That locomotive shown in the photo is one of many second-hand six motor GE's (and EMD's) that have been sold to several different South American operators over the last few years. Note that the unit behind the C32 appears to be a C-30-7A. Appears that NREC and GE are the suppliers.

I suspect that there are a number of political and economic reasons for purchasing used locomotives versus new. One reason probably has to with balance of trade considerations. As these locomotives have been overhauled/upgraded-it stands to reason that this work has been done locally. In the case of Ferro Norte, some newer Dash-9 locomotives were actually conveyed to another operator.

So-it appears that one C32 has been 'saved.' Now, there is plenty of time to arrange funding, find a location to display the thing, etc. At least ten years...

I stand behind what I said re: locomotives that have languished in scrap yards. When a locomotive is sold to a scrapper, it usually doesn't take long for things such as brake portions, safety appliances and any easily accesible copper items to disappear. The fixed and variable costs of putting a crew on the road to prepare a locomotive for movement -replacing lost/damaged material -can quickly spiral out of sight !!! Then, there is the issue of having the local car inspector 'bless' the piece as roadworthy so it can be moved.

By the way Scot, why is it taking so long to move the ex-LV U23B to the display site ?

Thanks for the C32 story, Eric. Good stuff. Reminds me of comments made by a former SR manager about their small groups of Alco PA's and FM TrainMasters. Unlike the GE's-neither one of these made it past their 10th birthday.

DPK

Eric, they aren't horses, they're CAMELS!!! But go ahead, and shoot 'em anyway!!!

With apoligies in advance to Scot

What will happen if none of these locomotives are saved?

Will it leave a significant hole in anyone’s collection/interpretive plans?

This was at best a rare, transitional locomotive model. At worst it is/was a dog.

The citizen’s of this board have been known to lament the loss of all of New York Centrals modern steam. In the West we wish a SP mountain had survived. Somehow I suspect that few would notice this locomotive missing from our collective collections.

Considering how tight preservation resources are, would the world be better off passing on this, and saving something else?

Just fundraising for the move.
the Sayre Historical Society still has to pay for the move. the delay is just in raising the funds to get it up to Sayre.
from all reports, it looks like the engine should move this year! :)

(im not directly affilated with the SHS..just an interested LV fan. but I do maintain the Uboat webpage..)

http://www.sayrehistorical.com/LocomotiveRescue/
http://gold.mylargescale.com/scottychao ... -U23B.html



you dont need to apologise to me! ;)
I know the C32-8 isnt anyones dream preservation loco..
im just saying it would be nice..since its so rare and all.
I would put it in the same class as the Alco C415..butt ugly, but in a charming way, and not at all glamorous..but still worthy of preservation just on grounds of rarity.
and especially for socities or museums interested in Conrail..
(are there any yet?? )

Its just a favorite of mine..
I used to see them run.
if no one will else will fight for them, I will! ;)

Scot

Some wise men taught me that when I don't know, admit it. I try to honor their teaching.

Eric, I'm ignorant enough on the real inner workings of diesels that this was Greek to me, but it sounds interesting. Could you explain what control grounds are , and how they can switch polarity? And why does it matter if the synch up?

I know diesels have prime movers that drive generators (or alternators that output AC to rectifiers) that feed DC current to traction motors, but after that I get hazy...

Thanks in advance.

Erik:

On a diesel locomotive the contol power is derived off the starting battery when the unit is shut down or the aux. generator which charges the battery at 74 VDC when the engine is running. Unlike an automobile or truck electrical system where battery negative is connected to the frame of the vehicle, a locomotive keeps the battery isolated from the carbody. All control relays, contactors, devices, etc. have a positive and negative feed that sooner or later comes off the BP an BN strings. As a locomotive ages the insulation on the wiring or devices begins to break down and leakage occurs to the frame of the locomotive. Also defective components, i.e. electric fuel pumps, aux gens, temp. switches, starting batterys, etc. can be grounded and still function. Where it becomes interesting is that when the control wiring functions are passed through the MU jumper to another unit it is posible to pass the control problems to the "Good" unit. Whats bad is when you have two units MU'd and one has a negative ground and the other has a positive ground you generally get a short and the control circuit breakers trip and your out of business.

