[PRCo] UMW blamed for diesels

Thu May 15 13:06:27 EDT 2014

Fred

It’s called transition and automatic transition came about in freight units with what enthusiasts call the F5 and what EMD called an advance F3.  The F5 was simply a late model F3 with automatic transition.  I’d have to look up the transition (yes that was intended) in pax units or other manufacturer’s products, but I’d guess the E7 was about right.  It was an improvement and likely led to lower maintenance and operational costs as the engineer did not have to make decisions that required some skill—the loco made them for him.  But that alone (manual transition) was no bar at all to dieselization.  The rewards were too great to forestall it.  Yes, the ODT prohibited the making of road diesels and rationed production of switchers during the war.  You are partially right about steam loco production, but not totally.  Otherwise there would have been no T1s!!!!

You are also correct about oil.  There was enough of it but not rubber.  Also consider that at the rate cars wore out in those days, if no restrictions had been placed on driving, think of all the steel, copper and other war-needed materials that would have had to go into making spare parts. The easiest and most politically acceptable way of mitigating this was to ration the fuel.

Dwight

From: Fred Schneider 
Sent: Thursday, 15 May, 2014 11:23
To: Western PA Trolley discussion 
Subject: Re: [PRCo] UMW blamed for diesels
The original FT design and perhaps also the EA and E6 diesels from EMD required that the engineer separately control engine speed and motor control notching.   In other words, you notch up the engines to produce a higher voltage and then you separately notch up the motors like a streetcar.   I think that all changed with the F3 an E7 models.    I really don't know because the only engine I regularly ran was a GE 44 tonner at Strasburg.   

So again, we have pre-war and post-war technology.   And the manufacturers were forbidden from making changes during the war.   You were stuck with prewar designs until the war was over.  It doesn't say that EMD didn't know how … only that they were not allowed to make improvements during the war.   I am not even sure that EMD and Alco were allowed to manufacture diesels during the war … remember that they used oil that we needed for the war.  

On the peripheral subject of oil … as I understand it, we had plenty of oil / gasoline and the rationing for domestic use was only to conserve tires because Japan controlled the rubber supply and we had not really perfected a good synthetic rubber yet.   Perhaps EMD simply shifted the LaGrange, Illinois plant to war production.  

Back to design restrictions, same applied, John, to new steam.   The railroads could invest in new steam during the war but it had to be from old designs.  The War Production Board did not allow a railroad to draw up new blueprints for an all new engine.  The Pennsylvania J-1 2-10-4, for example, was allowed because it was nothing more than a Chesapeake and Ohio class T-1 2-10-4 in disguise.  Of course there were minor changes … headlight moved up, keystone on the smokebox … things that made it look Pennsy.

Europe had their problems too.   In 1947 there were numerous articles in the Pittsburgh Press about coal shortages in your mother's country, John.   British industry was crippled because the mines couldn't turn out coal fast enough.

I would contest that labor was cheap in Europe …  It isn't cheap if you are a captive market.  If you build it for yourself, then it isn't cheap.   Their wages were lower in relation to ours therefore we brand it as cheap.   But in relation to their needs?   Maybe not.   Remember, for example, that Germany essentially lost an entire generation of its men because of World War II.   They had a matriarchal society after the war except for the Gastarbeiter or guest workers from other nations that helped them over the crisis.  It took them years to get over the crisis … auto factories, for example, were not fully back into production until the very tail end of the 1940s in Germany.   I once met a man our parents age in Hamburg, Germany … spent an afternoon in his flat.   He had been in a prisoner of war camp in the USA during the tail end of WW2 … I think Salt Lake City.   Many of the officers were moved here because they knew enough to be safe guarded on this continent instead of housed over there.  He was an office.   I asked him what portion were in prisoner of war camps at the end of the war … his answer was "those who were not dead."   That was an over simplification but it does give you an idea of what the war did to them.   When you start with a total population and wipe out 10% and you lose more men than women and you also lose a big chunk in their 20s … you have a big labor shortage after the war.   Russia, Lithuania, and some other nations were worse.   (We don't comprehend … most of our guys came home.   We lost 1 out of 1,000 people in our population and we fought in Japan, Italy, North Africa, Britain and Germany.) 

But in relation to us … in terms of a captive economy … yes, raw salaries and wages were lower.  In Germany, even as late as 1960, they got about 25 cents for every dollar our workers got.   Today they do better than we do.   

