Known GE Boxcab Production

Boxcab Cooling Problems.

Original GE Boxcab Outline Drawing.

OE-601 GE Boxcab Class Drawing.

For the ALCohaulic (including ALCo Historic Photos).

Boxcab Miscellany.

Boxcab Help.

[First of all, I want to credit Bill Russell, Penny Bridge; we seem to be linking back and forth but he has the most compendious site about NY-area railroading, where most boxcabs lurked, with tons of information.

Second, take a look at Mark Laundry's Yard Limit Diesel Switcher Spotter's and Reference Guide, a site about early diesel switchers, especially a 1994 paper by Benn Coifman on "The Evolution of the Diesel Locomotive in the United States", with an excellent history of the ALCo-GE-IR consortium, as well as McKeen, Westinghouse/Baldwin, Hamilton/EMC/EMD, and Pullman's efforts.]

Since Sep 00, there is an extremely detailed and accurate site focusing exclusively on the earliest history of the ALCo-GE-IR (AGEIR) locos, John F. Campbell's "ALCO / General Electric / Ingersoll-Rand (AGEIR) Diesel-Electric Locomotives" site; I heartily recommend it to you!  John Campbell has since added a complete roster of all the ALCo-GE-IR boxcab locos built in the first production run, totalling 33 units, from 1925 to 1930, but not the later Bi- and Tri-Power or GE-IR units.

Overflow from the Boxcabs "HOME" Page.

60-ton

100-ton {but see below*}

[Pinkepank reports five (5) 300-hp units built for stock in 1928 whose disposition is unsure; he thinks one may be the Union Carbide unit and some the Donner Steel and American Rolling Mills (ARMCO) units.  The identity of the last few ALCo units and the first few GE-only units are somehat blurred in the mists of antiquity!]

and known GE production as:

60-ton

100-ton

and probable GE with some possible ALCo bodies:

60-ton

100-ton

Not bad for a totally-new innovation!  But what a nightmare of conflicting information!

Here, from Don Ross, by his special courtesy on 17 Jun 02, here is the Erie #20 (photographed 11 Jan 1938), looking fairly original after 12 years use and with 20 to go:

(11 Jan 38 Erie #20 photo courtesy of D. Ross - all rights reserved to source.)
[Thumbnail image; click on photo for larger image.]

Speaking of GE production, on the main Boxcabs page, I had the temerity to say my interest in the triple-power locomotives was minimal; well, it was, but it's growing.  After all, a boxcab is a boxcab is a boxcab!  To put it another way, a boxcab by any other name is still a boxcab and would smell just as sweet (huh???)!  So, here, then, is a cropped enlargement of a high-res. copy of a fantastic 1936 photo courtesy of Alex LaBianca (found through Kevin Walsh's Forgotten NY - thanks, guys) of 1930 GE triple-power NYC #1542 running down 11th Avenue in Manhattan at 49th Street:

[This is a thumbnail of a 233+Kb photo; click on the small picture for the full image.]
(original photo courtesy of Alex LaBianca)

NOTE - street running on a main throughfare and there's no man on a horse or on foot with a flag - Kevin says the track RoW is why 11th Avenue still has an island to this day, the only numbered avenue with an island (assuming you call 4th Avenue "Park" Avenue).

Per Alex (01 Sep 99):  "The sign on the streetpole to the right of the train says W.49th St.  This means the shot was taken from a building (probably a rooftop) on the corner of W. 48th St., looking north along 11th Ave.  The park on the left side of the Ave is between 52 and 53 Sts and is still there.  The Packard dealer is still a car dealership, although I forget which one.  The photo is dated 6-25-36."

The weather's warm in what will become the Big Apple (shirtsleeves, shorts, rag-top down) and pipe the brakie riding nonchalantly on the walkway of that first boxcar!

The NYC experimentals* were the triple-power locos used on the West Side Freight Line in Manhattan on oil-electric, third rail, battery, and overhead wire (300-hp 600V #1526-1560), as well as on the DL&W; (300-hp 3,000V #3501 and #3502), Detroit 3rd rail (300-hp 600V ex-NYC), MC (300-hp #7350-7353), and RI (300-hp #10000, Chicago's LaSalle and Central Stations)  My interest in these later boxcabs is minimal and I refer you to Pinkepank (1967), Marre (1995), and George Elwood's NYC page, which has the Class Drawing (with specs.) for the Central's DES-3 triple-power locomotives.  However, NYC #1500 was used briefly in passenger service on the Putnam Line and returned to ALCo and #1550, a 500-hp BIG mother, worked that line into the 1940s and is claimed as the first successful road diesel (as opposed to the first road switcher, which was LIRR #401).  Rick further sayeth that the IR demonstrator, #8835, which ran on the LIRR in February 1925, appears to have toured a lot of other railroads but nothing much else happened.

Pinkepank (1967) and Marre (1995) also picture the 1931 one-of-a-kind 100-ton Erie #25, with a single 800-hp I-R engine (see another photo of #25, above).

Marre (1995, page 143) shows that lone ARMCO 60-ton #747 with only one roof radiator and his caption might imply ("Armco 747 carries its air reservoirs in the space where one set of radiators would be in a dual-engine unit.") that it was only single-engined unit - odd!  All 60-ton units had only a single engine.

