The first is not always the best: The GE u25b

[@alcobufff]

Note on the alco RS-1, it was made just before WW II, my mistake.

[@gordonvincent731]

I ran many U series GE engines. That 16 notch throttle was something else. It had 8 regular notches, then 8 half notches. At night time you didn't know which notch you were in unless you turned on the cab light. The half notches worked only with GE engines, it had no effect on EMD, ALCo engines. That controller is their KC109. You would use that handle on the left to go from power to dynamic braking, then use the throttle to regulate your braking.

[@Peter-mt6lg]

I worked on the SCL back in the day as Brakeman Flagman. One day we had a 16 notch job,I think it was a road engine like 2100 series or something. I didn't know then to keep track of all the engine numbers as one day i would look back at those days. The Glory days fo sure.

[@gordonvincent731]

@@Peter-mt6lg My last 6 months of my engine service career was running those techno-turds P42's. I hated those thing so much I was almost missing those older GE's.

[@Amigafur]

⁠​⁠@@gordonvincent731I don't get why P42s get so much love from the railfan community. They're ugly as sin, and you're far from the first railroader I've heard say they're awful to run. They're being retired now, I say good riddance.

[@gordonvincent731]

@@Amigafur Couldn't agree more, thanks for the reply.

[@AmbianEagleheart]

GE built two engines types to try and gain entry to the Australian market. 1 was a narrow-guage engine with a Cooper Bessemer power plant. The other, was a standard gauge loco patterned after the Black Maria (DL-202) and powered by a Alco 244. In a weird twist of fate the Alco 244 became associated with GE, leading to the 251 Alco having a much fairer straight-up 'fight' vs EMD 567's. Alco ended up with VERY loyal customers in Aus, finally succumbing to the EMD645E. GE didn't get major orders until the Dash-9 era. Only in the last 15 years did they become the leaders. Thanks for a great video about the grand-daddy of the same FDL equipped C44aci's that I see everyday Down Under.

[@gregrudd6983]

Yes in NSW EMD only got a foothold post Super Series. As to the GM v ALCO thing you read the books of Ron Preston who was a Workshops manager. It reveals that in the NSWGR/PTC case Alco was much cheaper to buy and cheaper to run so much so that any perceived reliability issues were dealt with internally by the NSWGR without reference to Alco themselves so the NSWGR ended up with a loco fleet that was much cheaper to run on a per tonne/km basis than the all EMD shops like VR. In the branchline loco's the DL531 aka the 48 class were a much more economical let alone better performers than the EMD G8 aka the 49 class.

[@bryanh1944FBH]

At 2:17 the B reactor at Hanford can be seen. These locomotives were an important part of the Manhattan project. In the building right behind 3731 is the uranium reactor which produced the Plutonium for the first atomic weapons.

[@thooterhooter]

This becomes even more ironic if you know that GE makes nuclear reactors too. Edit: recognised the engines, those are some of the most contaminated engines in the world, basically caked with Caesium-137. Highly radioactive.

[@poowg2657]

Back in the '70s I lived along the Milwaukee Road in Wauwatosa and all the dead engines and empty cars on the division were hauled back into town on Friday afternoon. The most common engines that boke down were the SD45s, F45s and U Boats. Couldn't really tell what did in the GEs but a lot of the 20 cylinder EMDs had hood damage from grenaded engines.

[@arthurerdman37]

The U25B was a good engine. They could pull like hell.

[@fernandomarques5166]

GE had pretty good deals when the old federal railroad of my country needed newer locos to drag iron ore from the central plateau through the steep ramps down to the coast in 1974 they went and got 170 GE U23C diesels with 150 of them being built in country (the other 20, part of the 2nd order, were built in the US and assembled here). GE also rebuild many of the wrecked locos at fairly low prices many of the wrecked U23Cs were brought to dash-7 standard like the U23CAs and C30-7MPs. Even though the had already gone with EMD previously with 45 units of SD18M in 1961, another 45 units of SD38M and 4 units of SD40M in 1967, they would only consider EMD again in 1979 with the 36 SD40-2s built by MACOSA in Spain. And thats not even going into the U20C, maybe the most produced metric gauge locomotive we have.

[@robertlucido3686]

The U25B is one of my favorite diesel locomotives, in fact, I sent Sam's Trains some N scale models and the engine I sent him was an Atlas N scale U25B

[@93greenstrat]

EMD's hubris proved to be its undoing. Yes; they messed up with the 50-Series, but GE's customer service/support was better even if its product wasn't at parity with its competitor.

[@broyobrogdon6403]

One word GE Capital..when you can finance your product..didnt matter what emd did.

