Passenger Service
While the F-unit series was originally conceived for freight service, many were used to haul passenger trains. The original FT, as delivered, did not contain a steam generator for train heating, but a large empty space in the rear of their B units was used to add one on several railroads. Learning from this, EMD offered an optional steam generator on the F3 and later models. This was mounted at the rear of the carbody; steam-generator equipped locomotives can be recognised by the exhaust stack and safety valves protruding at the rear of the roof.
The F units were popular passenger locomotives on mountain grades (where they were recommended by EMD), because a four-unit set had more motored axles than a trio of E-units of equivalent power (sixteen versus twelve) and thus had less chance of overloading the traction motors. Additionally, that 4-unit F set had all its weight on driven wheels and was thereby capable of greater tractive effort. The F7 was also popular in passenger service for commuter services and other service where the trains were short.
Read more about this topic: EMD F-unit
Famous quotes containing the words passenger and/or service:
“Every American travelling in England gets his own individual sport out of the toy passenger and freight trains and the tiny locomotives, with their faint, indignant, tiny whistle. Especially in western England one wonders how the business of a nation can possibly be carried on by means so insufficient.”
—Willa Cather (1876–1947)
“Human life consists in mutual service. No grief, pain, misfortune, or “broken heart,” is excuse for cutting off one’s life while any power of service remains. But when all usefulness is over, when one is assured of an unavoidable and imminent death, it is the simplest of human rights to choose a quick and easy death in place of a slow and horrible one.”
—Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935)