NYC/PC/CR 2858 photos

[Allen Hazen]

A while back I got a bee in my bonnet about two New York Central U30B: the 2858 and 2859, which were fitted with U33B-style radiators ("wingspan") as a test before U33 production began. In particular, I wanted to know what the fronts of their radiator compartments looked like, and couldn't find ANY good photos on the WWWeb.

Well, there IS a photo of one of these units in Alvin Stauffer's "New York Central - Later Power," and for those without the book, there are NOW good photos, including detail shots of the radiator area, on George Elwood's invaluable "Fallen Flags" railphoto (and locomotive operator's manual) site: go to the Penn Central section of the site and look up 2858: photos taken by William Brandon in 1976 and recently added to Elwood's site.

The radiator compartment is "streamlined," with the front faired into the long hood roof. This is the configuration otherwise seen in GE's test-demo units 301-304 (and shown in GE's published diagrams for years after), and strikingly different from the flat-plate front to the radiator on production U33.

"Fallen Flags" site:
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/

[RSD15]

early SCL U33Bs had this taper i believe the only U33Bs with this feature.
it appears the taper ended about 9/68,when the flat radiator started showing up.
many U33Cs also had the taper including all penn centrals.

charles

[Allen Hazen]

RSD-15:
No, this is slightly different. The original design was for a taper in at the sides and also a taper down over the roof of the long hood. This is the configuration on 2858, 2859 and 301-304. The first order of SCL U33B and various early U33C simplified the sheet-metal fabrication job by eliminating the taper over the roof, but kept a tapering "fillet" at the sides. (This is comparable to the fillet on early-1968-built U30 and the Delaware and Hudson's 1968-built U23B.)

(((I've often wondered if there was a reason for initially keeping the side fillet: was there a pipe routed through it that was re-routed on later, "standard," U23-U30-U33-U36 models?)))

Various people, when I was posting questions about 2858/2859 a while back, pointed out that the screening on the side of the radiator compartment was different, too: the early units had flat screens, but production units had the kind that sticks out.