End of Service for VGN EL-2B Streamliners

[NW Mailing List]

Gordon:
 
Thank you very much for sharing these wonderful experiences!
 
Yes, all rectifier locomotives and EMU cars must have smoothing reactors to 
 reduce the a.c. ripple riding on the d.c. to a level that will allow the  
conventional d.c. traction motors (which really do NOT like this a.c.  
component!) to commutate without excessive sparking.  Of course, the  smoothing 
reactors had a significant electromagnetic field associated with  them, as 
you describe, and experience such as the one you describe quickly  reminded 
folks of the need to shield the surroundings.   Proper  orientation helped, 
but brute force steel shielding was often needed.  Out  of curiosity I looked 
at the smoothing reactor on 135 when it was parked down  near the Link 
Museum last year (it's clearly visible under the locomotive) and  it's well 
shielded.
 
The mercury arc tubes used as rectifiers were pretty rugged and reliable,  
but still inherently a weak spot.  When silicon rectifier cells of  
sufficient rating were available, changeout was a no-brainer.  The last few  E-44's 
were build with silicon cells instead of mercury arc tubes, and if I'm  not 
mistaken all were eventually retrofitted.  I was told that the mercury  arc 
tubes were what limited the rating to 4400 "diesel equivalent" hp. and  that 
the changeout to solid state rectifiers allowed a 5000 hp "diesel  
equivalent" continuous rating.  The Budd-built "Silverliner" EMU cars used  mercury 
arc tubes in a phase-control mode* (silicon-control recitfiers - SCR's -  of 
sufficient rating were not yet available), and we quickly discovered that  
going around curves, centrifugal force would pull the pool of mercury away 
from  the igniters and cause the cars to lose power.  Fortunately the tubes 
had  two igniters (the thought had been to use one and have the other as a 
spare), so  they were quickly rewired to put the two in parallel.  I never 
heard of  this being a problem on EP-5s, EL-Cs or E-44s.
 
(*These tubes - two "back to back" - were placed between the transformer  
secondary and the rectifiers [which by then, 1962, were solid state].  By  
firing the tubes "on" at varying places on the a.c. wave, the output voltage  
could be controlled to regulate the current.  Once the polarity of the a.c.  
wave reversed, the tubes automatically shut off and waited for the next 
"turn  on" pulse to the igniter.)
 
I wasn't aware GE had build any of the "universal" locomotives.  I  knew of 
the Alco versions (called "MRS-1" for "Military Road Switcher") which  had 
GE electrical equipment (I *think* 539 engines; they were rated 1000  HP).  
There were several at Ft. Eustis when I was there for OCS  and "commanding a 
desk" in 1966-1969.  They belonged to the 714th  Railway Operating 
Battalion.  I'm not sure if they were left-over WWII  units or new production.  I 
thought the latter and may have documentation  in my archives somewhere, but I 
could be mis-remembering, it's been known to  happen!
 
I only took the NKP-DL&W Chicago-New York sleeper once, but will never  
forget waking up to the beauty of the Delaware Water Gap from the eastbound  
Lake Cities.   My one west-bound trip on the NKP was Erie-Chicago the  weekend 
the North Shore quit running.  Unfortunately by then NKP passenger  service 
was no longer PA's; we had two steam-generator road switchers, a GP and  
NKP's only steam generator Alco road switcher.  I came back on the New  
England States as the NKP schedule just didn't work for getting home Sunday  
evening to go to work Monday morning.  Y'all with good memories will recall  that 
it snowed like **** that weekend; the 'States made an unscheduled refueling 
 stop at Collingswood "just in case."
 
Thanks again!
 
Dave Phelps
 
 
In a message dated 10/25/2012 12:22:46 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org writes:

Dave,
 
Your mention of the New Haven Class EP-5 electric  locomotives reminds me 
of a story about them that I heard from  a fellow Mechanical Engineering 
student at VPI (now Virginia  Tech) in the 1955-56 time frame.  He was Gerald 
Healy (spelling?), who  had worked in GE's Locomotive and Car Equipment 
Department at Erie, PA, but  who had just recently left to go back to school.
 
He said that the first EP-5 to be completed was tested on  GE's test track 
there with a number of important observers to witness the  event.  
Initially, the light locomotive was run back and forth on the  test track and 
performed beautifully.  Then someone noticed ten loaded  cars of coal on the 
powerhouse track and suggested that the new locomotive be  coupled to them and 
pull them up and down the track.
 
According to Gerald, after the air was pumped up on the cars  and the 
brakes released, the engineer pulled back on the controller handle to  start the 
train, but the locomotive just made a strange noise and could  not budge the 
ten cars!  He said there was consternation among the  observers that this 
supposedly powerful locomotive could not pull 10 loaded  cars!
 
As Gerald explained it, these locomotive used mercury arc  rectifier tubes 
to convert the AC from the trolley wire to DC for the traction  motors (like 
the VGN EL-C's), and they had "smoothing reactors" to smooth out  the 
rectified current.  The problem was that the reactors were placed  near the 
rectifier tubes and the reactors developed a magnetic field somewhat  
proportional to the current passing through them.  When the locomotive  was operating 
light, the current was low enough that the magnetic field of the  reactors 
created no problem, but when the current was increased in the attempt  to 
start the ten loaded cars, the magnetic field of the reactors was  sufficient to 
extinguish the arc in the nearby rectifier tubes!   Obviously, some "fix" 
was made for this problem.
 
