Why will they have Alco trucks rather than the EMD trucks pictured? All the Southern GP35's I saw in the early 80's and the repaints shortly after did not have alco trucks.

Send MTH an email on this. They would like to know.

...keep the rails polished...

Look here: http://southern.railfan.net/im...thern/gp35/gp35.html

Well, if you look at the 3 pics of the 2682 at the above link, 2 of them show the 2682 with Alco trucks, and 1 shows the 2682 with Blombergs. Guess you have to know when they were actually shopped and converted to have them in a prototypical time period.

Fred

The Central of Georgia (repaints) to Southern GP35's had Blomberg trucks- there were 5 of them- the Southern purchased units all had Alco trucks from trade-ins of Alco units.

I have yet to see Alco trucks on anything coming through here...(former Southern Main thru Greenville SC) NS still uses these GP35's today...must have been a good engine.

quote:

Originally posted by Mike W.:
NS still uses these GP35's today...must have been a good engine.

You're seeing some other GP motor, likely the remaining SOU GP38-2s, because the GP35s have been gone for 20 years.

I would say so...high-nose though.

Pretty much all of SOU's units were hi-nose except maybe the switchers and Alco RS units.

Anyway, Jeff is on point on why SOU's GP35s mostly had Alco Trucks.

Look closer at that 3rd 2682 pic Fred,it is actually GP38 2862.

So the alco trucks were added by Southern to the GP35's an EMD product?

In short, yes. Southern opted that the then new GP35s ride on Alco trade in trucks.
The GM&O's GP30s had the same deal.

So did a hord of Mopac GP18's The FA's donated thier trucks. Dan

quote:

So the alco trucks were added by Southern to the GP35's an EMD product?

The EMDs left the factory on Alco trucks. The Southern traded in older Alcos and specified that the otherwise new GP35s be delivered with the older refurbished trucks Alco. While not too common, Southern was not alone in doing this. Many GPs built in the 1960s had trucks from traded in F units but this is less visually obvious.

I wonder how much was really saved on the purchase price of the locomotive using the trade-in trucks?

Apparently quite a bit was saved as a number of railroads did this. I have seen photos of Milwaukee RS units with Blunt switcher trucks under them due to the regular Alco trucks being taken off and sent to EMD to put under GP 30's.

Another thing to remember is the Alco trucks had different traction motors which were more robust. EMD's main weakness on the GP35 were the traction motors. Some railroads, SP IIRC, used GE traction motors and others put the GP40 traction motors under the GP35's after the GP40 was cataloged.

Greg

None of the Southern GP35 are still active on the NS roster. Several of the older Southern GP50's are being turned into low hood units and de-turbocharged to be called GP38-3. So spotting any Highhood unit on NS is becoming RARE so have your camera with you at all times!!

So is it possible that my SD35 with six axle RSD trucks has a prototype? It actually looks pretty good, and runs moderately well.