The Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum in North Judson, Indiana has an EMD Model 40 four-wheel rigid frame diesel, one of only 11 produced between 1940 and 1943. The locomotive was given to HVRM by Calumet Steel of Chicago Heights, Illinois and arrived at the museum in the fall of 2000. Serial Number 1835 had obviously seen much hard work during its career and was described as "totally worn out" and deemed not restorable. Last year, the locomotive was painted up and served as a "billboard" advertising the museum to passersby. Then this fall, one of our members decided to have a go at seeing what he could do with the locomotive. He got one of the 6-71 Detroit Diesel engines operating. Then, a rusty old EMD brake stand from some long forgotten source was found in one of our storage cars. It matched the cut off pipes perfectly and, lo and behold, the engines brakes were soon working. A wiring diagram was then e-mailed to us. Glad hands have been put back on the old girl, and then surprise!, she moved up and down her 100' of trackage under her own power. Next up will be an effort to try to get the other Detroit Diesel running. Much other work remains to be done. There are still a lot of wires that have been cut and must be reattached. The hand brake must be "unfrozen". The horn and bell put back on and made operable. Wheels, extremely worn, must be trued if possible, or replaced. Small leaks in the air brake system have to be repaired. And sand lines reinstalled. Right now, the museum is looking for valve covers which are missing from both engines. Anyone out there have an old worn out 6-71 Detroit that might still have the valve covers? We are interested.

The verdict is still out as to whether we can restore s/n 1835 to service. But we ARE trying!

Les Beckman (Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum/North Judson, Indiana)

I wonder if this engine was also used in construction equipment? The Rochester Chapter NRHS - Rochester and Gennesse Valley Railroad Museum has/had a historic construction equipment collection on site and they may have ideas on where to find such a piece.

http://www.rgvrrm.org/index.htm

I have to admit that this is a stab in the dark, as I don't have any hard info on this area - but I know that when GM built an engine they generally tried to find many applications for it.

Tom Cornillie

Les,

Tom is correct, and thanks for thinking of us. The Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum maintains a large collection of historic construction equipment which we use for both display and work at our museum in addition to our railroad collection.

I am not sure exactly what we have in spare parts so I will check with our Master Mechanic to see if we have any spare valve covers that might help you on the restoration of your Model 40.

Regards,
Chris Hauf
Manager - Railroad Equipment
Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum

Glad to hear this unit is being restored. I believe there are only 2 or 3 Model 40's still in existance. And these little industrial critters don't get the attention from preservationists that the bigger sexier locomotives do.

The good news is that the 6-71 Detroit was in production for years - through the 60's and possibly later. It was used in just about every conceivable application-- medium duty trucks, motor graders, stationary generators, even some of the last Oliver farm tractors had 'em. You should have no trouble finding parts, new or used.
J

There is a list devoted to those restoring heavy equipment - a similar mental illness to ours - that provided me with a quote from a supplier on a rebuilt Cat diesel engine from the 1930s that would drop in replace the frozen and cracked one in the davenport switcher in Savannah, cost $6000. They chose to install a new engine and tranny which cost many times that instead, but the sources are out there. I wish I could provide the URL but it was on my old laptop that is no longer serviceable. A bit of googling should give you some leads.

dave

Dave,

Two active historic construction equipment groups are:

Antique Caterpillar Machinery Owners Club
http://www.acmoc.org

Historic Construction Equipment Association
http://www.hcea.net/
It appears their website is down for repairs.

There may be others, but those are two that quickly came to mind.

Regards,
Chris

Actually, i believe there are quite a few of the original Model 40 still in existence. I believe we had a discussion on here a year or so ago about it, and it was something like 7 or 8 or the 11 built are still around, including the EMD demonstrator, and the only one to be used in Canada, which is stored in a warehouse, out of the public view, and not operable.

Ken Jones Jr.
Niagara Falls Railway Museum
http://www.nfrm.ca

Try the W. W. Williams organziation. It has the parts business for the some of the Detroit diesels (like the 6-110). Maybe it can provide a source for the 6-71.

