Re: CATS 15 & 19

jessica stacey Wrote:
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> The yard switchers 15 & 19, are really not suited
> for road work, their traction motors don't have
> cooling blowers, and you'll burn them up, if you
> push them hard, maybe trips out of Antonito

Not correct. There are early GE traction motors that are not ventilated but they were big enough at low enough horsepower that radiant cooling was enough. Even the EMD SW-1 (600 hp) doesn't have traction motors blowers.

The GE 47-ton model (CATS 15 & 19) is the narrow gage version of the GE 44-ton and they use the same traction motors. Will they don't have exterior traction motor blowers and ducting, the traction motors themselves are self ventilating and have a fan assembly as part of the armature. In addition, these have double reduction gear units, which limits the top speed of the locomotive but means that the traction motor turns much faster for a given speed.

Assuming the locomotive is properly maintained and in good shape, it should pull just fine as these were designed and commonly used as light road units, not just as switchers. By comparison, the Durango & Silverton GE units likely have the same or similar traction motor and gear units but these were designed as steel mill units so they have less horsepower per ton as they were designed for low speed service.

I'm not sure of the gear ratio on these, but a similar 44 ton shows as having 13,000 pounds continuous tractive effort at 7 mph. Since tractive effort for a diesel-electric is in direct proportion to speed, at 10 mph you might have about 10,500 pounds tractive effort, and only around 7,000 pounds at 15 mph. Obviously their fairly low tractive effort is more valuable the lighter the uphill grade.