|
GE E50C
The PRR E44 was an electric, rectifier-equipped locomotive built by General Electric for the Pennsylvania Railroad between 1960 and 1963. The PRR used them for freight service on the Northeast Corridor. They continued in service under Penn Central Transportation Company, Penn Central and Conrail until Conrail abandoned its electric operations in the early 1980s. They were then acquired by Amtrak and NJ Transit, where they lived short lives; all were retired by the mid-1980s. One is preserved at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. Design By the late 1950s, with its PRR P5, P5a fleet aging, the Pennsylvania Railroad needed new electric freight locomotives. In fact, the PRR had never really had a successful electric freight locomotive. The P5a was originally built to haul passengers, being bumped from that duty by the more powerful GG1. The PRR GG1, GG1s were best at hauling passenger trains; while also adequate for fast, time-sensitive freights, they were not as efficient on heavy f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Railroad Museum Of Pennsylvania
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of land transport, next to road transport. It is used for about 8% of passenger and freight transport globally, thanks to its energy efficiency and potentially high speed. Rolling stock on rails generally encounters lower frictional resistance than rubber-tyred road vehicles, allowing rail cars to be coupled into longer trains. Power is usually provided by diesel or electric locomotives. While railway transport is capital-intensive and less flexible than road transport, it can carry heavy loads of passengers and cargo with greater energy efficiency and safety. Precursors of railways driven by human or animal power have existed since antiquity, but modern rail transport began with the invention of the steam locomotive in the United Kingdom at the beginning of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PRR P5
The Pennsylvania Railroad's class P5 comprised 92 mixed-traffic electric locomotives constructed 1931–1935 by the PRR, Westinghouse Electric (1886), Westinghouse and General Electric. Although the original intention was that they work mainly passenger trains, the success of the PRR GG1, GG1 locomotives meant that the P5 class were mostly used on freight. A single survivor, prototype #4700, is at the National Museum of Transportation in St Louis, Missouri. They had an AAR wheel arrangement of AAR wheel arrangement#2-C-2, 2-C-2, or 2′ in the UIC classification system — three pairs of driven wheels rigid-framed electric locomotive, rigidly mounted to the locomotive, with a two-axle unpowered bogie, truck at each end. This is an equivalent to a 4-6-4 in the Whyte notation. The PRR did not have any 4-6-4 steam locomotives, so the P5s were the only 4-6-4 type locomotives owned by the PRR. The first P5s were built with Boxcab, box cabs. A grade crossing accident in which the crew ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Utilitarian Design
Utilitarian design is an art concept that argues for the products to be designed based on the utility (as opposed to the "contemplated pleasure" of beauty). For example, an object intended for a narrow and practical purpose does not need to be aesthetically pleasing, but it must be effective for its task and inexpensive: a steel power pylon carries electric wires just as well as a marble column would, and at a much lower cost. While an artefact designed with complete disregard of appearance (''purely'' or ''strictly utilitarian design'') can be imagined, David Pye argues that such objects do not exist, as the human nature makes it impossible to design anything without even a slightest consideration of its appearance. As far back as in the Paleolithic Age, the stone tools were sometimes manufactured with better quality than the one required for the task. According to Pye, in practice the "purely utilitarian" objects are the ones made to fit the purpose at the lowest possible cost, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pantograph (rail)
A pantograph (or "pan" or "panto") is an apparatus mounted on the roof of an electric train, tram or trolley buses to collect power through contact with an overhead line. The term stems from the resemblance of some styles to the mechanical pantographs used for copying handwriting and drawings. The pantograph is a common type of current collector; typically, a single or double wire is used, with the return current running through the rails. Other types of current collectors include the bow collector and the trolley pole. Invention The pantograph, with a low-friction, replaceable graphite contact strip or "shoe" to minimise lateral stress on the contact wire, first appeared in the late 19th century. Early versions include the bow collector, invented in 1889 by Walter Reichel, chief engineer at Siemens & Halske in Germany, and a flat slide-pantograph first used in 1895 by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The familiar diamond-shaped roller pantograph was devised and p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blue Ridge Mountains
The Blue Ridge Mountains are a Physiographic regions of the United States, physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Highlands range. The mountain range is located in the Eastern United States and extends 550 miles southwest from southern Pennsylvania through Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. The province consists of northern and southern physiographic regions, which divide near the Roanoke River gap. To the west of the Blue Ridge, between it and the bulk of the Appalachians, lies the Great Appalachian Valley, bordered on the west by the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians, Ridge and Valley province of the Appalachian range. The Blue Ridge Mountains are known for having a bluish color when seen from a distance. Trees put the "blue" in Blue Ridge, from the isoprene released into the atmosphere. This contributes to the characteristic haze on the mountains and their perceived color. Within the Blue Ridg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virginian Railway
The Virginian Railway was a Class I railroad located in Virginia and West Virginia in the United States. The VGN was created to transport high quality "smokeless" bituminous coal from southern West Virginia to port at Hampton Roads. History Early in the 20th century, William N. Page, William Nelson Page, a civil engineer and coal mining manager, joined forces with a Partnership#Silent partners, silent partner, industrialist financier Henry H. Rogers, Henry Huttleston Rogers (a principal of Standard Oil and one of the wealthiest men in the world), to develop the Deepwater Railway, a modest 85-mile long short line railroad to access untapped bituminous coal reserves in some of the most rugged sections of southern West Virginia. When Page was blocked by collusion of the bigger railroads, who refused to grant reasonable rates to interchange the coal traffic, he did not quit. As he continued building the original project, to provide their own link, using Rogers' resources and atto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
