Talk:EMD BL2

I have read that the BL1 Demo #499 had an air throttle. This was not an accepted railroad practice at the time and the air throttle was replaced with a mechanical throttle making it the equivalent of a BL2 before sale to the C&EI. See Extra 2200 South issue #46 pp 21-24 for BL1/BL2 photos and discussion. --SSW9389 17:47, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Thread from Trains.com posted by Fritz Milhaupt detailing the difference between BL1 and BL2. "In John Paton's Chespapeake & Ohio BL2 Diesels (C&OHS, 1991), he explains the difference between the BL1 and the BL2 as being that the BL1 had an air-actuated throttle, while the BL2 was the version built with an electrically-actuated throttle like that used on the F3.

BL1 demonstrator #499 (EMD project #89499) was built and demonstrated with the air-actuated throttle, but all production models had the conventional electrically-activiated throttles which permitted them to be MUed with other locomotives. #499 was converted to an electrically-actuated throttle and equipped with MU hardware before its sale to the C&EI.

The C&O (which had the largest fleet of BL2s of any road) found that MUing BL2s put a good deal of strain on the frames, leading to frame cracking problems. Minor cracks were just patch-welded, but major frame cracking took BL2 #84 out of service for good by 1959." --SSW9389 (talk) 20:08, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Weight, Tractive Effort and Gearing
The tractive effort shown in the information box is only correct for the six Pere Marquette/C&O units. Weight varied on BL2s from 218,340 pounds for Demonstrator 499 to 246,000 pounds for the Bangor and Aroostook units. That would vary the Tractive Effort at 25% adhesion to a range of 54,585 pounds to 61,500 pounds. Weights for the different railroads that owned BL2s is shown on page 20 of Extra 2200 South issue #46.

All BL2s were built with 62:15 gearing except the Western Maryland units built with 65:12 gearing. The WM units were later regeared to 62:15. The Rock Island units were regeared to 61:16 gearing possibly in 1951 when steam generators were added.--SSW9389 10:48, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

BL1 Build Date
Several online sources give the BL1 build date as February 1948. That is incorrect as the actual build date was September 1947. The February 1948 date is when the air throttle was replaced with a standard electric throttle. And the February 1948 date may have been when a builders number was assigned to #499. See Extra 2200 South issue #46 pages 21-22. And Extra 2200 South issue #79 C&EI Roster page 19.--SSW9389 15:56, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Good Article Review
This article is currently at Good Article Review. LuciferMorgan 02:15, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Delisted from the Good Article list
This article has been delisted per consensus discussion at Good Article Review. The archived results of the discussion can be found at Good article review/Archive 18. --Jayron32| talk | contribs 05:40, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Reverted an edit
A user named Graywalls has replaced the entire history section with the words "EMD's diesel program was well underway in the late 1940s and early 1950s" and nothing else. I reverted the edits because it gives barely any information compared to what it replaced. 24.14.45.36 (talk) 19:53, 6 August 2020 (UTC)