Joint Union Pacific Railroad and General Electric Company Press Release

ID # 23,471

For release after 7 p.m. (EST)
Saturday, April 29, 1950

Joint Release from
UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY
1416 Dodge Street, Omaha, Neb.
and General News Bureau (HLR)
GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY
Schenectady 5, New York

The nation's first gas turbine-electric locomotive, a 4,5OO horsepower unit which the General Electric Company and the American Locomotive Company are testing on the Union Pacific, hauls a freight train near Sloan, Nev. The locomotive is back on U.P. freight runs after undergoing a thorough shop inspection following completion of its first year of operation.

In summarizing the unit s first year on the rails, G.W. Wilson, manager of General Electricts Locomotive and Car Equipment Divisions at Erie, Pa., declared that during the period the locomotive "performed successfully under alnost every conceivable operating condition." Wilson emphasized, however, that the developtiiental unit must undergo many more hours of rigid road tests before its future as a railroad prime mover can he determined.

Outwardly resembling a diesel-electric, its powerplant is a gas turbine similar in principle to those which power jet planes. There is no jet effect, or thrust, however, as in a plane. The turbine is connected through reduction gears to electric generators, which run electric motors, driving the wheels. The Alco-G-E unit has more than twice the horsepower of a diesei-electric of comparable size.

The caboose immediately to the rear provides working space for G-E engineers who observe performance and note operating data.

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Photo # NB11432
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