Awesome. Thanks for posting. One of my most favorite locomotives, and the chance to actually hear one under load and operating, and see what the crew sees, is a major cool thing.
I grew up around the Rock Island on the mainline to Chicago here in Illinois. I remember seeing those old tired (and grimy), red and Yellow E8s pulling the Peoria Rocket and Quad Cities Rocket. Never rode them. Now here I get to see what it looked like inside! Thanks so much for posting this- a real treat! Be well and God bless! :-)
I read the whole description. Thanks for the info, you answered every question I had when I clicked on this video! Very interesting story, I enjoyed it!
Yeah, a ride in a helicopter would be a fun thing too. Almost 10 years ago I was offered a cab ride on a major freight road, but I had to refuse because I would've had to leave my truck 50 miles behind with no way to get back to it. I wish I could've gone, though. If I remember correctly, the engineer was 2nd in seniority on the division and he gave me a tour of all 6 units on his train and even opened the hood doors and started a unit that wouldn't load for him. My favorite diesel to boot!
Thanks for that explanation. That was simple enough that even I could follow along! Usually things that involve me trying to understand electrical systems go over my head, but this I didn't.
When the locomotive is moving in Series, it means that all of the motors are fed electric power from one feed, through all motors, and back to Ground. When in Parallel, each Motor is fed separately from the feed and to the Ground. In Series, all the motors are working together, while in Parallel they are competing. In Series, they can start smoother, and can haul more weight from a dead stop. In Parallel, they can achieve higher speed, but can handle less weight.
Love these old F and E units...when I was a brakeman on the Chicago and Northwestern I got the chance to be head brakeman on a F unit pulling coaches for CNW dignitaries including President Fox on a tour of the Iowa division..it was an experience I'll never forget!
As a child I remember my much older brother and I taking quick trips to NJ when you could stand by the side of the tracks and watch the GG1's pulling Amtrack varnish in and out of Hoboken NJ... And I remember the sweet sound of their engines and smell of aging grease.
I grew up near the Nickle Plate Road in Cleveland, Ohio, East Cleveland. It was interesting to see the workers signaling with lanterns, and I learned some of the signals and stuff.
Thanks. I shot the things that I wanted to see in the cab too. Scenery is fine , but I want to see the engineer at work and look at the controls and the gauges. It all happened so quickly that I wanted to take it all in. Not wanting the engineer to regret inviting me in, I just didn't want to get in the way or disrupt him. I would've gotten more shots from around the cab, but I didn't want to push my luck.
Yes, but it's been over 20 years since I've been there. A cab ride in the SP U25B or the FP45 would be really neat. If I ever make it out there again, I should look into that. The last time I was there I was a teenager and wanted so badly to climb up on the U25B just to look through the window into the cab, but I was so afraid I would get in trouble, that I didn't.
Have you ever visited the Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris California? We have an ex Union Pacific E8 that you can get to run for an hour though it's not cheap unless you time share with some friends or something and split the cost though you can get cab rides on it or any of our locomotives that we may bring out. I have a few videos of it and other stuff there that you can ride and see there.
The part that bums me out still is that I actually was allowed to go into the engine room and explore while we were in the station. The whole time I was shooting video of all the cool things and hearing the sound of that 567, not until later at home did I realize that I didn't press the record button hard enough! DAMN! I had or should've had at least 5 or 10 minutes of E8 engine compartment video to show to the RUclips world. Guess not.
What he didn't know and I didn't tell him was that I've always liked it when locomotives are started up. He said they had 2 units that wouldn't load and he couldn't make road speed so he shut them down. On the "tour", he opened up the hood doors and started that big EMD to show that it ran fine, but it just wouldn't transmit power to the traction motors. Same situation as in this video. Anyway, that engineer broke the rules to make a lasting impression on a railfan. He had pride in his work.
Yeah, most of the time with the big railroads it is a big ordeal to get a cab ride. Luckily for me this was a small railroad that was kind of like a family setting. The engineer made the call and I think his superiors trusted his judgement had they found out. But also, I technically was a paying passenger on a passenger train,so maybe that gave him a little more flexibility. To read all of the details though, just read the very long description I wrote for this video.
