Are EMD FTA & FTB compatible with heavy weight passenger cars?

Are EMD FTA & FTB compatible with heavy weight passenger cars as well as lightweight cars as to how they were run in the day?

 

I never saw FTs hauling varnish on the B&M or NYC, only freight. Both those companies bought E7s for varnish. Fans of railroad history further west may have information that supports your question.

 

But since they weren't really designed for it, and never were particularly reliable, the Santa Fe converted most of them back to freight within five years.

And their eleven four unit sets were the largest fleet of passenger-equipped FTs anywhere. Remember almost all of them were built during WWII, when the War Production Board frowned on passenger equipment being built with wartime shortages of material and labor. Only one set came from La Grange passenger equipped. The railroad shops converted the rest. If yours are ATSF, remember the cabs had no steam generators, like with the F-3 and F-7. No train was ever hauled by an ATSF FTA without an FTB.

But did the few passengers equipped FTs haul heavyweight cars? Absolutely, positively yes.

 

You would want to determine if the FT locos used by the particular road you're modeling had steam generators.

Besides Santa Fe, other roads with FT locos so equipped included B&O, Southern, Rock Island, Milwaukee, Seaboard and Atlantic Coast Line.
It's quite possible that these units were not used in passenger service on a regular basis, but had steam generators to permit them to serve as protection power for certain passenger trains, or possibly to haul mail/express trains.

 

Although the Reading's FTs were not equipped with steam generators, they sometimes saw passenger duty, but it wasn't common and was done only in the summer when steam heat wasn't needed.

 

The Great Northern ran some FTs in short passenger runs out west for awhile. The lash-up was normally an A and B unit, with the B unit having a steam generator and heavyweight cars were in the consist. Later when the E-7s did not work out a lot of them were moved out to the West coast and they them. Just the B unit with a steam generator was adequate since the consists did not usually go over five cars, plus there was not enough room in the A unit to mount a steam generator. As pointed out in a another post check the motive power roster of your modeled road.

 

FTs had a short, successful run as passenger locomotives for the Santa Fe. After only a few months of testing and trial, Santa Fe in mid-1946 assigned the FTs to take over the main Santa Fe transcontinental routes and relegated the E1s, the E3, and E6s to the relatively flat California Central Valley or the Chicago-Texas route. For a couple of years, the FTs did most of the work leading the Super Chief, Chief, and El Capitain before yielding their place to the new F3s and F7s. Santa Fe found that the four axel F units outperformed the E units on the hills and mountains along much of the transcontinental route and decided to invest in F3s and F7s rather than buy any new E7s or E8s; the only E8s ATSF had were E8ms that EMD rebuilt from the E1s in the early 1950s. The advent of the powerful but unreliable ALCO PAs later in 1946 did nothing to displace the FTs. They were only pushed back into freight service by the coming of the F3s and F7s, which were basically new, improved versions of the FT. Rick

 

Santa Fe FT locos with heavyweight passenger cars:
https://scrm.smugmug.com/Atchison-T...a-Fe-Locomotives/EMD-FT-Locomotives/i-2fGPSL3

 

Southern found a way to do it, though: https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8720/28286530365_9e8520ba05_k.jpg

 

Both Western Pacific and Rio Grande pulled their heavyweight trains with FTs, although by the time the streamlined cars came along the FTs had been sent to second rate freight duties.

 

I never knew that Baltimore and Ohio had any FTs equipped for passenger work. Initially, B&O used these as helpers, so they would have been geared far too low for regular passenger work. They would have been allright for schedule protection. I have seen photographs of EM-1s' working the mail and express trains: 29, 30, 31. Never have I seen a photograph of FTs working passenger or mail/express trains on the Baltimore and Ohio.

I guess that it was using the steam generator on the DL-109. That FT-A might have come from a Southern passenger pair, though, as the DL-109 and FT would have a hard time running together if they were not geared similarly.

 

Wow -- what a cool shot, DL-109 and all. I'm guessing the location to be Meridian, MS.

 

Was the Hotel Lamar the giveaway?

 

http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/bo101.jpg

 

I've also never seen any photos of B&O FTs pulling passenger trains. Also, as far as I know, their FTs were not initially used as helpers, but as mainline freights. I've seen a number of photos of FTs pulling various kinds of freights during WWII, but none in helper service. But photos could make me a believer... Rick

 

Am I missing something here? I see no steam generator exhaust, or other signs of junk in the trunk of either unit.

 

I had assumed that the stacks that r_i_straw has demonstrated are, in fact, the steam generator stacks. I tried comparing the MT B-unit to the photograph. There is some sort of vent on the roof of the MT B-unit, but it is not in the same place as is either of the vents on the B&O pair in the photograph. One of the vents on the B&O appears to be at the very leading edge of the rectangular panel on the roof toward the aft. The other vent appears to be forward of it. As most are aware, the steam generator stacks on the subsequent F-units (as they were on the E-units) were on that panel.

The vent on the MT B-unit does appear to be in the same place as it is in the two photographs of the ATSF units in which you can see the roof (the two A-B-B-A consists; you really can not see the roof details in the photographs of the A-B-A consist). It is curious that in the linked photograph, the B-unit coupled to A unit #100 does not have any of the details. In that photograph, the second B-unit does have the vent and what appears to be another vent on the previously mentioned rectangular panel. In the posted photograph, both B-units have the vent that is on the MT as well as the just mentioned additional vent on the aforementioned rectangular panel.

I forget what roof details the IMs have, and can not look, as I sold off all my IM FTs.

Now, to find a better photograph of the roof details on B&O passenger FTs and what numbers had them.