I’m not sure why, I just remember seeing photos of it online. They also made quite a few changes to the 630 and 4501 - I’m not really sure why that’s a problem. TVRM is one of the best operating railroad museums in the country. Their engines look and sound fantastic - who cares if they used a few modern tricks to make things easier?

Same with a GG-1 - it would be great to see one operate. Putting in new motors isn’t going to be any different than having a new boiler built... it’s still a gg-1 operating.

The AC Locomotive Group here in the UK have preserved representatives of most of the 25KV AC locos that were used here, though they are mainly in non-operational condition.....

https://www.aclocogroup.co.uk/

.....but have been working over several years on restoring one of these for main line operation - namely 89 001, a prototype from the mid 1980's that never achieved a production batch.
A film has just been posted of it moving under power, on test, yesterday (22nd April)....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMBiCT8SF4o&t=4s

Needless to say it has taken a lot of effort and money to get to this stage!
.

Honestly, the thing is see is the motors or transformers or whatever impart much more of the feel and sound of an electric than having an authentic boiler does a steamer or an authentic control stand does a diesel. I feel a closer comparison would be to modifying a preserved steamer to modern standards - i.e the proposed modernization of Tornado's design, just done on an existing engine - or re-engining a preserved FM!

Personally, i just feel there's bigger things in this world than getting a GG1 operating - even if a place to run it could be found, it'd barely scratch what it must have been to be behind one at speed, not to mention the frame and brake problems.

Personally - I don't see the appeal as someone who loves GG1s. We'd be getting either GG1-lite - with any authenticity replaced by the fact it's mechanically a ACS or w/e - and/or a completely kneecapped one.

Regardless if it still has it, if restored the old transformer would probably have to be removed due to environmental concerns with the PCB.

Thank you for the concise explanation! This is the point I was trying to make originally, I tend to forget that people have different ways of defining efficiency.

Because putting on a show isn't preserving something.

Sometimes you have to make a deal with the devil to keep the lights on (by attracting enough attendance to pay for the upkeep), but applying modern technology to historic artifacts is like sewing synthetic fibers into the Betsy Ross flag just so you can stick it on a flag pole. It destroys the historic nature of the artifact.

Preservation is NOT about putting on a show. It's about preserving things so that people in the future can observe them.

The point about putting modern controls in a vintage EMD is a perfect example. Yes, it might mean that you can continue to run it, but it also means that someone studying it in 100 years is now going to wonder "why was there an LCD screen in this?" and instead of getting an understanding of the locomotive's technology when it was built, instead they're seeing an example of 2020 technology retrofitted to an older locomotive. It's a story, yes, but it's probably NOT the reason someone would be researching an E8.

If TVRM bought the unit to run trains to drive museum attendance so people can see actually preserved stuff, that's great, they should make all the changes they want. It's what Strasburg does with its equipment and it's wonderful. But Strasburg isn't a museum and doesn't call themselves one. What they're doing is something different. Valuable, but different.

It's the beginnings of a slippery slope. The two biggest factors degrading our collections today are mindlessly replacing original brake systems in steam locos with 26 equipment, and replacing diesel control stands with modern equipment, both for the same reason... "Nobody knows how to run that old stuff anymore." Well, that's really the whole point; you need to TRAIN people to run it, and then you've preserved that aspect of the historic equipment also.

Worse yet, these decisions are usually made in a vacuum with no consideration given as to how many others are still in existence. Question; how many preserved E units still have their original control stands?

It's little changes like this that will eventually consume the historic aspect of our collections.

Most "preservation" projects attempt to re-create an appearance or arrangement of the equipment corresponding to a specific time in its service life. Many railroads start changing small details rather quickly after a piece of equipment is delivered to their property. After delivering several hundred new locomotives I tend to view all owner railroad installed changes and additions as being "authentic" in a preservation setting, they just may not be appropriate to the time period the preservation organization wants to depict. Others may view this differently, locomotives are an economic tool and my interest has generally been design and construction rather than interpreting it after its retirement from service. I don't see changes in control stands and other onboard equipment made by owner railroads to aid crew familiarity, make a fleet more consistent and maintainable, or prolong availability of spare parts, as being much of an issue.

To restore some of the diesel locomotives that I delivered to "as built" condition, just like they went out of the gate at the plant, you would have to remove the lettering and reflective stripes.

PC

I also think preservation is a subjective term.

Tennessee Valley and the Strasburg for example are “preserving” shortline passenger service in a somewhat historical and somewhat fictional way.

JeffH wrote;



Correct, there is "electrical efficiency"; kVA OUT divided by kVA IN and there is "volumetric efficiency" IE: how big was a 5000 kVA transformer in 1940 versus a 5000 kVA transformer in 2021. The volume has maybe decreased by 10-20%, but there is no way it has shrunk like digital computers over the same timeframe (from a whole large room in the 1950's to a cell phone after 2000).

For electrical machinery the electrical efficiency tends to be higher for larger (and higher kVA) systems than smaller systems. Many of the losses occur at the exterior of the machine. As the machine (motor, generator, transformer) gets larger the ratio of exterior surface area to overall volume goes down and the losses from eddy currents goes down.