Great and detailed story... Interesting learning how front and back trucks have a dedicated prime mover for each pair of traction motors... Thanks for being literate too! Makes me nuts when people can't write proper... LOL
Thank you for watching the video and also for taking the time to read the story behind that day's events. I wanted to be thorough and clear for those that may want to know the story.
Yeah, and on top of that, Earl, the engineer, didn't kick me out after just the first trip. I rode two trips from the casino to Globe and back that day! Too bad I didn't have my high capacity camera battery when I shot these. He even let me go back and look through the engine room, but I didn't realize that I didn't fully press the record button all the way until later when I put this onto a disc...DOH!!!
Hi, interesting story. Maybe an overdub of description of the engineers cab and activity would explain the action to the non-informed!! Very interesting tho! Garrett P. Edmands
I was interested to learn, as a child, my maternal grandfather had been a train engineer for a time. He was capable of drawing a train, too, never minded physical work, even though it all rendered him deaf. My current spouse is legally deaf in one ear now from working in Dangerous Goods at an airport. But he likes the physical work, too, even though he was in management. He needs a lot of care, feeding and no HASSLES in the home. Very cool clip, uprated, shared. Thank you. I like trains, although a French bullet train is a bit scary and all Italian trains of any type are scary, and there's nothing worse than Amtrak! I confess, I liked the Orient-Express. Thanks again from around Paris!
I have a picture of that very loco in C&NW livery I took at the Norma yard in Des Plaines, IL in 1966 - when I was 12 years old. Brownie Hawkeye camera. I'm so happy to see her again 50+ years later in an amazing coincidence finding this video! Here's what she looked like when she was pulling commuter coaches on the C&NW Harvard Division. www.cirrusimage.com/images/66-june04.jpg
I am curious about something I noticed while viewing- the engineer's foot was not on the dead man pedal ( 5:04-5:09 ). By chance, had the dead man pedal been compromised?
I wondered the same thing myself when I was onboard, but I didn't feel it was appropriate for me to question that. I really didn't want to make myself unwelcomed. Just a guess on my part, but I would think it was just deactivated because in reality it was so easily defeated. I mean the idea of putting a lunchbox or toolbox on it to keep it depressed has been around since about 5 minutes after the very first one was installed. And an engineer can be totally unconscious or worse, and still have his foot fully engaging the pedal. That's not to imply any wrong doing or unsafe practices going on here - those were just my two-cents.
summer of 1978, spent a day photoing at north western station in chicago. saw the E8s and F7s running in and out. funny thing, later that trip saw a CNW FP7 on a freight!
yes but, you would therefore be old like me. actually, the FP7/F3B was a freight at misissippi jct, in st. paul(or was it minneapolis?). i think the locals called this the hole in the wall. as it was passing, a soo train had stopped short of the jct. on the lead was one of the 2 dolly sisters leading a GP7 or 9. the dolly sisters were RS27s and soo had 2 of them. after the cnw train passed, a mns train came by with one of their SD39s. we ended up chasing the cnw train for a few miles.
The funny thing is, that of all the different kinds of units you saw on that one day alone, it is still the F and E-units that are the easiest to find today..and the Geeps. Still, an impressive variety to be had in 1978.
Yes, that is a covered wagon. Though I have been in several F-units before, this was only my second E-unit (the first was Southern Pacific E9 6051), and as mentioned this was my first cab ride of any kind. It was a good day!
Sou Heritage From what I could find on the internet, this engine is now painted in an Illinois Central orange and brown paint scheme and is lettered for the Iowa Pacific and numbered 515. As of late last year it was running around in Wisconsin. This video was shot on the Arizona Eastern Railroad in Central Arizona.
@belzelga2 Yeah, it would've been better with both prime movers online, but had the engine not had it's problems that day, I would not have had a cab ride that day either.
Just thought I'd let you know that someone explained the act of "transition" in locomotives on my video that you asked me about last week. You can find the answer in the comments.
I have to say as much a fan as I am of early diesel power, comparing the interior of this E unit to the cab of a modern diesel is like comparing a Ford model A to a Lexus! LOL Again that doesn't take anything away from the unit itself. Just the march of technology.
So lucky. Unfortunately the passenger excursions are no longer running after another mining company bought out the railway rights and shut it down. It's shame.
are they running trains on this line anymore, someone said this loco is running somewhere in Wisconsin. I think this E8 is pretty much wore out from continued use, like a dead horse and couldn't even get going faster than 30mph, pretty sad seeing this unit abused, they stop running it or it will end up like all the other E units in the scrap heap. In the UK robots have rights, and in the USA loco's should also have rights, especially vintage locomotives like this one. Running it until it can't run no more is abuse I say.