VGN EL-C
The Virginian EL-C, later known as the New Haven EF-4 and E33, was an electric locomotive built for the Virginian Railway by General Electric in August 1955. They were the first successful production locomotives to use Ignitron (mercury arc) rectifier technology. Although they proved to be a successful design, no more EL-Cs were built, due to the small number of railroads that had electrification and the advent of improved electric locomotive technology. They were among the last mainline electric freight locomotives in the United States. Background In the mid-1920s the Virginian Railway had adopted an 11 kV 25 Hz AC electrification for its coal-heavy main line between Mullens, West Virginia and Roanoke, Virginia. To work this line the Virginian bought 36 EL-3A boxcab locomotives from Westinghouse. The Virginian added four EL-2B locomotives from General Electric after World War II, but the original fleet was showing its age. In the mid-1950s the Virginian decided to continue ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electro-Motive Division
Electro-Motive Diesel (abbreviated EMD) is a brand of diesel-electric locomotives, locomotive products and diesel engines for the rail industry. Formerly a division of General Motors, EMD has been owned by Progress Rail since 2010. Electro-Motive Diesel traces its roots to the Electro-Motive Engineering Corporation, founded in 1922 and purchased by General Motors in 1930. After purchase by GM, the company was known as GM's Electro-Motive Division. In 2005, GM sold EMD to Greenbriar Equity Group and Berkshire Partners, and in 2010, EMD was sold to Progress Rail, a subsidiary of the heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar. Upon the 2005 sale, the company was renamed to Electro-Motive Diesel. EMD's headquarters and engineering facilities are based in McCook, Illinois, while its final locomotive assembly line is located in Muncie, Indiana. EMD also operates a traction motor maintenance, rebuild, and overhaul facility in San Luis Potosí, Mexico. As of 2008, EMD employed approx ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
General Motors
General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The company is most known for owning and manufacturing four automobile brands: Chevrolet, Buick, GMC (marque), GMC, and Cadillac, each a separate division of GM. By total sales, it has continuously been the largest automaker in the United States, and was the List of manufacturers by motor vehicle production, largest in the world for 77 years before losing the top spot to Toyota in 2008. General Motors operates manufacturing plants in eight countries. In addition to its four core brands, GM also holds interests in Chinese brands Baojun and SAIC-GM-Wuling, Wuling via SAIC-GM-Wuling, SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile. GM further owns GM Defense, a namesake defense vehicles division which produces military vehicles for the United States government and military, the vehicle safety, security, and information ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alco
The American Locomotive Company (often shortened to ALCO, ALCo or Alco) was an American manufacturer that operated from 1901 to 1969, initially specializing in the production of locomotives but later diversifying and fabricating at various times diesel generators, automobiles, steel, tanks, munitions, oil-production equipment, as well as heat exchangers for nuclear power plants. The company was formed by the merger of seven locomotive manufacturers and Schenectady Locomotive Engine Manufactory of Schenectady, New York. A subsidiary, American Locomotive Automobile Company, designed and manufactured automobiles under the Alco brand from 1905 to 1913. ALCO also produced nuclear reactors from 1954 to 1962. After World War II, Alco closed all of its manufacturing plants except those in Schenectady and Montreal. In 1955, the company changed its name to Alco Products, Incorporated. In 1964, the Worthington Corporation acquired the company. The company went out of business in 1969, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PRR E3b
Pennsylvania Railroad class E3b was an experimental electric locomotive supplied by Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Co. The locomotive was of the two unit design, with each unit having a B-B-B (AAR) or Bo-Bo-Bo ( UIC) wheel arrangement. The bodywork and running gear was produced by Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton while the electrical equipment was provided by Westinghouse, who also acted as the main contractor. In 1952 and 1953 the Pennsylvania Railroad took delivery of ten experimental locomotives, six from General Electric and four from Westinghouse. While GE's were all of the same class ( E2b), the Westinghouse locomotives were split into two classes. Two locomotives had two three-axle trucks ( E2c), while the other two had three two-axle trucks (E3b).Staufer, p. 300 The locomotives were scrap Scrap consists of recyclable materials, usually metals, left over from product manufacturing and consumption, such as parts of vehicles, building supplies, and surplus materials ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PRR E2c
Pennsylvania Railroad class E2c comprised a pair of experimental C-C (AAR) or Co-Co ( UIC) electric locomotives. The bodywork and running gear was produced by Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton while the electrical equipment was provided by Westinghouse, who also acted as principal contractor. In 1952 the Pennsylvania Railroad took delivery of eight experimental locomotives, four from General Electric and four from Westinghouse. While GE's were all of the same class ( E2b), the Westinghouse locomotives were split into two classes. Two locomotives had three two-axle trucks ( E3b). The significant technical difference between the locomotives was that those from General Electric used traditional AC traction motors. Those by Westinghouse had mercury arc rectifiers to convert the AC traction power to DC. In consequence they were able to use ordinary DC traction motors, identical to those on contemporary diesel-electric locomotives. The locomotives were scrap Scrap consists of recyclabl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