I have another problem with these listings; where are the Hoboken Manufacturers RR's two units?

* - Oh, heck, those triple-power units ARE boxcabs, so here's a bit more:

Hoo, boy, is this EVER a boxcab!

(Image cropped from uncredited picture on Web)
[Thumbnail image - click on the picture for a larger image.]

These locos were diesel(oil)-battery-electric, with the engines running at constant speed, charging lead-acid batteries which, in turn, powered the traction motors.  The batteries gave higher starting power.  The triple-powered units could also run directly from the third rail or catenary.

Incidentally, NYC 1500, 1525, and 1550 were AGEIR-built while 1561 and 1562 were just GEIR units.  More on NYC boxcabs at New York Central Boxcabs, et seq.   (17 Jan 08)

Boxcab Cooling Problems

The frontispiece, above, shows the original ALCo-GE-IR production boxcab tube radiator configuration, with radiators mounted transversely on the roof ends, curved to match the roofline; one at each end on the 60-tonners and two on each end on the first 100-tonner, LIRR #401.  Apparently, these convection-cooled radiators were less than perfect because on most later units, and on #401, they were replaced by several varieties of forced-draft fan-cooled radiators of several different styles, primarily with vertical and transverse/lateral fans.

    See the Boxcabs "Home" Page and the Survivor Boxcabs Page for the earlier pre-production models.

Cooling was such a severe problem for RRL #502 that at one point she dragged around a water tanker* to keep her down to operating temperature until a transverse fan-cooled arrangement could be substituted for her original radiator configuration (which, oddly enough, consisted of one extra-long tube radiator at each end, arranged transversely like #401, but horizontally without being curved); here she is as built and as she was being sold to Armco to become their #E103.

Norm Metcalf of Boulder, Colorado, advised (12 Oct 00) that RRL sold #502 to Armco Steel in 1940 (per page 286 of Hanft's "Red River - " book).

 
Details of photos courtesy of James B. Bryant

The full photos appear on LIRR #401 and Sisters page 1,
along with some more information.

* - Since I have now (20 Jan 01) seen a photo of #502 in fire train service, with a water tanker behind, I really wonder about that water tanker story; of course she dragged a tanker, it was for fighting fires!

Hanft writes that #502 also had severe traction motor cooling problems, so bad that soldered connections melted, resulting in abrupt termination of operation!  GE's solution was to redo the connections with silver solder.  HOT STUFF!

Marre (1995) writes that American Rolling Mills (ARMCO) requested that GE design the side-exhausting (what I call transverse) radiator arrangement for its #E-101, which was fitted to all subsequent GE units and retrofitted to many older ALCo and GE locos.

So, now what do we make of that lone ARMCO GE 60-ton #747 with only one roof radiator (Marre, 1995, page 143)?  Not to mention all the regular units with original-style radiators that ran seemingly forever without cooling problems!

[Click on the picture for a VERY large image.]

Original GE Outline Drawing 437416, Index E-318-34, of 60-ton Oil-Electric Locomotive Class B-B-120/120-0-4HM840G.

For whatever reason, this drawing did not scan and upload well; sorry!
I loaded it as a 200kB+ *.jpg file in error and have reloaded it as a 300kB+ *.gif file,
which seems to have helped, and now have created a thumbnail to reduce page downloading time.

---

Drawing courtesy of Portola RR Museum -
I took a digital photo of it but will scan a better copy)

Note that it has the alternate horizontal-fan radiator system.

BOXCAB DIMENSIONS from the LIRR #401 and Sister Boxcabs Page

                     Overall  O'all   Truck   Wheel  Deck    O'all    O'all

                     Length    WB      WB      Dia.  Height  Height   Width
60t/300HP - #1000/#1  30' 0"  17' 0"  7' 2"    36"    48"    13' 9½"  9' 4"
100t/600HP - #401     40' 0"  29' 0"  7' 2"    36"

For those so detail-oriented that it matters, please note the popular misconception that the early 60-ton boxcabs were longitudinally symmetrical; plans (as above) and photos in my files show that the exhaust stacks and roof appurtenances above the engine hatch between the radiators were offset 18" to the rear (away from the "F" or "A" or engineer's end), presumably with the engine to make room for the cab (but see below).

Also, in the November 1956 TRAINS issue referenced herein, the front view shows the two stacks on B&O; #1/#195 offset slightly (perhaps 6") to the left in the picture which is to the right on the engine.  I'd never noticed this before since I am mostly concerned with LIRR #401, a twin-engined 100-tonner with four stacks!

Apparently, although they look double-ended, there was only one cab (at least, that's what the GE drawing appears to show).  Does anyone have proof to the contrary?  Yup!  Me!  I found the above photo of CNJ #1000 with a fireman sitting in the end with the stacks clearly towards him!  I'll have to ask the B&O; Museum to let me photograph the interior of #1000 [ah!, but see above I-R info. and the I-R page].

GE also built some odd transfer locomotives for the Illinois Central in 1936, #9200 and 9201, similar to the #9202 EMD unit; coverage has been moved to the GE Boxcabs page and expanded.