What was the most ugly?

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A 3-bagger? :)

Reply to
Corelane

Jim=A0McLaughlin replied; Ouch! =A0 Shock! And now I find one of my favorite diseasels on some uncouth and artistically illiterate persons (well, two persons' "ugly" list. ;-{ Again goes to show that there ain't no accounting for taste. =A0 Mine or Bill's or Dan's!

---------------------------------------------------- Let's see... GM did the BL2 and then Ford did the Edsel.

Bill Bill's Railroad Empire N Scale Model Railroad:

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Reply to
Bill

Perhaps, but excellent freight locos that were just as happy on passenger trains.

Only real problem, they were a bit light on braking power for the unbraked freight they were sometimes expected to haul.

-- Cheers Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

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Reply to
Roger T.

I have a brass model of the 966 from Balboa. Interesting that the photo listed above has a vertical ladder to the top of the tanks but the model has a diagonal one. I bought it because unusual locomotives really interest me. The vast bulk of my collection is made up of engines that differ from the more mainstream stuff. I have a few consolidations and a decapod but no notherns, pacifics, berkshires, mountains, atlantics, etc. The rest of the steam is stuff like the 3 different geared engines plus a Vulcan Duplex, GN 2-6-8-0 and 2-8-8-0, cab forward, ATSF 2-10-10-2, and other weirdness.

Reply to
Rick Jones

But Bill, thats not fair to the Edsel. The Edsel actually ran, though it was very ugly. The only problem with the Edsel was that it didn't sell.

The BL2, whether you call it cute or ugly, didn't perform well and was a very expensive item to maintain.

Now, have I told you about how good looking the Baldwin Shark is.....

Reply to
Jim McLaughlin

Have a look at:

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there are some way out ugly locos on that site. Regards, Bill.

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Reply to
William Pearce

There is still at least one BL2 in use for freight service:

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Charles Perry P.E.

Reply to
Charles Perry

Jim McLaughlin repiled: But Bill, thats not fair to the Edsel. The Edsel actually ran, though it was very ugly. The only problem with the Edsel was that it didn't sell. =A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0The BL2, whether you call it cute or ugly, didn't perform well and was a very expensive item to maintain. =A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0Now, have I told you about how good looking the Baldwin Shark is.....

------------------------------------------------- Hmm.... the Shark had an air of mystery about it. I wish I could have seen one approaching head on.

Bill Bill's Railroad Empire N Scale Model Railroad:

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Bill

Again goes to show that there ain't no accounting for taste. Mine or Bill's or Dan's!

---------------------------------------------------- Let's see... GM did the BL2 and then Ford did the Edsel.

Well, I have a BL-2 on my layout (AND A Varney Aerotrain).

I'm also currently working on a 1:25 model of a '58 Edsel (since I can't afford a real one).

Don

-- snipped-for-privacy@prodigy.net

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Reply to
Trainman

Wasn't the BL-2 just an F-3 or GP-9 in a different body? Since the F and GP versions were highly successful for their time, what was so bad about the BL-2 except asthetics?

Reply to
Xtrachesse

No. The BL2 was a unique bastard design that was not robust enough to hold its own self up. They sagged among other things and were generally to expensive to build, operate and maintain. I have read that the BL2 came about because of hard-headedness at EMD management and marketing. Alco had more or less invented the road switcher in

1939, and had already built the RS-1 and the RS-2. The people at EMD did not want to build anything that even resembled an Alco locomotive, so a major effort was mounted to derive a road switcher that looked "EMD". Any time you allow emotion to drive engineering you are concocting a recipe for failure, and fail they did. In the end Dick Dilworth and his design team cooked up the GP7, and the rest is history.

........F>

Reply to
Froggy

It was really an F-3, not GP in a different body. Those curved side sections hid the bridge truss that supported the locomotive. In other words, this thing had no underframe like the GP7 and later locos.

It was only slightly better for switching than an F-unit.

Reply to
Brian Paul Ehni

I'll dispute THAT! I **HAD** to drive an Edsel back when I was in driver's training in the early 1960's. There was one in the 'pool' of training cars. sometimes your luck ran out and you drew that 'boat'. ALL the kids **HATED** that thing!

It was big and clumsy ... far worse than it's competition of other big old 'boats'also in the 'pool'. It seemed like it had a rubber steering column ... you wound it up, and SOMETIME later the car MIGHT respond. Turning the wheel had NO immediate effect at all. The suspension was soft and 'bouncy'. The driving experience was like riding on an underinflated marshmallow setting on a wet cake of soap. It just went wherever it wanted to, and the driver could only make suggestions. It was like driving the proverbial "Queen Mary". Getting through the traffic cone slalom course successfully was near impossible with it, at ANY speed. I never saw ANYBODY make it successfully. The brakes were nothing to want either. WORST car I EVER drove.

Wasn't a bad TRAINING car, however. If you could even survive an hour in that thing, the other cars were EASY!

Dan Mitchell ============

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Reply to
Daniel A. Mitchell

Maintenance access was TERRIBLE (worse than the "F" units) due to the complicated carbody truss, and still the frame (which WAS the carbody) was weak and sometimes sagged, getting important things out of line.

The IDEA (improved visibility) for the "F" unit was GREAT, but the execution left a lot to be desired. The solution was the next iteration ... the 'GEEP', specifically, the GP7.

The GP7 was sort of a combination of the good ideas from the NW5 and BL2, leaving out most of the problems with both.

Dan Mitchell ============

Reply to
Daniel A. Mitchell

I have always had a bit of admiration for the skill of Ford's engineers (if absolute detestation for their purpose) in making later small cars like Pintos and Mavericks handle as if they were huge overladen barges with numb front ends.

Reply to
Steve Caple

European loco design (Diesel and electric) of the '50s through '80s was almost exclusively of the type where the body panels were a part of the main structure. The reason for this was to obtain the best possible power/weight ratio. While there were plenty of examples of poor accessibility, I'm not aware of any structural failures or even weaknesses. With more recent advances in power outputs, the concept of the main frame taking the entire load and body panels being removable is gaining acceptance.

Regards, Greg.P.

Reply to
Gregory Procter

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