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Re: Best and worst Diesel locomotive to operate my vote hasn't changed...
Author: BOB2
Date: 03-31-2016 - 07:07
The double bb truck design is unstable, and since the b trucks on GE's sucked to begin with, this just "squared" that effect.
The high cab, just left you, at a higher center of gravity to be thrown around, even more, especially tracking through switches at speed.
The visibility forward was great, but you oouldn't see a man below you, or looking back to take a signal, without being half way out the window.
They had lousy seats, lousy control panels, and typical of GE's of that era, steps and various interior protrusions exactly placed to attack your shins at every turn in the dark (although the C 415 was by far the worst for that special feature).
They were gassy, filling the cab with fumes, especially if running backwards (high cab...) and notoriously unreliable, with two prime movers to crap out, overheat, trip a low oil button, and require constant restarting. When you lost one engine, they could barely pull themselves, let alone a train.
We were assigned on once, when I was firing, as a lead engine at Colton for the "point" of the Mountain local, and they wanted us to run it backward up the pass and switch with it. My hoghead insisted on taking it around the wye at Old Colton (PE connection to Riverside) after he threw the armrest padded seat out of the "second story" window, and asked for on you could switch with.... He then, by gently jerking the jam, easily managed to derail that unstable double bogey truck on the wye and put it "on the ground", after which they magically found us an EMD......
One of the dumbest designs ever, and like the equally worthless C 415, all of the foamers just seemed to love them.
The high cab, just left you, at a higher center of gravity to be thrown around, even more, especially tracking through switches at speed.
The visibility forward was great, but you oouldn't see a man below you, or looking back to take a signal, without being half way out the window.
They had lousy seats, lousy control panels, and typical of GE's of that era, steps and various interior protrusions exactly placed to attack your shins at every turn in the dark (although the C 415 was by far the worst for that special feature).
They were gassy, filling the cab with fumes, especially if running backwards (high cab...) and notoriously unreliable, with two prime movers to crap out, overheat, trip a low oil button, and require constant restarting. When you lost one engine, they could barely pull themselves, let alone a train.
We were assigned on once, when I was firing, as a lead engine at Colton for the "point" of the Mountain local, and they wanted us to run it backward up the pass and switch with it. My hoghead insisted on taking it around the wye at Old Colton (PE connection to Riverside) after he threw the armrest padded seat out of the "second story" window, and asked for on you could switch with.... He then, by gently jerking the jam, easily managed to derail that unstable double bogey truck on the wye and put it "on the ground", after which they magically found us an EMD......
One of the dumbest designs ever, and like the equally worthless C 415, all of the foamers just seemed to love them.
