EMD FL9 - Operation

Operation

New Haven trackage between Woodlawn and New Haven, Connecticut, 72 miles from Grand Central, was electrified in the early 1900s at 11,000 volts, 25 Hz overhead. The New Haven was the pioneer of heavy mainline railroad electrification in the United States. Early plans to extend the catenary to Boston as it exists today were not completed due to the perennial financial problems that plagued the New Haven almost continuously from the 1920s to its demise in 1969.

The FL9s allowed through passenger trains from Grand Central Terminal to reach Boston, Springfield, and other non-electrified destinations without the need for an engine change at New Haven. They were purchased with the intent of allowing the eventual elimination of all New Haven electric locomotives and the abandonment of the electrification east of Stamford, Connecticut, 33 miles from Grand Central. The fact that the entire New York to Boston line is now electrified shows the short-sightedness of this concept, which had been adopted by the McGinnis management to avoid the cost of modernizing the New Haven’s Cos Cob, Connecticut power plant. The New Haven to Boston electrification was completed by Amtrak in 1999.

Prior to the introduction of the FL9, all non-multiple unit New Haven passenger trains were hauled by electric locomotives between New York and New Haven, with a change to steam (before 1950) or diesel at New Haven. Meeting the weight limits of the Park Avenue Viaduct in Manhattan, the FL9 made it possible to eliminate the engine change. FL9s were used on the New Haven's premier "name" train, the Merchants Limited, which covered the 229.5 miles between Grand Central Terminal and South Station, Boston in 4 hours 15 minutes.

Introduction of the FL9 allowed the New Haven to scrap its entire fleet of pre-1955 electric locomotives, many of which were less than 25 years old. The FL9 had higher operating costs and lower performance than the electric locomotives it replaced. The only New Haven electrics surviving through the FL9 period were the General Electric EP5 "Jets" of 1955 as well as the non-passenger General Electric E33s purchased secondhand from the Virginian Railroad in 1959. Three FL9s were required to approach the performance of one EP5. But the powerful "Jets" were doomed by poor maintenance, and the last were retired in 1977, after having been regeared for freight service by inheritor Penn Central in 1973. In keeping with the New Haven's policy of dual service utilization of locomotives, FL9s were used at night to move a Trailer-on-FlatCar (TOFC) train, with difficulty, in one direction between the Cedar Hill yard in New Haven and the Oak Point yard in The Bronx. Assigned to this train in the other direction, an EP5 locomotive could easily outrun automobile traffic on the adjacent Connecticut Turnpike.