[@CyberSoldat]

The EMD 50 series was a failure because it pushed the 645 passed its comfort zone. If they fitted a less powerful version of what the SD60 had then it would have been better. Or if EMD focused on reliability that would have worked

[@grandcrappy]

Now twi-strokes are slowly on yhe way out.

[@Rebel9668]

Correction, the RS1 came along before WWII, not WWI as stated in the video @ 2:12.

[@300poundbassman]

Great video sir,. You forgot to mention the 44. and 45 ton switchers. I love the side rods

[@alcobufff]

Believe it or not, I actually had them in this documentary but thought they would take the video too far off topic and make it too long. So, I just included the first and the ultimate development of the model, which lead to the FDL16 for context. Thanks for watching!

[@Peter-mt6lg]

So in 70 years (1950 to 2020) have they perfected the engine's? I worry about wheel bearings more. 👍

[@douglasengle2704]

I'd never understood the GE U25. I have a better appreciation for it after this video, but I'll never forget watching them in the early 1980s along with other GE U locomotives with their hood doors open likely shutdown with EMDs down on their knees pulling coal trains through the WV New River Gorge with the GE units offline right when they were needed the most. I was going to electrical engineering school at West Virginia Tech in Montgomery WV. John Carrier a civil engineering student and I would go rail fanning on the weekends. Those GE Universal locomotives never acted like a locomotive from a manufacture that seem to know anything about locomotives. They sounded like they didn't want to keep running. Their reputation is they rode horribly and fought for traction with gobs of wheel slip. Their reputation in mountain service is they couldn't take it and would overheat shutting down on long grades. I didn't know GE U-boats were pushing twenty years old at the time. The EMDs greatly GP40-2 purred strongly in the 1980s at fuel throttle with their traction motors glowing red pulling 10,000 ton coal cargos under the New River Gorge bridge in the dark, typically with the GE U locomotives offline by that time having their hood doors open. From that experience I couldn't imagine a use for the GE U locatives because they were greatly offline when they were needed the most. They were disliked by crews for their poor track manners slipping easily and riding badly. Even if the GE U-boats had more horsepower then an EMD it couldn't be used with the poor traction the locomotive had and then they'd quickly shutdown from full throttle or near full throttle use. My conclusion was in flat areas they might be able to get a freight train up to speed in ten or so minutes allowing them to run at partial throttle and not over heat; otherwise, on long grades they were just extra weight. The CSX grade through the WV New River Gorge was about 0.6% and went for many miles. That is a number I got from a publication some time ago. It seemed like it most be steeper than that when watching the coal trains struggle up the grade.

[@TK-ec5bv]

C&O's B30-7's were a huge improvement over the other (older) GE's in the C&O fleet.

[@douglasengle2704]

@@TK-ec5bv I think it was the dash 9 GE's that decidedly put GE into position to compete with EMD where EMD was previously the standout or only real choose for high traction long mountain grades. Even today EMD SD70MACs are frequently the choose for mountain helper service over GE ES44AC's. Those GE U-boats over several years in the mid 1980s I'd watched shutdown with their hood doors open being dragged up the New River Gorge grade by GP40-2s along with reading about them slipping madly on grades with a horrible ride for the crews had me thinking you'd have to be nuts to bring a GE locomotive into your mountain service fleet. The U-boots were a bit of a joke or nothing but a joke for mountain service. When I'd look at one I be remembering they are just dead weight after a few minutes fighting up the New River Gorge grade. Now with decades more rail fanning background my guess is by combining the GE U-boats with the EMDs with the crews always preferring the head uint for them to be an EMD they are likely not aware the U-boats at full or nearly full throttle quickly exceed thermal shutdown on long mountain grades at lugging low speeds of 12 - 20 mph with the EMDs surviving admirably at meltdown temperatures indefinitely. I could see possibly a U-23, some actually are suppose to have come with air conditioning, being a possible choose for a low speed low throttle environment where the locomotive would never be pushed hard such as in short line use. Not really, I'd be too self conscious of persons similar to my younger self witnessing such a scene and feeling horrible for the railroaders that were inflicted with a U-23 being their only day life. I now appreciate U-boots . . . at a safe nostalgia distances.

[@TK-ec5bv]

​@douglasengle2704 C&O liked having some GEs in their fleet. They weren't all bad. I saw them in operation during the Chessie era, and most that i saw were online and running. It was a smart idea to not give EMD all of the business. Conrail was another big user of -7 GEs, with success, especially on the grades of the ex NYC Boston & Albany across Massachussetts.

[@bradleyjanes2949]

Southern pacific had u 25s. Railfans liked there clean simple lines great vid👍

[@colbeausabre8842]

Not all, I, for one hated them

[@whiteknightcat]

[Alco] "The company had introduced a model called the RS-1 before World War I ..." No. Try World War II. The RS-1 was first developed in 1941.

