clkayleib
UP 18 7-4-2010
UP GTEL-8500 18 (34069-34070 8/60) @Illinois Railway Museum, Union IL 7-4-2010.
Union Pacific, which had a high ratio of perishable traffic consisting not only of California fruits and vegetables but livestock and meat products and was faced with challenging grades like the Wasatch range leaving the Salt Lake basin and the Continental divide needed not just tractive effort but horsepower-lots of it. This showed itself in its propensity to cram as much hp as possible into one locomotive and manifested itself in steam in the 4-12-2's, the Challengers and the Big Boys and in diesel in its double-engine C-855's, U-50's, DD-35's and Centennials but the epitome of horsepower in a non-electric locomotive were these locomotives: 8500 hp gas-turbine-electrics that were upped to a whopping 10,000 hp by the railroad.
The three sections of the locomotive were integrated and served seperate functions. The "A" unit contained the controls and a 1,000 hp Cooper-Bessemer diesel for starting the turbine and moving the locomotive around in the terminal, what appears to be the "B" unit contained the turbine itself and the main generator and the third "unit" was an insulated tender to hold the turbine's Bunker C residual furnace oil (also used by oil-burning steamers) which had to be heated in order to flow.
I would have loved to have been able to see and hear this baby climbing the Wasatch with a string of PFE reefers.
UP 18 7-4-2010
UP GTEL-8500 18 (34069-34070 8/60) @Illinois Railway Museum, Union IL 7-4-2010.
Union Pacific, which had a high ratio of perishable traffic consisting not only of California fruits and vegetables but livestock and meat products and was faced with challenging grades like the Wasatch range leaving the Salt Lake basin and the Continental divide needed not just tractive effort but horsepower-lots of it. This showed itself in its propensity to cram as much hp as possible into one locomotive and manifested itself in steam in the 4-12-2's, the Challengers and the Big Boys and in diesel in its double-engine C-855's, U-50's, DD-35's and Centennials but the epitome of horsepower in a non-electric locomotive were these locomotives: 8500 hp gas-turbine-electrics that were upped to a whopping 10,000 hp by the railroad.
The three sections of the locomotive were integrated and served seperate functions. The "A" unit contained the controls and a 1,000 hp Cooper-Bessemer diesel for starting the turbine and moving the locomotive around in the terminal, what appears to be the "B" unit contained the turbine itself and the main generator and the third "unit" was an insulated tender to hold the turbine's Bunker C residual furnace oil (also used by oil-burning steamers) which had to be heated in order to flow.
I would have loved to have been able to see and hear this baby climbing the Wasatch with a string of PFE reefers.