I was wondering if anyone could tell me how the N&W utilized their GP-18s? Were they essentially interchangable with GP-9s in road freight service? Were they used primarily on any certain part of the railroad? Were there any aquired in mergers that were different (for example, no dynamic brakes) from ones ordered by N&W? Thanks in advance for any information you can give me. -Jeff
Gee... a little before my time for an actual testimonial.. Looks like (from the books I have seen) that they were used in general freight trains, mixed in with GP9's, 30's etc... Harold
Upon their first shopping, N&W replaced the power assemblies in the GP18s with GP9 power assemblies (i.e, they removed the high-compression pistons that gave the GP18s 50 more hp than GP9s)... The GP18s were used exactly as the GP9s were... everywhere. N&W acquired ten non-DB GP18s from NKP in the 64 merger. As with other non-DB power... these tended to stay on the former WAB/NKP lines... but not always...
Thanks for the info! Robbman's explanation about losing the high-compression power assemblies and thus having GP-9 horsepower explains something that I'd noticed in photos before - sometimes a road number that was labelled as a GP-18 in one place would be called a GP-9 in another publication. I assumed someone was wrong in their captioning, but it sounds like calling them -9s or -18s would be equally correct, post-rebuild. Is it safe to assume that a few lasted into the early days of NS? (Knew I shouldn't have traded that NS power book!) I've seen photos of non-db Southern GP-18s working as switchers after the NS merger date, but unfortunately back in the mid 1980s when I lived near the N&W/NS and might have answered this myself, I was doing good to tell the GEs from the EMDs. Thanks again, Jeff
It's easy to confuse GP18's with GP9s... especially without a roster handy... Personally, to me it wa built as a GP18, its frame number identifies it as a GP18, so it's a GP18... The last N&W RS11s (401-406) have the same 'issue' as well... many places list them as RS36s... They are late phase RS11s, built in RS32/36 carbodies ( other roads beside N&W had them as well) All but 5 of the 48 N&W GP18s (non NKP) lasted to the NS merger. Afterwards they were retired slowly from 82-87... 24 were rebuilt into RP-E4/E4D slugs from 84-88 Of the ten NKP non-dynamic GP18s, 8 made it to NS... 1 was retired immediately, the other 7 were renumbered (from 2700s to 1490s) and lasted to late 1984. (Interestingly enough... 5 of these went to various mining companies, 2 to a shortline) Keep in mind, a LOT of the early Geeps were in storage (there was a general depression in the 82-83) at the start of NS... so you really don't need many of them...
