GE/Westinghouse GG1: PRR 4884

Last crawled date: 1 year, 6 months ago

The GG1s were a series of 139 locomotives built between 1934 and 1943 at the Pennsylvania Railroad shops at Altoona, PA. The units weighed approximately 477,000 pounds and were nearly 80 feet long. The body of a GG1 was built atop two massive cast locomotive frames and was built of steel plates mounted over a truss frame. Raymond Loewy, the noted industrial designer, developed its trademark 5-stripe paint scheme and suggested welding the body. The GG1s were originally painted in either Tuscan Red or Brunswick Green with the 5-stripe gold leaf scheme and Clarendon lettering. GG1s operated off of overhead power, 11000 V AC, 25 Hz, and though geared for 100 mph, GG1 4800 reached 110 mph during trials. In 1953, shortly before President Eisenhower's inauguration, engine 4876, pulling the Federal Express, suffered a braking failure and crashed into the concourse at Union Station in Washington. It then fell through the floor; luckily, however, there were no deaths. The cars were quickly hauled out and a floor was built over the GG1 until after the inauguration, when it was dismantled, refurbished, and went back into service. By the 1980s, the GG1s were suffering frame cracks, and were retired. Although several of the sixteen survivors could be placed back into service between Washington and Boston, the transformers and electrical system contain PCBs (which were removed in the 1980s) and asbestos on the wires; the cost of remediating this would be prohibitive. #amtrak #art #baltimore #bell #boston #brunswick #buff #central #choo_choo #chuff #clarendon #conrail #csx #deco #depot #diesel #edison #electric #freight #futura #general #gold #green #horn #locomotive #manhattan #modern #moderne #new #passenger #penn #pennsylvania #philadelphia #rail #railroad #railway #red #retro #semaphore #signal #station #steam #streamline #streamlined #terminal #track #train #tuscan #washington #westinghouse #whistle #york