Paul and listers Here is the E8 porthole story I got from Dave Huggins. E8's had worse porthole panel rust problems than the F units. He doesn't know why. My speculation is the E8's were cleaned more often than the F units and the cleaning process accelerated the problem. He also didn't remember how many (if any) of the F units were repaired. The E8 panels were replaced with color impregnated (Floated?) plastic panels. The decision to not do portholes in the E8 replacement panels was driven by the decision to move ERIE LACKAWANNA to the maroon band. He does not remember the history of 817. My offhand speculation is 817 was the first one done and was completed before the above mentioned decision. Ben Bartlett "Tupaczewski, Paul R (Paul)" <paultup_@_lucent.com> wrote: Hi folks, The EL started to go through their E8 fleet in the mid-1960s and replaced the portholes on units with solid panels (as I understand it, the portholes would eventually begin to rust out, and the easiest way to solve the problem was to replace them with solid sheet steel). By the end of the EL, only one unit (817) still had its original portholes. However, This wasn't the case for EMD F-units. While I do know a few F-unit that had their portholes removed (VERY few), the vast majority kept their portholes right until the end. Now I would assume that the F-unit portholes would suffer from the same rust problems - so why wouldn't they replace the portrholes? - - Paul P.S. As an aside, I always liked the look of the porthole-free E8s much better than the ones with portholes. They look sleeker and more streamlined to me, particularly with the "arrow stripe" running down the middle with the EL roadname within the band. The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List Sponsored by the ELH&TS http://www.elhts.org - --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Get on board. You're invited to try the new Yahoo! Mail Beta. The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List Sponsored by the ELH&TS http://www.elhts.org ------------------------------
This HTML page is © 2000-2008 Blue Moon Online System and The Railfan Network
This page and the data contained therein may not be reproduced
for any form of commercial use without the explicit permission
of J. Henry Priebe Jr. or his duly authorized agent.