Very similar to a large building, the problem with controlling the interior temperature of a large office building (or a shopping mall) becomes one of cooling. The heat lost from the exterior surfaces becomes small relative to the volume enclosed. On the other hand a small building (like your house) needs a lot more heat inside to overcome the losses through the relatively large surface area (with respect to the volume).

Think of a mouse and an elephant, the heat generated inside is based on the volume, but the ability to shed heat is based on the surface area. A mouse loses heat very quickly, an elephant loses heat very slowly. The big ears on an elephant are actually radiators to shed heat and keep the temperature of the elephant within comfortable levels. Same principle applies to electrical equipment; motors, generators, transformers.

Transformers are not at all similar in the way they operate to solid state electronics (computer chips). The "faster/smaller every 18 months" paradigm for computer chips does not apply to transformers. Different rules, different improvements in efficiency over time.

That quote should be printed on a large sign hung up at all railway museums. It is positively brilliant!

Preservation and Operation are often conflicting goals, because Operation consumes the artifact that we intend to preserve. But a reasonable compromise is to replace in-kind, with similar materials and workmanship.

Unfortunately to a lot of people in the railway preservation business, the artifact is preserved and 'restored' when it looks pretty and especially when it runs!

Sometimes I have had to manufacture replacement parts because there are no originals to be had anywhere. What I do then is "sign" my work in some place which is inconsipicuous to the casual viewer, but will be quite visible when the apparatus is disassembled. The signature contains the organization's name and the date that I made the part.

And I quite agree with Dennis' comment about schedule 26 brake systems. "nobody works on that old stuff anymore?!" Isn't that the whole point of preservation?

Would any classic car collector take, I dunno, lets say a 1950 Nash, throw away the original engine and replace it with a modern, fuel-injected, computer-controlled engine, because they couldn't figure out how to repair the original?

So back to the real issue at hand, can a GG-1 ever run again?

The transformers are gone in all of them that are in preservation. A few which are out in the weeds may have the original transformers, but with so many gallons of PCB in them, no organization would touch that.

So, first we need a transformer. The original unit on a GG-1 was rated 4.6MVA. Just doing a quick search, a 5MVA utility co. transformer (13.8kV primary) is over $80,000. I have no idea how much a 25cy version of that would be (more, because you need more copper and steel for lower frequencies) nor do I have a sense of what the price premium would be to create a multi-tapped secondary.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but "modern" AC electric locomotives have not used tapped transformers for quite a long time. That went out with the 25cy AC commutated motor. Since the 50s or 60s, ignitrons and then solid state conduction angle modulation have been used with DC motors, and from about 2000 onward, 3-phase inverter drive to AC motors.

Next problem, when they "removed the contaminated transformer" from the GG1, was it just the transformer? Those things were built with the tap contactors somewhat integral to the transformer shell. Are all those electropneumatic contactors still there?

If the answer is no, then good luck building all that stuff again from scratch. Budget another $100K at least.

Or screw it, just build a solid state converter to turn the output of an 'off-the-shelf' 25cy 11KV:480V transformer into a variable voltage DC output. IIRC the GG1 motors have a maximum voltage of about 500V but since you won't be running it at 100MPH, maybe you can get by with much less. A converter of that capacity, even say 1MW, is probably coming in close to $100K too.

Now, what condition are those motors in? They last took power during the Reagan years. Wanna take a gamble on blowing one? So budget some time, and money, to inspect and dry out the motors. Air brake system in date? How are pans and all those high-voltage insulators? MCB? Oh no, don't tell me, they removed that too, because of the PCBs, time to go to Radio Shack and buy a new one.

So finally after a few hundred thousand dollars, we have a locomotive that can operate. Where? Certainly not at any museums, which all have 600VDC overhead. Who still has a live 25cy,11kV catenary? Would that railroad be open to the idea of running this ancient stuff, frame cracks and all?

But I guess there is a little hope. I did a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation: To accelerate the 450,000+ plus mass at the tepid rate of 1 ft/s^2 at 10 ft/s requires about 260HP mechanically. Using a 600VDC input DC-DC buck converter, and allowing for various ineffiencies and losses, a 500kW DC substation would probably be able to do this. IIRC, IRM has a 2000kW capacity. Running it on 600VDC eliminates all the transformer and high voltage issues but don't expect it to be very fast. So start the gofundme campaign with a $250K target, and maybe we can get one of these things running at a museum.

I agree!

It's one thing if it's an original owner, or even a subsequent owner, but once something goes "into preservation" time should stop for it. THAT'S THE POINT.

This may sound like I'm arguing that nothing old should be operated. But that's not accurate.

It's perfectly fine to operate old stuff and modernize it, but it shouldn't be considered "in preservation" in those cases. It can be part of a preservation organization, but it's not preserved.

It behooves me to point out that, as much as I agree with you, there are at least three "sacrificial lamb" GG1s out there--two in Cooperstown, NY and one in Baltimore--that could be considered for such a kitbash, and some might make the case that a couple more are out there for which a "running upgrade" would be an improvement on their present state.......

What is preservation then?

If a museum restores a coach for display but has to scrape off paint to properly repaint the coach so it looks presentable... isn’t that destroying the original fabric of the coach?

But who wants to look at old beat up trains in a museum?