I Like your profile picture... I have a Dodge Charger R/T! If you watch my video on my Rock Island passenger cars- or my latest video "iowa interstate 500 513 707 switch in bureau" you will see it! :-) Anyway- like I said before- great video and thanks for posting! God Bless!
![How To Fire Up a Steam Locomotive [4K]](/img/1.gif)
Thank you for fulfilling the dream of every kid who grew up next to the tracks.
Yes, thanks goes to engineer Earl Knoob for making my lifetime dream come true.
Awesome. Thanks for posting. One of my most favorite locomotives, and the chance to actually hear one under load and operating, and see what the crew sees, is a major cool thing.
I grew up around the Rock Island on the mainline to Chicago here in Illinois. I remember seeing those old tired (and grimy), red and Yellow E8s pulling the Peoria Rocket and Quad Cities Rocket. Never rode them. Now here I get to see what it looked like inside!
Thanks so much for posting this- a real treat! Be well and God bless! :-)
I read the whole description. Thanks for the info, you answered every question I had when I clicked on this video! Very interesting story, I enjoyed it!
Yeah, a ride in a helicopter would be a fun thing too. Almost 10 years ago I was offered a cab ride on a major freight road, but I had to refuse because I would've had to leave my truck 50 miles behind with no way to get back to it. I wish I could've gone, though. If I remember correctly, the engineer was 2nd in seniority on the division and he gave me a tour of all 6 units on his train and even opened the hood doors and started a unit that wouldn't load for him. My favorite diesel to boot!
Piloting an ancient E-unit across the Arizona desert......sounds good to me!
Thanks for that explanation. That was simple enough that even I could follow along! Usually things that involve me trying to understand electrical systems go over my head, but this I didn't.
When the locomotive is moving in Series, it means that all of the motors are fed electric power from one feed, through all motors, and back to Ground. When in Parallel, each Motor is fed separately from the feed and to the Ground. In Series, all the motors are working together, while in Parallel they are competing. In Series, they can start smoother, and can haul more weight from a dead stop. In Parallel, they can achieve higher speed, but can handle less weight.
Thanks for letting us know what was going on. Very cool videos!
Thank you for watching and reading. It was a long descrpition too!
Thanks for watching. I'm glad you like it.
Awsome, great score to be able to do that!!!
Wow, definitely a score. I would of been just as estatic as you about scoring that cab ride. Very nice.
Love these old F and E units...when I was a brakeman on the Chicago and Northwestern I got the chance to be head brakeman on a F unit pulling coaches for CNW dignitaries including President Fox on a tour of the Iowa division..it was an experience I'll never forget!
Oh cool! That's neat that you'll have that memory for your whole life.
As a child I remember my much older brother and I taking quick trips to NJ when you could stand by the side of the tracks and watch the GG1's pulling Amtrack varnish in and out of Hoboken NJ... And I remember the sweet sound of their engines and smell of aging grease.
Oh yeah, I'd love to have seen GG-1's in action. I would like to have seen them at speed on the NEC.
They were truly an incredible design. Some machines are but made only once.
What makes the whistle blow?
Gary Bandiero It is operated with compressed air. The engineer pulls on the cord which pulls on a lever that releases air into the horn.
I grew up near the Nickle Plate Road in Cleveland, Ohio, East Cleveland. It was interesting to see the workers signaling with lanterns, and I learned some of the signals and stuff.
Thanks. I shot the things that I wanted to see in the cab too. Scenery is fine , but I want to see the engineer at work and look at the controls and the gauges. It all happened so quickly that I wanted to take it all in. Not wanting the engineer to regret inviting me in, I just didn't want to get in the way or disrupt him. I would've gotten more shots from around the cab, but I didn't want to push my luck.
Thanks! It was a real treat for me too!
Yes, but it's been over 20 years since I've been there. A cab ride in the SP U25B or the FP45 would be really neat. If I ever make it out there again, I should look into that. The last time I was there I was a teenager and wanted so badly to climb up on the U25B just to look through the window into the cab, but I was so afraid I would get in trouble, that I didn't.
