Question about Southern GP38-2 "oil bath" air filters - Trains Magazine

Paul Milenkovic

To be a DC-motor holdout, did NS build special DC-locomotive inline facility for servicing those locomotives?  Something nicknamed a "Brushatorium", where a team of workers could replace brushes and damaged traction motor windings in an hour, something that took 2-3 days on other roads?  Only they quietly retired their DC locomotives when DC motor parts suppliers went out of business?

Dave, he's being humorous by recounting the way things were 'supposed' to go in the Forties and Fifties as the last 'stalwarts of steam' made the best out of external-combustion power ... to little ultimate avail, as the specialty manufacturers who made modern sophisticated steam possible slowly went out of business or switched themselves to other product lines or specialties.

The DC motor situation is different.  There is little doubt that AC drive is technically superior; the 'catch' being that early (and even not-so-early) electronics are expensive, much of the motor technology not particularly common, and that some of the advantages of AC drive were not deemed substantial enough, for a long period of development and experimentation, to adopt for major fleet use.

Meanwhile NS in particular did, in fact, have well-honed repair facilities and supply chains centered around DC traction motors, which saved them enough "net" of AC performance advantage to keep ordering DC-motored modern power and limit the number of spare parts and suppliers needed to keep their engines running effectively.  Once there was an established AC aftermarket, and the advantages of straight AC consists began to be recognized, there began to be perceived advantages to convert to a 'modern' AC approach, first by specific groups of locomotives or rebuild projects and then more 'wholesale' (and now, presumably, with selective mothballing or retirement of DC-motored classes, since most of the rebuilding economics are no longer as enticing, net of current traffic drop.