On May 15, 2014, at 10:29 AM, John Swindler wrote:

> 
> 
> Timing is often overlooked.  Good point.
> 
> Could railroads dieselized earlier??  I doubt it.  Maybe diesel engine technology needed improved dependability from forced WW2 requirements???  (dunno - just raising question)  
> 
> Same with jet engines.  How many crashes before jet airline travel became a reasonable safe alternative??   And the price became more than competitive??  I was paying the same price for air fare to Europe in 1988-2004 as I paid in 1968/9.  (again, dunno - this is Ed's bailiwick) 
> 
> The railroads could have invested in new steam locos after WW2, as was the case in much of Europe.  But fuel was cheap in US and labor was expensive.  Oil had to be imported to Europe with expensive US dollars.  For Europe, coal was cheap, and so was labor.  It took me only a couple days during summer of 1969 to earn more than what London Transport was paying their conductors for the month.
> 
> Related to 'timing' is the necessary support systems for a new technology.  Consider computers, for example.  What good is the computer without the associated software and other systems??  
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> From: trams2 at comcast.net
>> To: pittsburgh-railways at mailman.dementix.org
>> Date: Thu, 15 May 2014 09:10:00 -0400
>> Subject: Re: [PRCo] UMW blamed for diesels
>> 
>> We also need to consider the timing...railroads could have converted to
>> diesels much earlier than they did, but would have had to write off a large
>> amount of investment to do so.  By the end of the war, though, a lot of that
>> investment was simply worn out and had to be replaced anyway.  At this point
>> the railroads were simply following the dollars and buying the most
>> transportation they could get for the buck.  Steam locomotives and their
>> attendant infrastructure were horribly inefficient, and did not get replaced
>> in kind.  John L. Lewis was a side show.
>> 
>> Ed
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounces at mailman.dementix.org
>> [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounces at mailman.dementix.org] On Behalf Of Fred
>> Schneider
>> Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2014 9:01 AM
>> To: Western PA Trolley discussion
>> Subject: Re: [PRCo] UMW blamed for diesels
>> 
>> 
>> I think we have to look at everything ..
>> 
>> 1.   Smoke control laws.
>> 
>> 2.   UMW strikes making it hard to get coal.
>> 
>> 3.   Economics of running steam . we can lay off 4 out of every 5 workers
>> and well a lot of ground we had used for shop buildings.  Might even be able
>> to sell some shop buildings to other people for factories but that isn't too
>> likely.
>> 
>> 4.   No need for water in the deserts of the American west.   
>> 
>> 5.   Locomotive availability . that diesel will run for thousands of miles
>> before it needs any servicing.   Fueling can be done from a truck driven up
>> to the railroad . we don't need water columns, tanks, coal tipples.   And
>> the steam engine will run about 100 miles between service stops and it needs
>> a lot of spare engines along the way because it likes to self destruct.  
>> 
>> An example of the self destruct concept..   When the PRR ran steam from
>> Philadelphia to Harrisburg, there was a K4s stationed in Lancaster as a
>> protect engine.   In the evening it sat in the station facing west because
>> most trains ran west in the evening.   In the morning in faced east.
>> Always with a crew on it.   John Bowman told the story of standing in the
>> cab of that K4 one day talking when he was told to jump off NOW.   The
>> signals had changed to clear on the pocket track.  They were going to work.
>> In January 1938, when the wires were energized to Harrisburg, the protect
>> engine was no longer needed.  
>> 
>> The steam engine may have been pretty to the railfan . dynamic . great to
>> watch.   But we have to think how many billions of dollars were saved by
>> scrapping them ..... and how much cleaner the sky is over Pittsburgh,
>> Pitcairn, Glenwood, Rook, McKees Rocks and other places.  
>> 
>> I've been sending these guys some interesting articles on Pittsburgh
>> Railways.   I have ignored the smoke control stories but they are there too.
>> And there was an occasional picture of downtown on days when you couldn't
>> see the top of the Gulf Building from the street.   
>> 
>> 
>> On May 15, 2014, at 8:21 AM, John Swindler wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Easier to blame another industry/organization than to look at the
>> economics of railroad operation.  Some of David Morgan's writing talk about
>> the reduction/elimination of labor costs associated with conversion to
>> diesel - despite the high initial capital costs for diesel operation.  
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> From: fwschneider at comcast.net
>>>> Date: Fri, 2 May 2014 14:33:45 -0400
>>>> To: pittsburgh-railways at mailman.dementix.org
>>>> Subject: [PRCo] UMW blamed for diesels
>>>> 
>>>> Writer forgets that the PRR announced several days earlier that it would
>> cooperate with smoke control.   Blame cannot be totally based on either
>> smoke control, economics or John L. Lewis and his boys.  
>>>> 
>>>> http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=FisbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6kwEAAAAIBAJ&p
>>>> g=3025%2C2594239
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
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