Have you ever visited the Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris California? We have an ex Union Pacific E8 that you can get to run for an hour though it's not cheap unless you time share with some friends or something and split the cost though you can get cab rides on it or any of our locomotives that we may bring out. I have a few videos of it and other stuff there that you can ride and see there.
Happens to everyone. Still had a much better idea of the sound of the unit, and under load too, a very rare opportunity indeed.
The part that bums me out still is that I actually was allowed to go into the engine room and explore while we were in the station. The whole time I was shooting video of all the cool things and hearing the sound of that 567, not until later at home did I realize that I didn't press the record button hard enough! DAMN! I had or should've had at least 5 or 10 minutes of E8 engine compartment video to show to the RUclips world. Guess not.
What he didn't know and I didn't tell him was that I've always liked it when locomotives are started up. He said they had 2 units that wouldn't load and he couldn't make road speed so he shut them down. On the "tour", he opened up the hood doors and started that big EMD to show that it ran fine, but it just wouldn't transmit power to the traction motors. Same situation as in this video. Anyway, that engineer broke the rules to make a lasting impression on a railfan. He had pride in his work.
Special respect to engineer! It's realy infrequent!
Thank you.
@alcoC415 Thank you.
Yeah, most of the time with the big railroads it is a big ordeal to get a cab ride. Luckily for me this was a small railroad that was kind of like a family setting. The engineer made the call and I think his superiors trusted his judgement had they found out. But also, I technically was a paying passenger on a passenger train,so maybe that gave him a little more flexibility. To read all of the details though, just read the very long description I wrote for this video.
They built these about 3 miles down the road from my grandparents house. The factory site is not a rock quarry.
Great and detailed story... Interesting learning how front and back trucks have a dedicated prime mover for each pair of traction motors... Thanks for being literate too! Makes me nuts when people can't write proper... LOL
Thank you for watching the video and also for taking the time to read the story behind that day's events. I wanted to be thorough and clear for those that may want to know the story.
Yeah, and on top of that, Earl, the engineer, didn't kick me out after just the first trip. I rode two trips from the casino to Globe and back that day! Too bad I didn't have my high capacity camera battery when I shot these. He even let me go back and look through the engine room, but I didn't realize that I didn't fully press the record button all the way until later when I put this onto a disc...DOH!!!
Hi,
interesting story. Maybe an overdub of description of the engineers cab and activity would explain the action to the non-informed!!
Very interesting tho!
Garrett P. Edmands
I'm curious, what just happened @2:55? Momentary amps overload or something ?
It was a circuit transition in the traction motors, kinda like shifting into a higher gear
rigsofrodsmaster Is that what happens in the cab when the traction motors are connected in parallel after being connected in series at the start ?
AlainHubert Yes, exactly.
Also I didn't know that the wheel slip light flashes on real fast when the locomotive hits its forward transition point from Series to Parallel.
I was interested to learn, as a child, my maternal grandfather had been a train engineer for a time. He was capable of drawing a train, too, never minded physical work, even though it all rendered him deaf. My current spouse is legally deaf in one ear now from working in Dangerous Goods at an airport. But he likes the physical work, too, even though he was in management. He needs a lot of care, feeding and no HASSLES in the home. Very cool clip, uprated, shared. Thank you. I like trains, although a French bullet train is a bit scary and all Italian trains of any type are scary, and there's nothing worse than Amtrak! I confess, I liked the Orient-Express. Thanks again from around Paris!
I have a picture of that very loco in C&NW livery I took at the Norma yard in Des Plaines, IL in 1966 - when I was 12 years old. Brownie Hawkeye camera. I'm so happy to see her again 50+ years later in an amazing coincidence finding this video! Here's what she looked like when she was pulling commuter coaches on the C&NW Harvard Division.
www.cirrusimage.com/images/66-june04.jpg
I have heard of it many times myself, but I really don't know how it works. Maybe someone else can help explain that one.
Very nice video, with good people.
Thank you very much for watching! I hope you caught part 2 also.
Thanks for update information
Sou Heritage You're welcome.
I am curious about something I noticed while viewing- the engineer's foot was not on the dead man pedal ( 5:04-5:09 ). By chance, had the dead man pedal been compromised?