The biggest pain is the "Intermitent" control ground that appears and disapears like magic....or when its humid....or when you need the engine most.

Older units like the GP-9's, Switchers, covered wagons can perform fine (although FRA Defective) with small control grounds, but when you get into the more complex control systems like the GP-38 with static exitation, Dash 2's, 60 series, Dash 7 & 8's the integrety of the controls system is extremely important.

A quick way to check for grounds in the control system is take a 20 watt 74V lamp with two leads and conect one to battery positive and the other to the locomotive frame....if it lights bright your grounded. Do the same on the negative side and if it lights your grounded. Then start turning off circuit breakers one at a time and if your luckey when you get to the circuit with the ground the light goes off.....if not your in for a long day pulling wires off terminals. In my experience we seem to find the cause of most of our control grounds are on account of defective fuel pump motors....right behind that seems to be in the 27 pin MU wire runs.

Another good way to check for control grounds is on a hot summer day and your all sweaty and you lean on the control stand or anything metal and you get this little tingle......

EBL

Thanks, Eric! That made perfect sense. I had no idea that the entire diesel control system circuit is supposed to be in isolation from the frame. Interesting! Now I "get" the image of C32s, opposite polarity control grounds, and the Highline---UGH.

When the PRR was creating their historical collection in the early 1950's, I am willing to bet that the same discussion was occuring in regards to the T-1 - and that with all its operational problems that one shouldn't be preserved. Nevertheless, the T-1 was in many respects one of the most advanced steam locomotive designs and not having one preserved makes it harder to study the evolution of American steam locomotive design.

Likewise, the loss of a C32-8 will mean the loss of a crucial step in the creation of the modern diesel locomotive.

In preserving history it is not our place to decide what to preserve by wheither it was 'good' or 'bad' but by what significance it had. The C32-8 was a very significant locomotive and deserves a place in preservation.

Tom Cornillie

I disagree. The reason we don't have a T1 today is that there was still money owed to the lenders on the equipment trusts. I would venture to say that the PRR saw little if any of the scrap proceeds as it went to retire the debt on the locomotive.

Although I am by no means a fan of them, I would be the first to nominate the C-40-8 as the "U-25b" of the third generation.

We should also build a shrine to the SD-40-2.

EBL

Maybe we should reframe the question. We've been talking as through the worth of the object for preservation--in this case a C32, but it could be anything--is inherent in the object itself.

I would suggest the question looks different if you look at it from the perspective of a collecting organization with a good collections plan. Whether the object is worth preserving AT THAT MUSEUM would depend on the museum's mission and on its collections plan.

From this perspective, you can see there is no "yes or no" answer--there are many different possible collections plans, and a C32 might be right for some and not for others.

Hypothetical examples:

1. "The Museum of General Electric Locomotives"--yes
2. "Museum of Diesel Locomotive Technology Development"--probably yes
3. "The Museum of Western Railroading"--no
4. The Museum of Typical Railroading--no (here you want that SD-40-2 for gen 3 and a C40-8 for gen 4)

See what I mean? The mission of the collecting organization is the intellectual framework that decides whether it makes sense to preserve a given object.

Erik - Perhaps you omitted it because it is obvious but what about a hypothetical museum of Pennsylvania railroads -

1) The unit was built in PA and marked the ascendancy of a major PA employer into first place in this market

2) The unit was owned by a railroad headquartered in PA and the purchase of this locomotive is symbolic of that railroad's revitalization (and 1986 privatization)

3) The locomotive (and others like it) spent much of their working lives in the state – and are well remembered by the employees who worked on them.

4) This locomotive would also play a major part in showing the evolution of diesel locomotives at that museum -

Also, from recent reports on groups.yahoo.com/loconotes - the units at RMDI are the last extant units in the US. The unit that was in Georgia is now in Brazil, as a photo link showed earlier.