Also many other product lines of interest to those in railways, etc.

Here is a url for them:
http://www.wwwilliams.com/distribution/index.jsp
and another one from their website:
http://www.wwwilliams.com/distribution/hard-to-find-parts.jsp

Les, what a great story! I put EMD Model 40 in Ask Jeeves so I could see waht one looked like. They are awsome! There is a site that lists yours as being built 4/42 and sold to The American Steel Foundries. It doesn't list anything else about it so you should contact them and give them the low down on what has happened to your little diesel. The site is www.rosshorwood.com/RailSiteLinksFiles/EMDModel40.html. On the same site they show two abandonded units just sitting in yards. Shame to see them go to waste.

We have a similar story about our GE 100 ton center cab that we received back in '99. It pretty much sat for lack of volunteers to work on her until this past autumn when one of our volunteers, Karl, decided to take on the project. He got the west end diesel running several weeks ago but only for several short runs since we do not have an operating brake stand. He is rebuilding them with new seals. In the meantime he cleans contactors and compartments and lubricates a lot. He has the brakes working and we hope to acquire a truck load of ties so we can lay enough rail to tie the section it rests on into the section about 200' away. Funny how this stuff gets into your blood!

Later!
Mr. Ed

Does anyone know of any of these "forlorn" units needing a home? A few of us in the shop would love to have one for a shop goat. Everone says there so ugly there cool. just need to find one in need of a good home and some T.L.C. The above link did not work for me. Thanks

The Agricultural & Industrial Museum of York County (PA) has the one that was the switcher for AMF (Harley Davidson) at York, PA. This is the one that was in the 1972 TRAINS ("Big Bill"). According to the curator, it is out back under a tarp, and the Harley orange paint has turned a lovely shade of pink.

They at least have it under a tarp, but other than that, it may be somewhat unloved. If somebody has something to trade closer to their mission, maybe they'd listen. When I talked to them, I sent them the article and the history so they had some sense of at least what it was and didn't make it into a phone booth or something.

It didn't work for me either Jack. Go to ask Jeeves (www.ask.com) and type in "EMD Model 40" and it is the first link under web results, not sponsored web results. I like Ask Jeeves over Google because Google prides itself in the sheer number of hits they find, not in the quality of the hits. And Google likes to relist hits in order to raise their hit count.

Later!
Mr. Ed

Les, wish I knew before you needed valve covers too. I used to have a shed in my Mom's backyard that was full of 6-71 parts, including several valve covers (including at least one chrome one), but my brother has been helping my mother "clean" things up and he scrapped all sorts of spare parts I've been using at Travel Town and elsewhere.

I have no problem finding most all 6-71 parts out here. Our EMD 40 of course uses two, our crane another one. And I used to drive and maintain "flatbottom" busses out here that all had 6-71s. And of course, I cut my teeth on the old Detroit Diesels on several Sea Scouts boats as well all sorts of Navy boats.

If you can't find some covers a bit closer to you, I'll take a look around here and see what I can find cheap.

I take it the schematic was useful then?

Greg

Greg:

Yes, it has been, and continues to be. I ran copies and gave them to Donnie, our restoration "guru". He has them with him whenever he works on the locomotive. Again, appreciate your help.

Les

As other people have said, the 6-71 is probably quite possibly the diesel engine which had the highest production numbers of any diesel ever. Where I work we have buses from 1992 which are powered by 6L-71 detriots! Granted, I'm not certain components for one of these laters ones would fit correctly, they 6-71 was eventually outfitted with electronic fuel injection before it was discontinued ( as are ours ). There again I don't really see how that would change that valve covers though, so maybe it would you'd have to talk to somebody who is familiar with detriots from this era. Another place I know you could find either parts for a 6-71 or someone who knows about them and where to find parts would be the American Truck Historical Society's website, www.aths.org. There's also a forum at that site. I'm sure if you left a posting there someone could point you to exactly where to go to get what you need and I don't think it'd be very expensive at all as parts for these engines are available all over the place.

Regards,
Trevor H.