Westinghouse Gas Turbine, Switchtenders and Commuter Operations

The notes for the C&NW 40th Street Yard are getting long, so I'm going to treat this locomotive parked there as a separate topic. I also learned that there is still a staffed switchtender position controlling the throat to the 40th Street Yard.

David Daruszka updated
John Carson Westinghouse's gas turbine experiment. Did not work out. Pre dates GE's Gas Turbines on the UP.
David DaruszkaDavid and 1 other manage the membership, moderators, settings, and posts for Chicago Railroad Historians. Westinghouse-Baldwin No. 4000 was an experimental 4,000-hp B-B-B-B demonstrator locomotive built in 1950. The unit was powered by two relatively small 2,000-hp gas turbines mounted side-by-side within a 77 ft 10 in carbody. Each turbine drove two generators, which in turn supplied power to four axles.

The odd-looking nose of the unit was very similar to earlier Raymond Loewy designs used on the Baldwin “Sharknose” locomotives, and incorporated a prow that slanted in a forward direction. The unit was painted powder blue and gray with orange stripes on the nose, and the nickname “Blue Goose” was soon adopted.

The four two-axle road trucks were similar to those used on Baldwin road switchers. Unlike trucks used on other large units, there were no bolsters between pairs of trucks. Instead, the carbody slid transversely over the trucks, contained by a spring system. The end result of this design was an extremely smooth ride.

Its demonstration tours included passenger service on the Pennsylvania, Missouri-Kansas-Texas, and Chicago & North Western, and freight service on the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie and Union Railroads. The unit had favorable results when compared to two EMD E7 Diesel-Electric locomotives, but the radical differences in design were too much for the unit to catch on. After two years of extensive demonstration, there were (sadly) no buyers, and the unit was sent back to the Westinghouse Combustion Turbine Systems Division in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and was eventually scrapped. It was around this time as well that Westinghouse made the decision to exit the locomotive business.

Photo taken at the C&NW's 40th Street diesel ramp by Wallace W. Abbey.
David Brann The trouble with gas turbines in locomotives is that their performance characteristics don't match the locomotive duty cycle. A gas turbine, particularly one with a regenerative cycle, can be quite efficient at its design point, but off-design performance is terrible. I once sat chewing the fat with an old GE hand, who told me that the GE gas turbines burned 15 gallons per minute of Bunker C at full load, but 10 gallons per minute at idle. The reason is that even at idle, with no output power, the gas generator is still going. By contrast, a diesel might burn 200 gallons per hour at full load, but only two or three at idle. And locomotives idle a LOT. Most real duty cycles have about ten per cent of the time at full load, but fifty or so per cent at idle. Even with cheap fuel like Bunker C, it's difficult for a gas turbine to be cost competitive on duty cycle fuel consumption with a diesel.
Robert De Anyone remember the switchman’s shanty about 1-2 blocks east of the 40th St. yard alongside the west line? You had to drive into the neighborhood and walk up the embankment to get to it.

The rest of these comments where in the reply section to Robert's question. I was kinda shocked to learn that a switchtender shack still exists and is staffed. The comments are out of order so that comments for the same thread are grouped together.

Bob Lalich There were two switchtenders at the east end of 40th St, even into the 1980s. Here is a shot I took in 1982 in which both shanties can be seen.
[It is the far shanty with a car next to it that still exists. ]

David DaruszkaDavid and 1 other manage the membership, moderators, settings, and posts for Chicago Railroad Historians. Believe it or not, there was actually a station located there. I'm not sure when it was demolished. Circled in red.

Patrick McNamara Harding Avenue Switchtender still on duty - first shift only.

Dennis DeBrulerYou and 1 other manage the membership, moderators, settings, and posts for Chicago Railroad Historians. Patrick McNamara I need a "teaching moment." A switchtender is a worker that walks across tracks to an appropriate turnout to manually throw the switch? I know the ladder to commuter coach yards and some other yards are still manual. But I would have thought that the throat to such a busy engine facility would have had automatic turnouts a long time ago. Since most of the commuter engines start their day before first shift and end it after first shift, do the engines normally park overnight in the California Yard with their coaches? Specifically, the only traffic seen here are locomotives taken off their train for maintenance?

Your photo is looking east and the shanty is to the left (north) of the loco. (And I need to find what still has that big smokestack on the south side.)
https://www.google.com/.../data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sQsjDlsGC-j...

Patrick McNamara The Harding Avenue Switchtender is in radio contact with the Diesel Ramp Foreman that tells him where he wants certain engines as they come in for fueling, servicing, etc., during the time between morning and evening rush. The engines and their consists sleep over (on the West Line) at Elburn, staged for their departures from there weekday mornings beginning around 4:45AM. David Daruszka can expound upon the routine on the Wisconsin side, on the North and North-West Lines.

Dennis DeBrulerYou and 1 other manage the membership, moderators, settings, and posts for Chicago Railroad Historians. Patrick McNamara I had a brain burp. The trains would be downtown (California Yard) during the day. And that is when the engines would be serviced. I've studied the CB&Q operation because you can see their yards from bridges. Since the UP/C&NW yards are elevated, there is not much for John Q Public to see.

David DaruszkaDavid and 1 other manage the membership, moderators, settings, and posts for Chicago Railroad Historians. When I worked there in the 70's and 80's the outlying terminals were Harvard, Crystal Lake, McHenry, Barrington and DesPlaines on the Northwest line and Kenosha and Waukegan on the North line. Some jobs started out of the CPT and M19A.

Robert De I think they ran a certain amount of skoots out to the west/north ends of the mains to sit overnight for the next morning's inbound commute.
Use to park passenger cars at the California yard during the day hours.

David DaruszkaDavid and 1 other manage the membership, moderators, settings, and posts for Chicago Railroad Historians. The majority of the evening rush hour trains would tie up at the outlying points over night on all the lines. The last trains out of downtown would layover for 3-4 hours and then run in on a morning train. We'd make beds with the seats and sleep. I went to college part time while working a night job. California Avenue is a servicing yard for the commuter coaches. I think initially it was strictly for the Galena Division commuter service, but when they closed the Erie Street coach yard Cal. Ave. was expanded to accommodate the Wisconsin Division equipment. Intercity trains were serviced at 40th Street.





David DaruszkaDavid and 1 other manage the membership, moderators, settings, and posts for Chicago Railroad Historians. Dennis DeBruler, the smoke stack was part of the Garfield Park Conservatory complex. Its still there but much reduced in size.

Dennis DeBrulerYou and 1 other manage the membership, moderators, settings, and posts for Chicago Railroad Historians. David Daruszka I presume it is for steam heat for all of those greenhouses. https://www.google.com/.../data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4...