Why what? If asking why UP built the engine, it was during a period of leadership when they believed in high horsepower. And did a bunch of experimenting. Eventually, it led to the famous DDA40X. Oh- The chicken crossed the road, to make people ask questions why. Boxcab E50
I think so. Uncle Pete was all about the highest horsepower engines I could get, to cope with steep grades and big trains. I have a 1970's Trains mag, that features Cajon Pass, with MU'd double diesels. What a sight that must have been! The turbine was also an experiemtn of that same sort. The turbines were fuel inefficient at other than full throttle, they needed to run at notch 8 anytime they were running. The fuel expended at idle was nearly that of notch 8!
I may be wrong, but I seem to remember that one of the reasons the UP dropped the Big Blows, aside from their lousy fuel economy at low speeds, was their tremendous trackside noise. I believe most of their assignments were on extremely desolate divisions like deserts, mountains, and other places where there were no towns and very few people.
They could really do the required job. But were indeed noisy. And had high maintenance costs. Boxcab E50
There was one other negative about the UP Big Blows. GE had used their 1950's design of jet engine as the basis for these locomotives. These engines required JP-4 as their fuel, but UP had assumed that they would use the Bunker-C that the steamers and early diesel-electrics were using. Unfortunately, Bunker-C is a dirty mix of sulpher, carbon particles, and grit which really ate up the power turbine blades on the jet engines. In fact UP (and GE) had to change out turbine wheels about every three months of operation. Consequently, UP, having to choose between the high cost of JP-4 or the high cost of replacement turbine wheels, decided to drop the whole experiment after only a few years. I'm convinced that, if UP had allowed (and shared funding with) GE to continue turbine-electric development and refinement, the RR industry would have ended up with powerful and efficient locomotives....Oh Well.
