5 Great Trains That Were RUINED | History in the Dark

Whenever you're redesigning, well, anything, you have to way the pros and cons of actually doing that. Sometimes it goes really well. Other times, you end up ruining a good thing. In these cases, with these locomotives, it was definitely the latter.

Music Credits:

0:00 - Intro
1:26 - MRL SD19-1
4:08 - Progress Rail PR43C
6:06 - BR Standard Class 9F
10:13 - LNER Thompson Class A2/2
14:19 - Milwaukee Road Class EP-2

"The MRL, Montana Rail Link, SD19-1 is a type of rebuilt, six-axle, 1,750hp diesel locomotive which is actually rebuilt from several EMD diesel locomotives (primarily the SD35 and SD9). Only two were built, numbered 651 and 652."

"The Progress Rail PR43C was a 4,300 hp (3,210 kW) C-C genset diesel-electric locomotive built by Progress Rail Services Corporation. It was the result of a conversion of existing EMD SD50 locomotives. This involved replacing the original EMD 645 prime mover with a pair of Caterpillar engines, a 3,600 hp (2,680 kW) 12 cylinder C175 engine and a 700 hp (522 kW) C18 engine. The locomotive was jointly designed by Progress Rail and Norfolk Southern Railway. Development began in 2008."

"British Railways Standard Class 9F steam locomotives Nos 92020-9 were experimentally built with Franco-Crosti boilers, thus forming a subclass. All ten were built in 1955 at Crewe Works. The Franco-Crosti boiler took the form of a single cylindrical water drum running along the underside of the main boiler barrel; the standard chimney at the front was only used during lighting-up, in normal working the gases went through firetubes inside the preheater drum that led to a second smokebox situated beneath the boiler from which there emerged a chimney on the right-hand side (fireman's), just forward of the firebox."

"The London and North Eastern Railway Class A2/2 was a class of six 4-6-2 steam locomotives rebuilt by Edward Thompson in 1943 and 1944 from his predecessor's P2 Class of 2-8-2 express passenger locomotives. The rebuilds were not particularly successful and all were withdrawn and scrapped between 1959 and 1961."

"The Milwaukee Road's class EP-2 comprised five electric locomotives built by General Electric in 1919. They were often known as Bipolars, which referred to the bipolar electric motors they used. Among the most distinctive and powerful electric locomotives of their time, they epitomized the modernization of the Milwaukee Road. They came to symbolize the railroad during their nearly 40 years of use, and remain an enduring image of mainline electrification."

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[nathanchan]

EP-2: I need a rebuild
Milwaukee Shops Crew:
T.B Kirk: *Saw a bunch of disconnected wires with a written message saying “We don’t know where these go.”*

[sambrown]

One thing about the P2s that most people don't realize is that only three of them had the appearance that most people know the P2s by. The other three had A4-esk streamlining.

[Rog]

The Franco-Crosti 9Fs were not ruined 9Fs, they were built like that in the first place. When they were found not to be so good, they were then converted.

[ForemansEnterpriseChannel]

Fun Fact: the 2-8-2 Cock o' the North, the nickname "Galloping Sausage" is also a *nickname* for Gordon, from the episode Pop Goes The Diesel.

Gordon: Duck called me a Galloping Sausage!
James: Rusty red scrap Iron!
Henry: I'm old square wheels!

[ralphbalfoort]

A gentleman who introduced me to model railroading, as opposed to toy trains, actually scratch-built all five of the bi-polars in HO scale, each one slightly different, working from the original plans (he worked for GE).

[AmityBlightAndSPFan]

How about 5 Bad Trains that were completely fixed?

I have some examples, the DRG 61 Class streamlined steam locomotive because some of them #61 002 was used for the new DR 18 201 which is a streamlined 4-6-2 Pacific.

[Jimboliah]

Yeah, to expand on the subtitle caption: the Crosti 9Fs were *deliberately built like that.*
They weren't built as normal 9Fs and then modded, they had these Crosti boilers all their lives.

[moosecat]

Thank you for saying that the Milwaukee Road's Tacoma shop knew what it was doing with the EP-2s. (I live in Tacoma.)
The Milwaukee Road (which warrants its own video, imho) was an odd road, as there were sections that were electrified, intermingled with sections that weren't. Tacoma was part of the electrified section, so they were familiar with how electric locomotives worked. In the Milwaukee shop's defense, they weren't familiar with electric locomotives, as their section wasn't electrified.

[LBG-cfgu]

Glad i stumbled onto this channel. the nuts & bolts review of these locomotives much appreciated. history of same. excellent. new sub

[joelchristensen]

Nice story on MRL rebuilds. The SD19-1s are still running today as of 2022.

[mikebrown]

Divided drive for multi cylinder locomotives is not weird, it was used on the majority of successful British four cylinder locos but was however much less common for 3 cylinder designs.

[babyjesusvideo]

Wasn't expecting to hear about Montana Rail Link on here.

[poowg]

I love how here in America we built thousands of great running Mikes and the Brit's Mikes not so much. They should have just bought some USRA light Mikes and been done with it.

[mikesanders]

The A2/2 wasn’t a bad rebuild by all accounts even though they had their own unique problem’s

They was however objectively awful at what they was originally rebuilt to do, as P2’s they handled their original work north of the border with ease, as the A2/2’s they simply couldn’t on the Edinburgh-Aberdeen line, the line which they had originally been built for.

But they was useful elsewhere on the system.

[jacobditmars]

The decision of the divided drive for the A2/2 wasn't just because Thompson just wanted to. The crank axles on the P2s were prone to shearing because they were the same as the ones on the A3s but on a much more powerful engine. By dividing the drive, you can get away with keeping the original axle design by spreading the forces between 2 axles rather than keeping them on 1.
Also, the divided drive in itself isn't a particularly rare feature, the LMS Princesses, Coronations, GWR Castles and Kings, and even the later Peppercorn A1s and A2s all have divided drive.
The main reason it became a problem for all of Thompsons' Pacifics was the frames were not reinforced enough to compensate for the forces that would be generated by the cylinders being so far apart. This would cause the notorious steam leakages and frame cracking that plagued all of the Thompson Pacifics.

[bussr]

I’m just waiting for the day when one of these is just him saying for the entire video

[amtrakproductions]

Was the mrl gp19-1 rebuild any better than the sd19-1

[ethansherry]

If British Rail really wanted to improve the F-9 they should have added super heaters

[thedwaynerailfans]

The SD50s prime mover was NOT reliable at all in any way. The SD50 actually was EMDs biggest failure, being what completely ruined their reputation and having GE replace EMDs old title of producing reliable locomtoives

[exarkun]

While I agree that a podcast is not a verified source, the podcast that the comments have referred you to does work off of verified sources, from various historians to official LNER records