NEC Extension or Maybe a new Route

[BNSFdude]

True ...

Tho at least the toasters had some individuality... these just look like someone stole it from europe and brought it here..

and i HATE the styling of modern european stuff..

bring back the transition era heavy electrics, and gen 1 and 2 diesels.... thats where there was STYLE.

You're joking, right?

[awaken1977]

True ...
Tho at least the toasters had some individuality... these just look like someone stole it from europe and brought it here..

It's called unification. ACS64 obviously derived from Eurosprinter family



ER20 aka Eurorunner, the diesel loco, but shares chassis and bodywork with Eurosprinter

[buzz456]

To use the word style in the same sentence with a description of these boxes in a oxymoron. I'm with you Phil.

[rarecommonsense]

The M8's I just learned, are not going to make it with the release on the New Haven Section of the NEC. That's quite unfortunate, as I know many of us, had hopes it would be.

[arizonachris]

The M8's I just learned, are not going to make it with the release on the New Haven Section of the NEC.

Most likely it will be a $19.95 add on a month or so after the route is released. DTG has to make money somehow, it is in business to do that.

[BNSFdude]

To use the word style in the same sentence with a description of these boxes in a oxymoron. I'm with you Phil.

I ask people this all the time. How would you design it?

[buzz456]

To use the word style in the same sentence with a description of these boxes in a oxymoron. I'm with you Phil.

I ask people this all the time. How would you design it?

I would design them so they look like the Disney Monorail.

600-monorail.jpg

[philmoberg]

Much as I'd love to see a return to the sort of styling that Kuhler, Loewy, Dreyfuss and Cret bequeathed us, our culture as a whole has largely moved on from that. I'm glad, to be sure, that we've begun to move on from the sterile minimalism that replaced the rich styling of an earlier age, but we're only barely past the merely functional at that. The relentless me-too-ism of current designs, like that of today's automobiles and recreational boats, only reflects the overriding reality of economy of production with a secondary emphasis on fairly clean aerodynamics and commonality parts. Whatever the current generation of electric locomotives may lack in aesthetics, they're still a whole lot easier on the eye than a hood unit with pantographs, which was the best they could manage when I was a kid.

[rarecommonsense]

The M8's I just learned, are not going to make it with the release on the New Haven Section of the NEC.

Most likely it will be a $19.95 add on a month or so after the route is released. DTG has to make money somehow, it is in business to do that.

I certainly hope so.

[buzz456]

"I ask people this all the time. How would you design it?"

That was Anthony.

I like the idea of a F or a E unit with the well known complaints about vision restrictions being fixed. They certainly a much more graceful design than these boxes with these contrived shapes on the front.

[philmoberg]

... I like the idea of a F or a E unit with the well known complaints about vision restrictions being fixed. ...

Funny story about that one, Buzz: back in the mid'-70s, when Amtrak went shopping for new power, they approached EMD looking for what amounted to an "E10," being essentially an E9 with 645 prime mover(s) and Dash 2 electrics. It turned out that EMD had broken up the tooling a couple of years before, and the cost to replace it for a relatively small order would have been prohibitive. The SDP40F (so designated because Federal regulations prohibited the purchase of a new design) turned out to be "a swing and a miss," and we ended up with F40s, which struck me has having all the aesthetics of a shoebox. Even less-known than the E10 was the AMD-125, a low-slung high speed locomotive that was essentially a GP40 in a carbody that was a cross between the Metroliner/Amfleet cross-section and the JNR Series 0 bullet train cab car. AFAIK this never got past the line-drawing stage of design studies, but the one elevation I saw of it looked impressive.

I doubt we'll see anything along those lines, except possibly as a power car/cab car for push-pull operation. Current locomotive aesthetics, to the extent they get away from the functionality of hood units, are driven mainly by the desire to minimise the additional drag load of the first car of the following consist. That gives the designer little option but some form of boxcab design, with little regard (or budget) for style. The question of aerodynamic drag has become so dominant that there are now proposals for cowls of different sorts for the leading end of double stack trains. Whether the savings is worth the expense of having to build, handle and maintain the cowls is something I can't comment on, since I have seen the studies and don't know what all their assumptions are.

[buzz456]

" which struck me has having all the aesthetics of a shoebox."

So true. What could have been. sigh.

[buzz456]

Hmm, maybe that's why I love the sim.

[BNSFdude]

"I ask people this all the time. How would you design it?"

That was Anthony.

I like the idea of a F or a E unit with the well known complaints about vision restrictions being fixed. They certainly a much more graceful design than these boxes with these contrived shapes on the front.

Es and Fs are terrible units as an operator. THIS is how passenger trains would look, if it were up to me. (still would be ALCO powered too. ;) )

Provided-- there would be some changes made to make it meet todays crashworthiness standards. but those large windows and the way the controls were laid out was perfect for visibility.

[buzz456]

Most of the engineers I ever talked to back then (and yes I was around then although a young lad) thought they were pretty trick. That thing about all the engineers bitching is largely another urban legend. Some people complained about visibility when they were in a switching environment but they were still a huge improvement for most part over the steam engines they were replacing.