personal motor cars became common, it must | have been wonderful to ride interurbans from place to place. | Fast! | WeylandYutani wrote: | The Dutch railway was completely electrified in the 50s back when | it was still cheap. The railways had suffered major damage in WW2 | so it needed investment anyway. | | War leads to major infrastructure overhaul. Rebuild it better. | PLenz wrote: | The Fl9 came just a little bit later and ran in regular commuter | service into the 2000s | kvetching wrote: | Most don't know this but the US still has passenger trains and it | appears it could be the cheapest way to travel across the US in | 2022. | | https://www.amtrak.com/tickets/departure.html | SoftTalker wrote: | Nobody who wants to get across the country in a reasonable | amount of time and on schedule should contemplate Amtrak. | | If you want a sightseeing tour, that's another matter, it's | great for that. | 0xffff2 wrote: | It was indeed great for seeing the country when I was a | teenager. These days, the idea of living out of something | similar to a first class airline seat does not appeal and | sleepers are outrageously expensive. | HeXetic wrote: | > it could be the cheapest way to travel | | Inter-city buses are the cheapest way to travel if you don't | own a car. For example a train ticket NYC->Washington DC is | over $100. A bus ticket for the same trip is $30. | | The train will be more comfortable and possibly faster, though. | pengaru wrote: | I traveled coach from CHI(IL) to SAC(CA) with a mountain bike | in tow on the Zephyr for $120 at the end of October. | | Not aware of anything comparable cost-wise, especially | bringing a fully assembled ready to ride mtb along. | | Annoyingly however, even a Greyhound bus does the trip faster | than the Zephyr. Such is the sad state of passenger rail in | the US. | woodruffw wrote: | For what it's worth, it's possible to get a NY -> DC ticket | (or vice versa) on the NE regional for about $30. You just | need to book sufficiently far in advance (IME, around two | months). Usually not a weird time either -- I paid $64 for | a round-trip weekend ticket during normal hours (early | afternoon both ways). | | Source: I've taken that train at least 150 times at this | point. | AnotherGoodName wrote: | Diesel locomotives are one of those things where the engine can | be well over 50 years old and no one bats an eye since it's just | not that unusual nor has the styling changed that much to make it | obvious. | | These EMD E9's are now used for tourist trains but there's plenty | of other diesels pre-dating these that are still just doing their | run today. eg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa- | Sapulpa_Union_Railway is running on diesels from the 1950's, not | as a museum piece but just as their expected day to day | operations. | | It's one of those fun things when you know enough to spot a 70 | year old locomotive yet the general sentiment from non-buffs is | just that that's perfectly in-line with expectations and not | interesting. | dieselgate wrote: | Steel is real! Size of the engine and "fleet" maintenance | certainly helps with longevity too - my diesel truck is older | than I am | Lammy wrote: | > not as a museum piece but just as their expected day to day | operations | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escanaba_and_Lake_Superior_Rai... | run a 1951 FP7A as well. Gorgeous power even when it's pulling | freight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMybdRb1EtA | pengaru wrote: | This speaks more to the lack of technological progress in US | rail than anything else. | | Foreigners from nations where state of the art HSR is | commonplace probably _do_ bat an eye upon seeing such things, | in the supposedly modern and progressive USA of all places. | lazide wrote: | HSR has nothing to do with efficient pulling of freight? | | Similar locomotives are the common the world over. | pengaru wrote: | That's fair, I mistakenly apple-and-oranged this one. | SoftTalker wrote: | Chicago Metra was running EMD E9 units in daily service into | the 1990s. | caf wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Shorthaul_Railroad runs | early 1950s diesels based on the EMD F-class in mainline | service. | ChuckMcM wrote: | There was a joke that went "The only thing that holds its | resale value better than electronics test equipment is a diesel | electric locomotive." I'm not sure how true that is but the | commonality is that they can be maintained to do the same job | they were designed to do, as well as they did it when they were | sold. The only reason they go down in value is because the jobs | aren't there for them any more. | | Interestingly the evolution of chips has been much harder on | "old" test equipment as equivalents can be made one, two, and | sometimes three orders of magnitude more cheaply. As a result a | "new" thing which has the same capability but usually takes up | much less space and power, can do the job of the "old" thing | just as well, and then the old thing loses its value. | _hao wrote: | Beautiful machines! Perfect blend of art/design and engineering! | Kon-Peki wrote: | There must have been some logical reason they didn't win out, but | those Burlington Zephyrs were the best looking diesel | streamliners. Those Union Pacific streamlines aren't in the same | league. | brudgers wrote: | The Burlington Zephyr was a passenger trainset. | | Everything was lightweight. Everything was bespoke. | | It wasn't a general purpose locomotive and the styling was in | part for the marketing potential of aesthetic design. | | It was not intended for long haul freight service across | deserts filled with mountains. | sitkack wrote: | What magic did it take to get these things moving from a dead | stop? I assume the clutches were hydraulic or used a | retroencabulator. Diesel electric works so well because it | removes the clutch, and the electric motor has maximum torque at | zero rpm | SoftTalker wrote: | These locotomotives are diesel-electic. Before that it was | steam, which can also apply force/torque at zero RPM. | sitkack wrote: | I believe