dfg@vaxine.UUCP (Dan Goessling) (12/22/83)
I worked at Conrail between 1977 and 1980 before going back to high tech. I was there at the time when Conrail was getting its peak federal funding and was buying lots of equipment. The word from the locomotive groups there was that EMD had it hands down over GE. The main reason they bought any GE locomotives at all was to keep GM from raping Conrail on price. One comment on electronic controlled locos: it took a while for maintenance people to understand that little electronic modules can zap themselves into worthlessness if there are shorts in the 'backplane.' I was around when a guy destroyed 3 boards in a row before he looked for a short. ON GG-1s: I believe these were much faster than the newer Amtrak locos. However, they had become big maintenance problems by the late '70s and were usually used only on the shorter Corridor runs, such as Philly to NYC.