Tom Cornillie

Well, I was trying to stay a little abstract, but yes, the object in question in this thread--a C32--would seem potentially to fit within RRM of PA's collections policy, or within Lake Shore's.

However, the point I was really trying to advocate was a little different: I'd like to see us move away from thinking in an artifact-centered way-- "someone should save object X"-- to thinking in a collections-centered way-- "This is our mission, this is the story we tell. What objects help us tell this story?"

The fate of object X becomes less central in the second way of thinking, which admittedly makes people uncomfortable, becuase it implies that object X has no absolute or intrinsic worth.

But the difference between the two ways of thinking is, arguably, the difference between being a collections manager and being a collector or a fan, if that makes sense.

This is not meant to be a flame on collecting--I collect some railroadiana myself. And I'm a fan too, which means I have my own pet engines and causes in my private time. And if you have the means to collect locmotives and want to, like Mr. Levin senior did, well then God bless you merry gentleman!

But when the idea is a museum should save something, then in my opinion that's putting the question backwards. Too many railroad museums have already been built around the impulse "sombody oughta save X" -- and X1, and X2, and so on -- without ever figuring out what story they want to tell and who they are telling it to and what artifacts they need to tell it and how many artifacts they can maintain in perpetuity under their business model. Only after you know the answers to these can you worry about the fate of poor old X.

By the way I'm really just thinking out loud here, not trying to pick an argument with Tom or anyone...

For the record, I agree with both Mr. Levin and Mr. Ledbetter.

While I don't know the specifics of how the T-1 may have been financed, I thought that by now, it was common knowledge that the scrapping of steam power actually helped some roads finance dieselization. Didn't the PRR show its first loss ever-in 1946 ? I have to believe that the value of scrap steel was high post-WWII...given the amount of metal that was sent to the bottom of the Atlantic and Pacific ocean.

I fail to see how the display of a 400,000 lb ton locomotive, proves or illustrates anything-to anyone. If one removes the locomotive from a proper context, i.e., the people who designed, built and maintained the thing-it is just 200 tons of junk. I don't understand why this point is ignored by so many to claim to be interested in the subject.

As an aside, those CR units were not the only Dash-8 engineering prototypes built. Off the cuff, I can cite (3) BN B32-8's which may have been a part of a large order for cabless B30-7A's. All scrapped, by the way.

I could add another museum or two that would be a suitable home for the C32-as I believe they were regular power on the Boston and Albany Line for many years. At the same time, couldn't an O scale model make some of the same points that the full-sized artifact might.

Finally, I wonder if anyone else found Mr. Levins' comments about 'control grounds' as significant as I did.

DPK

If there is ANY locomotive that actually deserves a shrine, it the SD40-2.

The truth is that any piece of equipment can be X tons of junk without an interpretation of its significance and telling its story. Interpretation and story may not mean much to most of the people who read this board - but this is because we already know the story and why something is important. However, for the vast majority of the public - museums have to make an effort to tell the story and explain the significance to answer their "so what."

The negative view of the people who worked with these locomotives makes them all the much more important from the standpoint of technological history - as later GE locomotives were far more reliable and helped them to obtain market dominance. This locomotive is important for showing that technolgical advances are often frought with problems when first implemented - but that real progess can be made when the bugs are worked out.

If you boil it down, there isn't much reason to saving any object - it is really expensive and time consuming - and models, drawings and personal histories can tell much of the story. However, there is something very powerful - yet intangible - about being in the presence of the thing that was actually there.

Also, to build on Erik's point - I perfer not to start with collection policy but to focus on the range of potential stories that an institution want to tell - and to shape the collection plan/policy around that.

Tom Cornillie

Wow! Something I had never considered, and it makes cold, hard sense. We've always been told that Pennsy did not want to save any design that was n't purely their own, or that spoke well for the company's design genius. You explanantion plugs into the reasoning behind not preserving a later model T, S, or Q class locomotive. The others were all of older generation and paid for. The PRR could afford to sacrifice the scrap value on locomotives that had worked away their debt.

Interesting perspective. It would take the insight of one working inside the operations end to recognize this angle. Thanks!