Virginian Electric Photo 8

[NW Mailing List]

Although you wouldn't know it by casually looking at the trucks as mounted under a locomotive, the?FM and?GE trucks of that era?(and, for that matter, the Alco C truck prior to their hi-adhesion design)?were all so-called "tri-mount" trucks.? (An off-set center plate pivot point and two sliding support locations?on the truck with corresponding fixed support locations on the locomotive underframe)? The differences between the GE752 traction motors on the Trainmasters and those on the EL-C's were minor at worst, so all that?might have been?required was to mount ground return brushes on the Trainmaster truck.? I don't know the exact design of the ground return brushes on the EL-C's, but I do know what was used on the later PRR E-44's and I suspect the design on the EL-C's was similar; that brush mounted to the gear casing and contacted a ring on the axle.? Did VGN use FM or GE axle sets in that truck?? I don't know the answer to that, maybe someone else does.

All photographic evidence I've seen indicates that only one truck on one locomotive was ever interchanged with the FM TM truck (it's the forward truck in the second unit in the photo), so it may well have been that VGN only used the ground return brushes on the other truck.? Those three would have collectively had enough current carrying capacity for the duty (remember, the 3300 HP continuous was electrically fed and returned at 11-12 kV, so the current isn't all that high).

Dave Phelps

-----Original Message-----
From: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
To: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Sent: Sat, 19 Apr 2008 11:11 am
Subject: Re: Virginian Electric Photo 8


The ELC's were built after the FM Trainmasters were received. I remember reading somewhere that Vgn asked GE to make the trucks interchangable, but this is the first time I have seen photographic evidence that they actually swapped any. It appears that only one truck on the second unit is an FM. Jim Nichols?
----- Original Message ----- From: "NW Mailing List" <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>?
To: "NW Mailing List" <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>?
Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 6:43 PM?
Subject: Re: Virginian Electric Photo 8?
?

> The number looks like 133. Did it have something different installed? > Looks almost like FM style, but the resolution isn't goond enough to be > sure.?

>?

> Dave Stephenson?

>?

>?

> --- On Fri, 4/18/08, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:?

>?

>> From: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>?

>> Subject: Re: Virginian Electric Photo 8?

>> To: "NW Mailing List" <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>?

>> Date: Friday, April 18, 2008, 1:32 PM?

>?

>> Gordon - have you noticed the trucks under the second?

>> "Brick"??

>>?

>> Ed King?

>?

>?

>?

> > ____________________________________________________________________________________?

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