OnTheRightTrack
Member
I have done several searches and to no avail. How many E9's pulled the UP's City of Los Angeles passenger train? 3 or 4? How many A's or B's?
How many E9's?
- Thread starter OnTheRightTrack
- Start date
Looks like A-B-B-A.
http://www.american-rails.com/city-of-los-angeles.html
"Today, the City fleet can still be witnessed, in a manner of speaking, as the UP’s official business train is not only decorated in the Cities’ classic livery but also includes the original equipment, right down to the two E9As and E9Bs that power it!"
http://www.american-rails.com/city-of-los-angeles.html
"Today, the City fleet can still be witnessed, in a manner of speaking, as the UP’s official business train is not only decorated in the Cities’ classic livery but also includes the original equipment, right down to the two E9As and E9Bs that power it!"
Iron Horseman
Well-Known Member
Union Pacific passenger trains are pretty hard to nail down. They did not seem as consistent in their consists like some other railroads. I do know CN&W had to kick in coaches from the 400 to make enough cars for the pool.
But, this mostly depends on what time period and season is being discussed. I assume since E9s were specified this is talking toward the end of service like late 1960s. The train started with E2s, had E6s, E7s, and E8s also. When the E7s and E8s were the primary power they were mostly ABA or ABB sets. Union Pacific had the largest fleet of E8Bs. Trains would have been longer needing more power around the holidays (Christmas / Thanksgiving), but not so much with the E9s because by that time air and auto travel were really cutting into the passenger traffic.
The trains in the 60's varied a lot. At times several "cities" trains would be combined into one long train. It wasn't uncommon the run the City of Denver, the City of Los Angelas, and the City of San Francisco as one train out of Chicago I don't have a ton of pictures for reference, but I can document ABA,ABB,ABBA, and ABBAA sets of E9's. At the time the Milwaukee Road was providing trackage from Omaha to Chicago for UP and providing cars and locos to the pool, so I also have pictures of Milw. FP7's and FP45's on the Cities trains. 2 FP45's could handle about the same load as an ABA set of E's and the 45's were primarily intended for the Cities trains.
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Iron Horseman
Well-Known Member
Dave, can you post a reference. The only photos I can find of that large of consists are E8s. Of course, my UP reference set is not that large - either.
Sorry, they aren't personal pictures, so I can't post them. I'm actually using the "cities" sections from some of my Milwaukee Road books, primarily "The Milwaukee Road Passenger Services" by Dorin, and and "Milwaukee Road Locomotives Vol 1" by Strauss which covers E,F and FP locos. All the Milwaukee E units assigned to the cities trains were E9's although I couldn't rule out a 7 or 8 slipping in in a pinch. The E9's were built to UP specs . I double checked my photos, and the ABBAA set I mentioned was actually an FP7,E9B,F7B,FP7,E9A......my bad! I need to learn to count windows. The others I listed are all as listed.......E9's.....and of course the 5 FP45's that Milw. assigned to the cities train. I've never seen more than 2 FP45s running together in passenger service. All the Milw. locos (9's and 45's) served throughout the Milw system, but they were all purchased for the Cities pool. A lot of Milw. legrest coaches, head end cars, food service and sleepers ran in the consists as well. And when the Cities trains were running together, you could also find SP storage cars ( for the city of San Francisco).
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Depends a lot on when! An A-B-A set would not have been wrong in most instances. That's what I use on mine. As you go further into the 1960's when trains began to be combined you could see ABB sets, ABBA sets, and for the "City of Everywhere" ABBBA E's. ABA sets are a pretty common lashup throughout the time line. Get youself a copy of Kratville's "The Union Pacific Streamliners". It's out of print but fairly common, and it's the definitive work on these trains.