***** Perhaps not. But I am at a loss to figure out just what it might be.
I wondered the same thing myself when I was onboard, but I didn't feel it was appropriate for me to question that. I really didn't want to make myself unwelcomed. Just a guess on my part, but I would think it was just deactivated because in reality it was so easily defeated. I mean the idea of putting a lunchbox or toolbox on it to keep it depressed has been around since about 5 minutes after the very first one was installed. And an engineer can be totally unconscious or worse, and still have his foot fully engaging the pedal. That's not to imply any wrong doing or unsafe practices going on here - those were just my two-cents.
Interesting video. Thank u!
Sergey Moiseyev Sorry it took so long for a response, but thank you.
@espeescotty That's true.
summer of 1978, spent a day photoing at north western station in chicago.
saw the E8s and F7s running in and out.
funny thing, later that trip saw a CNW FP7 on a freight!
oh, and behind the FP7 was one of the rarest of all,,,
an F3B!
Dang, I'm jealous! I would have loved to have seen some action like that.
yes but, you would therefore be old like me.
actually, the FP7/F3B was a freight at misissippi jct, in st. paul(or was it minneapolis?).
i think the locals called this the hole in the wall.
as it was passing, a soo train had stopped short of the jct. on the lead was one of the 2 dolly sisters leading a GP7 or 9. the dolly sisters were RS27s and soo had 2 of them.
after the cnw train passed, a mns train came by with one of their SD39s.
we ended up chasing the cnw train for a few miles.
The funny thing is, that of all the different kinds of units you saw on that one day alone, it is still the F and E-units that are the easiest to find today..and the Geeps. Still, an impressive variety to be had in 1978.
all the old alco and GEs are now almost impossible to find.
Thats so freaking coooool
Yes, that is a covered wagon. Though I have been in several F-units before, this was only my second E-unit (the first was Southern Pacific E9 6051), and as mentioned this was my first cab ride of any kind. It was a good day!
We're this locomotive located and location of track age
Sou Heritage From what I could find on the internet, this engine is now painted in an Illinois Central orange and brown paint scheme and is lettered for the Iowa Pacific and numbered 515. As of late last year it was running around in Wisconsin. This video was shot on the Arizona Eastern Railroad in Central Arizona.
@belzelga2 Yeah, it would've been better with both prime movers online, but had the engine not had it's problems that day, I would not have had a cab ride that day either.
WHAT YEAR WAS SHE BUILT
+BOYCOTT PC A quick search online shows June 1953.
Great video!
I'm just itching to hear notch 8.
Great post
DYNO DON Thank you.
Just thought I'd let you know that someone explained the act of "transition" in locomotives on my video that you asked me about last week. You can find the answer in the comments.
wish you would one using the jinjles from the phoebe snow road of anthracite coal
Laing NT4TS
My gosh turn the squelch up on that radio!
Its sad to see such a beauty have to work with half its horsepower unusable.
I have to say as much a fan as I am of early diesel power, comparing the interior of this E unit to the cab of a modern diesel is like comparing a Ford model A to a Lexus! LOL Again that doesn't take anything away from the unit itself. Just the march of technology.
This was like a Rolls Royce compared to the Steam Cabs.
DYNO DON They sure were!
DYNO DON p
I love diesel engines.
Что такая кабина тесная? Оборудование как 30х годов прошлого века
Very cool. I think I missed my calling.
Unfortunately colorblindness means that this can't be my calling even though it's what I've wanted to do since I was 7-years old.
So lucky. Unfortunately the passenger excursions are no longer running after another mining company bought out the railway rights and shut it down. It's shame.
are they running trains on this line anymore, someone said this loco is running somewhere in Wisconsin. I think this E8 is pretty much wore out from continued use, like a dead horse and couldn't even get going faster than 30mph, pretty sad seeing this unit abused, they stop running it or it will end up like all the other E units in the scrap heap. In the UK robots have rights, and in the USA loco's should also have rights, especially vintage locomotives like this one. Running it until it can't run no more is abuse I say.
i think it would be very boring .just sitting their watching tracks going by.
I Like your profile picture... I have a Dodge Charger R/T! If you watch my video on my Rock Island passenger cars- or my latest video "iowa interstate 500 513 707 switch in bureau" you will see it! :-)
Anyway- like I said before- great video and thanks for posting! God Bless!
Geez, how about a paragraph break or 4.