> >No, Randy, they were way too much of a maintenance headache, as I wrote before. I have that pretty >straight from some ex-B&M employees. I think they were a maintenance headache on railroads when there was no budget for maintenance, like the B&M <g>. But IIRC, everything on the B&M became a "maintenance headache" after awhile -- think of all those decrepit Geeps at North Billerica <g>. RDCs were designed to, say, be able to all shop men to replace the diesel engine inside of two hours -- a cart on a dolly fit underneath, the old engine removed for repair and otherwise brought up to spec in the shops, while a fully-functional engine was rolled into place and hooked up. I don't think B&M did this beyond the first fe years -- and when things started going badly, they'd just sideline the units until they were desperate for parts or a workig unit -- then they'd be cannabalized until inoperable for good. RDCs could take lots of maintenance indignities along the way -- when the NYS&WT&HS restored the M-1, they found all manner of short-cuts taken by maintenance people over the years to keep it going on CNJ and, later CR and NJT. Cheers, Jim Guthrie The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List Sponsored by the ELH&TS http://www.elhts.org To Unsubscribe: http://lists.elhts.org/erielackunsub.html ------------------------------
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.