[@KCDash4400cw]

Man ya killed the vibe

[@alcopower5710]

Awesome content as always 👍

[@johncox2284]

GE took over the Cooper Bessemer plant at Grove City, Pa and used it for engine assembly

[@OgaugeTrainsplusslotCars]

Thanks for the Engine history

[@squeaksvids5886]

The locomotive at 6:15 is an EMD machine for IE the Republic of Ireland’s railway.

[@JohnGeorgeBauerBuis]

Indeed it is!

[@TheClosetBranch]

Great information! Thank you.

[@irongoatrocky2343]

These ol' U Boats were from a time of "Dirty Serious Filthy Railroading!"

[@MLWQC]

Very interesting and great shots!

[@watchtrainsnow1099]

Really enjoyed the video!

[@JamesTyreeII]

I personally think that customers appreciate good customer service that treats them as valuable. Trying to squeeze every penny out of customers can work, but it’s not gonna lead to good feelings and that’s really important and lacking nowadays in companies which has become very greedy.

[@johncox2284]

I never saw one of those cabs with 4 seats. Maybe on another road. Three seats has been standard with the possible exception of a jump seat on the back wall.

[@matthewrinehart9514]

Great video

[@daveyboy_]

At 11:19 those are AMT passenger cars . Montreal commuter train

[@calrob300]

Good video. Couple of oh ohs though. 1:07 The government rationed, not rationalized. 2:15 The RS1 was not produced after WW1.

[@amtrak713productions8]

See it while you can the u25b originally nyc painted in conrail colors future is in limbo which is leaning twords scrapping in glenmont new york

[@tommythomason6187]

The U25s were good looking locomotives, IMHO. They prompted the eventual production of GM's GP35.

[@Eye_Exist]

Why road switchers almost always have that little nose extension after the cockpit on the other side of the train, rather than the cockpit being on the far other end of the train?

[@KCDash4400cw]

2:12 "alco produced the RS1 before World War 1" Woah I didn't know those existed in 1912

[@alcobufff]

The RS 1 was produced before WW 2 not WW 1, My mistake! Darn dyslexia!

[@alcosteam]

If anything you have to give credit to GE for being the most improved locomotive builder ever. There is also the fact that at one time GE capital was one of the worlds largest creditors and if you needed credit to buy equipment you were stuck buying their lemons.

[@Peter-mt6lg]

We should say keep the Wheels on the rails.

[@frankmarkovcijr5459]

Just like fairbanks-morse EMD diesel locomotive engines were badly needed by the Navy for its submarine Fleet indeed EMD sometimes would be reduced to making only one locomotive a month. The ALCO DL 109 under the New Haven has convinced the war production board that they would be dual service engine. Why Alco did not make more dl109 I don't know. With two proven 539 Motors it was a very dependable locomotive it would haul passengers all day and Freight all night the only time it was stopped was when it was getting fueled up.

[@caryhewitt1256]

Why did the U25B have more tractive effort than the U25C? It does not make sense: more axles should equal more tractive effort. That is not the case with the above listed locomotives.

[@CoalChrome]

the UM looked more like a ALCo FA than an EMD engine

[@farmguy2400]

What is up with the audio? Every few seconds it cuts.

[@leebuck180]

at the 9 minute mark, you had old and newer GE locomotives coupled together (the other unit former Southern Railway D-832B).

[@cityofabscissae]

"Et cetera" is pronounced exactly as it is spelled.

[@SeanBodine]

The RS1 before World War 1? You need to change that, RS1 production began in the early 40's.

[@alcobufff]

Sorry my mistake i meant WW 2.

[@josephrodgers3119]

👍👍'sup...👀..thanks.

[@scottoblander9419]

GE appliances is no longer owned by GE.

[@bobkohl6779]

Come on, we're not morons.

[@iannarita9816]

Build a better mouse trap, then market it.

[@darrylwmurphy738]

Cummins

[@GK-rw2op]

Wow this Guy is really bad at speaking

[@colbeausabre8842]

Yes, EMD did have something in its catalog that matched the RS1 in the Light Road Switcher category, the NW3, NW4 and NW5. They were 900/1000 hp units, riding on two axle road trucks and could take a steam generator - the same as the RS1. As a matter of fact, the NW4 was out the door in 1938, with the NW3 starting in Nov 1939, both before the first RS1 in March 1941. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_NW3#/media/File:GN_181-Whitefish.jpg) (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_NW5#/media/File:GN_192_Duluth.JPG)

[@bradleyjanes2949]

👍

[@JohnGeorgeBauerBuis]

I’m not sure why EMD’s NW road switchers were such poor sellers. Maybe the railroads thought that they were too ugly.

[@andrewsmart2949]

you forgot to add GE involvement in the nuclear industry LOL