Your quote of the remark by the New Haven folks that  "GE had learned a lot 
about packaging the rectifier equipment since the  EP-5's" appears to lead 
credence to what Gerald told me.
 
Incidentally, after VPI I was drafted into the Army and  eventually 
assigned to the Signal Research and Development Laboratories at  Fort Monmouth, 
where I was assigned to a radio interference suppression  section.  One 
assignment, in company with a civilian engineer, was to GE  at Erie to run 
interference tests on a "universal" diesel locomotive that  GE had built for the US 
Army.  This locomotive could be adapted to  various track gauges, various 
coupler arrangements and either air or vacuum  brakes.  We set up our 
receivers along the test track and checked the  unit for compliance with military 
radio interference specifications.  I  even got a short ride on the test 
track.  I heard later that this  locomotive saw service on the Rio Grande narrow 
gauge, but I have often  wondered about its ultimate disposition.
 
While traveling out of Ft. Monmouth I took advantage of  assignments like 
this to ride trains whenever possible.  For the Erie  trip I took a PRR train 
on the New York & Long Branch RR from Red Bank  (near Ft. Monmouth) to 
Newark, NJ where I transferred to the  Newark Lackawanna station for a ride on 
the DL&W's Phoebe Snow to  Buffalo, NY, a fine trip except for the business 
car coupled to the rear of  the lounge car, blocking the view to the rear.  
Buffalo to Erie was on  the Nickel Plate Road.  As I rode over this track on 
the NKP passenger  train I had no inkling that some twenty years later I 
would be operating  diesel locomotives and hauling freight over these same 
tracks!  The  occasion was the 82-day N&W Clerk's strike of 1978, which saw  
many N&W employees pressed into unfamiliar service to keep the  freight moving. 
 During that time I logged some 11,000 miles running  locomotives over the 
248 miles of old NKP main line between Bellevue, OH and  Buffalo.
 
The return trip from Erie was the same at the extremities,  but instead of 
returning on the DL&W I substituted a ride  on the NYC's Empire State 
Express where I had an unobstructed view out  the rear of the lounge car on the 
Water Level Route.  This lounge car  even had a short rearward facing bench 
seat at the rear windows for those  people (like me) who wanted to see the 
railroad without getting a crick in  their neck.
 
Gordon Hamilton
 
----- Original Message ----- 

From:  _NW Mailing List_ (mailto:nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org)  
To: _nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org_ (mailto:nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org)  
Sent: Sunday, October 21, 2012 12:27  PM
Subject: Re: End of Service for VGN  EL-2B Streamliners


Stewart:
 
You're thinking of what Vgn called the EL-C.  The EL-2b's were the  
two-unit (back to back) "streamliners."  They had 25 Hz to DC  motor-generator sets 
to feed DC to their traction motors.
 
The rectifiers went straight from N&W to the New Haven in the  summer of 
1963,  NH arranged for a service engineer from the GE New  York office to come 
to New Haven and check them out.  As it happened,  that summer was when I 
was doing my three-month field assignment as part of  my 21-month rotating 
training assignments for what was then the Locomotive  and Car Equipment 
Department of GE, and I had been assigned to the NY Office  for that assignment 
(which was very convenient because we were living on  Long Island at the 
time).  I was invited to come along for the  inspection, which was a great 
experience.  The New Haven folks remarked  that "GE had learned a lot about 
packaging the rectifier equipment since the  EP-5's."
 
Dave Phelps
 
 
In a message dated 10/21/2012 9:11:57 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org writes:

Hi Group, please forgive the ignorance of a Yankee  member.- Were the VGN 
EL-2b's, the "hood style" rectifier locomotives  delivered by General 
Electric to the VGN?  If so, some of them came  to the New Haven Railroad, probably 
in the 1960's and probably by way of  General Electric-Erie Works. They 
passed from the New Haven into Penn  Central then into Conrail.  I'm a member 
of the Railroad Museum of  New England and the museum owns one of the units 
in very faded Conrail  blue and minus it's main transformer due to it's 
concentration of PCB's in  the transformer oil. It will never run again, there's 
no main transformer  and the 20 mile Naugatuck Railroad subsidiary of the 
museum has  absolutely no centenary. 
Stewart Fritts

----- Original Message ----- 
From:  _NW Mailing List_ (mailto:nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org)  
To: _NW Mailing List_ (mailto:nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org)  
Sent: Monday, October 08, 2012 9:39  PM
Subject: Re: End of Service for VGN  EL-2B Streamliners



Sorry I can't answer  all your inquiries about the EL2b's. I do have a 
note, of which I do  not remember the source, that says the EL2b's were scrapped 
at the  Peck Iron 
& Metal Co.  in south Richmond. Maybe this will jog someone's memory with 
the details.
 
Jeff Sanders



 
 

From: NW Mailing List <_nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org_ 
(mailto:nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org) >
To: _nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org_ (mailto:nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org)   
Sent: Friday, October  5, 2012 1:59 PM
Subject: End of Service for VGN  EL-2B Streamliners


I've seen several accounts of the  end of the EL-2Bs which say they were 
taken out of service and scrapped  between 1959 and 1962.  The early date is 
clearly incorrect as  McClure and Plant show several pictures in their book 
of these motors in  service into at least Oct. 1960.  Can anyone clear up the 
history  of the final days of the EL-2Bs?  When were they actually taken 
out  of service?  Were they stored for a while before disposal?   Were they 
sent back to General Electric or were they scrapped by some  local company?  
If so, who, when and where?  Many thanks for  your help.

Tom
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