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Re: (erielack) EL GEs vs EMD/ALCOs

In a message dated 9/20/2007 10:33:18 AM Eastern Daylight Time,  
sms158_@_uakron.edu writes:

Quoting  Paul Brezicki <doctorpb_@_bellsouth.net>:

> I find this hard to  believe. I would think one of the quickest ways to kill
> your business  would be to broadcast to existing and potential customers 
that
> you're  not going to provide replacement parts. That approach might work for
>  consumer electronics but it ain't gonna fly in the locomotive biz. The  
more
> likely reason is that, like many locomotives of the 60's and  70's, the GE's
> were prone to mechanical and/or electrical failure. GE  acknowledged this
> deficiency in the mid-70's when they appended the  "XR" or Extra-Reliability
> suffix to their locomotive line, but the  evidence suggests it was more
> marketing than reality. GE didn't  achieve a satisfactory level of 
locomotive
> dependability until the  Dash-8's in the 1980's. Simultaneously, EMD
> evidently suffered a  breakdown in corporate leadership as evidenced by the
> release of the  highly-flawed 50-series, and GE achieved dominance of the 
new
>  locomotive market.
==========================
 
Up until the Dash-8s, GE's rarely outlasted their financing, and they  didn't 
have to.  Most locomotive fleets on big roads were leased or  financed, and 
at the end of their term they would be turned in or retired and,  therefore, 
didn't need original equipment manufacturer support.  GE DID  SUPPORT original 
owners, including NJ Transit on the U34CHs, (and UP, BN,  ATSF, etc.) though GE 
was trying to sell newer units to NJT almost as  early as NJT's 1983 
creation.  I remember seeing artist-renderings for  passenger hood units and Genesis 
diesels in various NJT paint schemes from  friends at GE over the years as GE 
sales people tried to replace the U34s  and GP40Ps.  The Genesis units, 
incidentally, were dual-mode (diesel and  pantagraph) and illustrated in white with 
disco stripes, ala NJT's bus and  PCC fleet.  
 
The Dash 8-40Cs were a landmark locomotive for GE, perhaps GE's  "diesel that 
did it."  It was a supportable, maintainable, practical  locomotive for the 
modern railroad environment on an upgradable platform. The  Super Cab, or 
"fat-face" units, as I hear them called by many railroaders these  days, will be 
around for a long time, likely even longer than their financing.  The 
spartan-cab versions likely won't on the Class 1 roads as the industry  standardizes on 
the wide cab and desktop control stands.  I was in one of  the CSX original 
fat-face Dash 8s this morning, and its cab was stuffy and  smelly with years of 
dirt and weathering on the inside cab paint, little  markings by railroaders 
all over the interior, with a  clear-plastic blue-card holder fogged by the 
scuffs of many blue cards  coming and going over more than a dozen years of 
service. It reminded me  of one off the UP SD40-s with more-than 4 million miles on 
it during a  visit to Cheyenne in the early 1990s, when Dash 8s were and 
Super Cabs were  new.
 
With the Dash-8 and newer models, GE was able to do to EMD what EMD did to  
its steam-builder competitors in the '50s and '60s. As EMD's beaurocracy got  
bloated, misdirected and unfocused, GE had a product it could sell, support and 
 finance with a CEO determined and driven to be number-one in  market-share 
- -- Walsh wanted to be number-one in every big-ticket market in  which GE 
competed, from railcar leasing to jet engines to power plants, to  locomotives.
 
EMD-owner General Motors had problems of its own that caused its  
international credit rating to sag, and GE Capital and its stellar international  credit 
rating was able to pounce on GMAC, and it did. GE offered a much better  price 
on money, and many big orders were going to Dash 8s.     Come the dawn of the 
heavy-haul a.c. traction era, EMD had the better  product, GE had the better 
financing, so more a.c. traction GEs are on the  rails.  The d.c. SD70Ms are 
in many measures a better locomotive than the  Dash 9s, but the cost of 
financing sold more units than the RSA shows and golf  junkets in Arizona and Myrtle 
Beach. Even the government-run Amtrak couldn't  argue the cost of capital.
 
At one point in the late 1990s I recall that EMD had but one order for  
locomotives on its books at London, Ontario, and the industry quietly noticed.  CIT 
bought 1000 SD70Ms for a lease fleet, and soon followed orders  from some big 
roads.  As it did the '60s when it realized that there  needs to be more than 
one builder, the industry began buying EMDs.  There  needs to be two builders 
to keep a competitive check on prices, so you'll EMD  and GE in the 
locomotive business until some other builder gets big enough to  compete. 
 
Rest assured both builders are making and supporting fine,  reliable 
locomotives today. Railfans and railroaders can go back  to arguing aesthetics and 
details on the carbody and the paint schemes.
 
Mike Del Vecchio



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