these locomotives were pure diesel, no electric. | scrumper wrote: | These are diesel electric, with 4 traction motors: | | https://www.up.com/heritage/fleet/streamliners/index.htm | | Edit: what do you mean by "retroencabulator"? That's a | fake/joke thing. Which (as you'll know) is a quasi- | electrical device anyway so it's not even the right joke. | | I'm ashamed of this comment, truly. I'm sorry, I guess? But | it doesn't change the fact that the locomotive in the | article is a diesel-electric. | LarryMullins wrote: | I believe they used fluid coupling between the engine and the | gearbox. | bombcar wrote: | It's kind of amazing to think of the people who saw these changes | - from steam to diesel, from props to jets, all this in a | relatively short period of time (first flight to landing on the | moon was about 60 years!). | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYXEBcZpNQQ | | I've seen quite a few _lasts_ (the last shuttle flight, the last | 747 rolling off the line, etc) but we do have smart phones and | rocket stages that land themselves so there 's that. | csours wrote: | In science fiction they were talking about nuclear powered | trains. Its kind of a shame that never happened. Alas, the real | world is more complicated than our beautiful stories. | | Also, in a way, there are nuclear powered trains, just the | power is delivered via electrical lines. | jabl wrote: | There were actually plans for nuclear powered locomotives in | the 1950'ies. E.g. the X-12 by Lyle Borst. See e.g. https://b | ooks.google.co.uk/books?id=bVMEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA78&ot... | nradov wrote: | In a similar way we will eventually have nuclear powered | aircraft and cargo ships. Power and heat from nuclear plants | on land will be used to manufacture synthetic liquid fuels. | bryanlarsen wrote: | Synthetic fuels need an energy price of about $1/MWh to be | competitive. Intermittent solar will be that price in a few | years, I doubt that nuclear will ever hit that price. | RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: | Along the same line of thinking though, they are nuclear | powered already. The fossil fuels owe their energy to the | sun which is nuclear powered. | | I think nuclear powered should be used to something that | has a nuclear reactor on board directly supplying power. | maria2 wrote: | Nuclear usually refers to nuclear fission. Fossil fuels | are not the product of nuclear fission. Even if they | were, saying that things powered by fossil fuels are | nuclear powered is just a terrible take. | bombcar wrote: | If you read the Donald Duck/Uncle Scrooge comics from the | early 50s everything is "atomic" or "uranium" - clearly it | was a very forward-looking time, and not unreasonably so. | lettergram wrote: | Most of the country didn't have cars in 1910. People born in | 1900 saw the world go from horse driven to space travel by | their 70s. With antibiotics saving countless lives, clean | water, running toilets, air conditioning, heat, ... | xattt wrote: | You could reframe the "lasts" as being the "first" moves toward | a greener economy. | bombcar wrote: | Yeah, there's been tremendous advances, but many of them | aren't as "in your face" as older ones would have been. The | A380 would be up there, but that's even on its way out | already. | tmm wrote: | Ha, I came here to post a link to that song. Anyway, here's the | Guy Clark version! | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxsTZyIS1ck | | Many years ago, the Amtrak station near my house had a | pedestrian bridge across the tracks, and in those days it | wasn't enclosed like it is now. My mother worked and so I spent | most days with my grandfather and we would often go fishing in | the park nearby. On the way home we'd stop at the station, walk | out on that bridge and wait for one of the trains to come | through. I had not yet heard "Texas, 1947" then, but when I do | now I'm six years old again, watching the express come | screaming up from DC on its way to New York. I never did get to | lay a nickel on the track. | bombcar wrote: | Yeah, most people have experienced a train coming to a stop | at a station; it's way _WAY_ more impressive when it barrels | through without even slowing down. | | Someday I want to see live steam like that: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eggYBVAYiI | floren wrote: | There were also parts of the country that saw "the last | electric train"... transitioned to diesel! By 1920, the | Milwaukee Road was running 645 miles of electrified railroad | between Montana and Tacoma, WA (there was a 216 mile stretch | they operated on with steam locomotives). They ran it up until | the 1970s! | | https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Milw3_-_... | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milwaukee_Road | walrus01 wrote: | The Milwaukee Road is also a good business school case study | on what happens when a company experiences: | | a) overburden with debt | | b) deferred maintenance spending on physical plant that's | pushed further out all the time until it becomes | catastrophically bad | Aloha wrote: | They also screwed up the accounting on the pacific | extension, and double entered expenses for it - the only | profitable part of the road for years was the pacific | extension. | Lammy wrote: | Related: | | - Patent for the earlier slanted-nose locomotive design: | https://patents.google.com/patent/USD106918S/en | | - Patent for the same but with the protruding headlamp: | https://patents.google.com/patent/USD129410S/en | hakfoo wrote: | For more context, the earlier design looks to be the original | Balitimore and Ohio "EA" type, he original E-series engine. One | remains in a stuffed and mounted state at the B&O museum in | Baltimore. | | A similar design was used for the Santa Fe's E1A units. | | The protruding headlamp design was in the later design E3A, | E4A, and E6A types. (The E4 was unique to the Seaboard Air | Line, but the E3 and E6 were produced serially for many | operators). ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-12-12 23:00 UTC)