The P-12-42, also known as the ''Speed Merchant'', was a streamlined, locomotive built between 1957–1958 by Fairbanks-Morse, specifically to operate on each end of the

Talgo Talgo (officially Patentes Talgo, SAU) is a Spanish manufacturer of intercity, standard, and high-speed passenger trains. Corporate history TALGO, an abbreviation of Tren Articulado Ligero Goicoechea Oriol (English: ''Lightweight articulated tra ...

train produced by American Car and Foundry. This model represented F-M's attempted entry into the lightweight locomotive market, but only four of the low-slung units were produced: the first pair was purchased by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad for their '' John Quincy Adams'' train (

New York, New York New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Uni ...

to Boston, Massachusetts), while the second pair went to the

Boston and Maine Railroad The Boston and Maine Railroad was a U.S. Class I railroad in northern New England. Originally chartered in 1835, it became part of what was the Pan Am Railways network in 1983 (most of which was purchased by CSX in 2022). At the end of 1970, B ...

for their '' Speed Merchant'' train ( Boston, Massachusetts to Portland, Maine). The P-12-42's eight-cylinder

opposed piston engine An opposed-piston engine is a piston engine in which each cylinder has a piston at both ends, and no cylinder head. Petrol and diesel opposed-piston engines have been used mostly in large-scale applications such as ships, military tanks, and f ...

was rated at after 1950, but train lighting and other ancillary loads ( "hotel" power) used about 25% of output, leaving for traction. The 100-ton units measured long by wide by high, and were configured in a

B-2 The Northrop (later Northrop Grumman) B-2 Spirit, also known as the Stealth Bomber, is an American heavy strategic bomber, featuring low-observable stealth technology designed to penetrate dense anti-aircraft defenses. A subsonic flying w ...

wheel arrangement mounted atop a pair of two-axle

AAR AAR or Aar may refer to: Geography * Aar, a river in Switzerland, tributary of the Rhine *Aar (Lahn), a tributary of Lahn river in Germany, descending from the Taunus mountains * Aar (Dill), a tributary of Dill river in Germany, also in the bas ...

road

trucks A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo, carry specialized payloads, or perform other utilitarian work. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, but the vast majority feature body-on-frame construction ...

, geared for with only the first two axles powered. The P-12-42 was one of the first locomotives to have its prime mover configured to run at a constant speed, with traction generator output regulated solely by excitation. The New Haven locomotives were dual-powered, and came equipped with

third-rail A third rail, also known as a live rail, electric rail or conductor rail, is a method of providing electric power to a railway locomotive or train, through a semi-continuous rigid conductor placed alongside or between the rails of a railway ...

pickups to allow them to operate in New York's

Grand Central Terminal Grand Central Terminal (GCT; also referred to as Grand Central Station or simply as Grand Central) is a commuter rail terminal located at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Grand Central is the southern terminus ...

, becoming the first dual-power locomotives light enough to operate on the

Park Avenue Viaduct The Park Avenue Viaduct, also known as the Pershing Square Viaduct, is a roadway in Manhattan in New York City. It carries vehicular traffic on Park Avenue from 40th to 46th Streets around Grand Central Terminal and the MetLife Building, th ...

. F-M expected to sell many more units to the New Haven, and to spin the technological advance off into a line of passenger units, including a proposal that used a Train Master-style carbody, but with financial troubles preventing F-M from extending financing to customers, the cash-strapped New Haven ultimately opted to purchase a fleet of sixty EMD FL9s instead, as GM financing was available for the purchase. The New Haven's Talgo train was sold to Ferrocarril de Langreo for service in Spain, in 1962, and their locomotives sat unused afterwards, until being scrapped in 1971. The Boston and Maine's train remained in service until 1964.

References

External links

Magazine advertisement from late 1955 depicting an artist's rendition of the New Haven's "John Quincy Adams" Talgo train

Late 1955 magazine advertisement depicting the Fairbanks-Morse "Speed Merchant" locomotive
{{NA Electro-diesel B-2 locomotives Boston and Maine Railroad Electro-diesel locomotives P-12-42 New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad locomotives North American streamliner trains 600 V DC locomotives Passenger locomotives Railway locomotives introduced in 1957 Scrapped locomotives Standard gauge locomotives of the United States Streamlined diesel locomotives

See also

References

Further reading

External links