Big Blows

Veranda style. (Photo by Gordon Glattenberg.)

The Summer 2010 issue of my “Classic Trains” magazine has a cover treatment of Union Pacific's turbine locomotives.
“Classic Trains” is an affiliate of Trains Magazine, which I've subscribed to since the middle '60s.
It treats railroading in the classic era, 1930s through the '70s.
I'm a railfan, and have been since age-two; I'm now 66.
I was hoping for more detail, like how they worked — perhaps a schematic.
But not in this article.
All there was was that they burned Bunker-C fuel-oil; cheaper and heavier than diesel fuel.
Bunker-C was apparently difficult.
Cold it congealed, almost like tar.
It had to be preheated to 200 degrees.
A diesel engine also had to spin up the turbine to start it; plus it burned diesel-fuel at first.
I had to depend on Wikipedia and other web-sites to see how they worked.
The turbine was connected to a generator, so the locomotives were turbine-electric.
Much like a diesel-electric locomotive, where the giant diesel engine generates current for the trolley-style traction motors.
They were made by General Electric.
Experimentals worked around in the late '40s, but only one railroad bought any, Union Pacific.
The “Big Blows” were assigned to the UP main, Nebraska west into Wyoming.
They were called “Big Blows” because of the racket they made. They roared loudly.
Apparently in 1962, the year I graduated high-school, they were tried on UP's cross-desert Salt Lake route to Los Angeles.
This includes a segment of Santa Fe over Cajon (“ka-HONE”) Pass, into Los Angeles, via trackage rights.
But power output decreased at high temperatures, like in desert.
The Big Blows were sent back east.
The latest ones were uprated to 10,000 horsepower, although I hear that was scuttlebutt, as their electrics couldn't handle 10,000 horsepower.
It's also two units, but supposedly 10,000 horsepower total. Pennsy's E44 electric locomotives were uprated to 5,000 horsepower per unit. Uprated electrics were installed, but that's slightly later than the Big Blows.
That's 10,000 horsepower over four three-axle trucks. An E44 was 5,000 horsepower over two three-axle trucks.
Still, 8,500 horsepower in a single locomotive (one turbine) is extraordinary, compared to 2,000 horsepower for diesel-electrics of that time.
Fuel cost increased as Bunker-C became rare.
Uses had been found for it in plastics manufacture, plus refiners were implementing methods of “cracking” it into lighter fuels.
The Big Blows were also fuel guzzlers.
They were deactivated, and nearly all scrapped.
56 had been built.
The one pictured above is the “veranda” style.
It had a narrowed carbody with road-switcher like walkways.
So the crew didn't have to walk inside next to the turbine.
Earlier and final Big Blows had a full-width carbody.

Photo by Don Ross.

Only two were saved, numbers 18 (pictured at left), and 26.
Both are of the final series, the two-unit 8,500 horsepower series.
Although only the rear unit has the turbine.
The front unit had a 1,000 horsepower diesel in it, to operate ancillaries and get the locomotive around with the turbine shut off. (It was a guzzler at idle.)
Neither are veranda units; the final series weren't.
And neither operate.