Pat, that's something productive! Thanks for sharing!

umm..that's actually not something productive, at all. ;)
She basically only said: "we still own the GG1, still no firm plans to get it here, nothing has changed."

That's been the status since the Henry Ford museum purchased the unit in 2008. Nothing has changed in almost a decade..and there is nothing new now.

Scot

"Productive", meaning they still acknowledge ownership and responsibility for the locomotive. That translates as "The GG1 isn't entirely abandoned yet, no matter in what state you found it."

Mr. Glueck - you mentioned the welds in the truck frames. One of the GG1s in Boonton has the same affliction. Was this a result of the design, the casting, or a lot of miles at high speeds? Anyway, does anyone have an inventory of which surviving GG1s have repaired cracks in the truck frames and which ones do not? Thank you.

Scranton, I honestly don't know why they developed cracks, but I seem to recall an article in the PRR T&HS journal "The Keystone", that suggested it was the tremendous use these gorgeous locomotives got, in all weather, on all track conditions. I think frame and truck cracks were just about universal in the entire fleet. I am certain others can speak with more authority to this issue.

Basically, ANY GG1 that lasted into the 1970s had frame cracks and frame welds. If you know where to look, you'll find welds atop welds atop welds. I've heard various accounts to the effect of "going through welding rods like popcorn at a theater" to keep those things running in NJ Transit's final days of running them.

Remember that we were looking at locos that were boasting double the availability of steamers, with overload capability, built with cast-steel technology of the 1930s (in reality the 1920s), lasting 40 years or so. Blame metallurgy, blame production methods (they had to anneal the frames in a giant oven after casting and major work), blame simple old age.

"blame simple old age"

Pretty much, many of these loco's had 4-5 decades of use with frames being twisted back and forth many many times.

No matter how strong the metal, if you twist it back and forth a billion times it will start to fail. Simple metal fatigue. This is why most airplanes are retired after 25 years or so.

It is actually kind of amazing that a big accident did not occur during the last years of GG1 operations due to a cracked frame at high speed leading to a derailment.

Cheers, Kevin

Much thanks to Mr. Glueck, Mr. Mitchell, and NYCRRson for the replies about the frame cracks. It appears that the consensus is metal fatigue from use past the designed lifetime and not an intrinsic design flaw. So, if someone ever wanted to try to resurrect one of these beauties, they would not have to redesign the frame but would likely have to replace it. Maybe over the next 10 to 20 years there may be an opportunity to achieve some synergies in frame construction being that the T-1 group may also be casting some big frames.

NYCRRson - funny that you used the airplane analogy. A long time ago, on the first day of one of my Mats Sci classes, one of the profs told us that he always got a window seat when he flew so he could count how many times the wing flexed up and down. Then he'd wonder how many times it had already cycled and how many cycles it had left.

The article in "The Keystone" gave a very comprehensive study of why a GG1 will never operate again, at least not as a real GG1.
I've kind of wondered why the GG1 physical design hasn't been used to build newer corridor locomotives! Probably lots of cost based reasons, but still, they were photogenic, fast, much beloved for a variety of reasons. They also had small windows and cramped seating for the operator. So it goes.

I'd be really curious to read that article. Does anyone know where I could order a reprint or find a scanned copy?

Cracked frames are why the first GG1's were retired in the mid 1960's.

I assume the PRR and then PC shortly afterwards recognized that it was becoming a fleet-wide issue, and that if they didn't attempt to put a band-aid on the problem, the GG1 fleet would quickly disappear with no hope of a quick replacement in sight.

The Keystone
Spring 2013
Volume 46 - Number 1

Not loved by the crews that had to ride them in the winter after they became clapped out leaky cold beasties. In snow storms we would wrap ourselves legs in newspaper and tape the cuffs to try and keep the snow from blowing up our pants legs.
Keith

Allegedly thick black paint took care of the cracks in the frames.

I was told by a Mechanical Engineer (NYC / PC /CR) that they did try an experiment with a fabricated frame on a single GG1, with the goal of replacing cracked frames, and avoiding the cracking problem in the future. Apparently the experiment was not repeated, for reasons not known to me.

JR