Question for the old-time shop guys...

Hi All,

As I have mentioned to a few guys on rr.net already, I have once again found myself with a professor at college encouraging me to pursue railroading as a term paper topic, which is of course is a refreshing change from most people who see railroading as a fool's hobby, but that's neither here nor there. Of course I want to pursue a LIRR-themed topic, but as I am sure many of you here are aware, the number, quality, and availibility of LIRR books are seriously lacking, so my hope is that some of you guys on here might be of some help to me.
My proposed thesis is, in effect, the resourcesfulness of the LIRR shop gang in creating the FA/F-unit powerpacks, the Bar-Gen coaches, and the power car #3100. Internet research has yielded somewhat of a dead end, so if anyone one would be willing and able to talk about the conversion processes a little bit, I would really appreciate it. By the way, please feel free to be as technical as you want in your descriptions, as I am most interested in the electrical engineering components of the process.
Thanks a million for any input guys.

-Kyle

p.s. I understand that if people would not want to post all this technical info on a public forum, so you can also feel free to contact me off-forum at [email protected]

Go to your library and look. STEEL RAILS TO THE SUNRISE is still a viable source of information and I am sure your library can find more. ALso, many articles in the fan mags over the years...just dig. Check with the LIRR offices itself and see if anyone there can or will direct you.

henry6 wrote:Go to your library and look. STEEL RAILS TO THE SUNRISE is still a viable source of information and I am sure your library can find more. ALso, many articles in the fan mags over the years...just dig. Check with the LIRR offices itself and see if anyone there can or will direct you.

The only book I am aware of that is current enough to include any of those would be Diesels of the Sunrise Trail, which is only very very general in reference to the powerpack conversions. I have access to many article databases, but none of the fan magazines are included in there; plus, I would doubt any fan magazines would have the technically specific information I am seeking. I will look into contacting the LIRR, but judging by what Clem and the others say, anyone receiving the email would probably not even know what the powerpacks were, lol. Thanks for your input though.

"Steel Rails" was published in 1965. That's as up-to-date as it's going to get, regardless of later printings.

Dave

I seem to recall reading that the power pack concept was sugessted by GE origionally. The first Alco ones were regular diesels, traction motors and such stripped, and set to run at a constant notch 3 or so. Later, they got the gen sets that they had until retirement.

HEP was 600VDC. A chunk of the old MU fleet was stripped of it's propulsion system and run as trailer cars - this plus the above made 600VDC a natural.

Were the rails the return circuit?

A few MP-15s were moded into power pack/loco units later on - they could function as either, but not both at the same time... The Oyster Bay line seemed to attract these things for whatever reason.

Years ago, the LIRR was resourceful like this - at one time, they had shop built electric switchers - basically an MP-54 truck/propulsion system/cab mushed into a tiny space (I can't figure out how it all fit but it did)...

168 said, "I will look into contacting the LIRR, but judging by what Clem and the others say, anyone receiving the email would probably not even know what the powerpacks were, lol."

Don't email. Write a letter via snail mail. Or phone. Or ask an virtyaly employee who you should contact. OR go the the Gen. Office and present yourself and your question.

Resourceful, yes, but a lot of what they did to the FAs is making it a more interesting challenge to bring them back as locomotives-

The rail was not used as the return; the power packs and push-pull coaches had two positive connections for jumpers (one on each side of the coupler) and two negative connections. This allowed use of the push-pulls on non-bonded, jointed rail, i.e. outside of MU territory.