Blog Editor's Note: The other equipment histories on our blog were all written by IRM volunteers, but this article is unique. It is history written by the people who were there: an account of the development of the Amtrak AEM7 from the perspective of the engineers, salespeople, and staff of ASEA, the Swedish manufacturer that designed the locomotive. We'd like to thank Åke Nilsson for writing and compiling this history and Magnus Sandgren for sending it to us, as well as Richard Schauer and Magnus for assisting with translating it from Swedish.
The Amtrak AEM7: The Story of a Locomotive
by Mr. Åke Nilsson
All images are courtesy of the authors
Introduction
It is now thirty years since we received the order for the so-called Amtrak locomotives. I have been inspired by my friend Stig Throne-Holst to write about this project. There are several who have raised the idea. A few years ago, Per-Erik Olson tried to persuade SJ [Statens Järnvägar, the Swedish Railways] to write down the story of how successfully Sweden had marketed and introduced Swedish railway technology in the United States. We Swedes are justifiably proud of our technology, but no technical product achieves international success without skilled salespeople. The story we are going to tell here is a good example of this. It was, Per-Erik thought, appropriate to recall that it had been 30 years since SJ and ASEA [Allmänna Svenska Elektriska Aktiebolaget, the General Swedish Electrical Limited Company] sent an Rc4 locomotive across the Atlantic, where it very successfully demonstrated what Swedish technology in this field had to offer.
I have hesitated and balked at the task because it is very large. But now an attempt may be made. I embark on this only on the basis of my personal memories and will look in my old newspaper clippings as my only support. Fortunately, I can count on the assistance of many colleagues in producing a good story. The whole affair is of interest to all of us who were involved when it happened. Who knows, there may be something for today's decision-makers to learn from it.
I therefore think that this story should be signed by everyone involved. I myself will be what is today called a spokesperson.
The Amtrak deal was a very big international success for Swedish locomotive technology and a very good deal for our company. The company changed its name along the way from ASEA to ABB, to ADtranz, to Bombardier, and then to Alstom. In order to properly understand what led to this, it may be worth providing some background and starting with the history of the American railways. I would like to describe what the situation was like when ASEA decided to embark on conquering part of that market in the 1970s.
The Six-Day War, Yom Kippur
The background to the whole story can be found in the wars that broke out between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Both sides had been preparing for a war. The Arabs wanted to expel the Israelis from the territories they had gained after the end of the war in 1945. There was a clash in 1967 where the Israelis quickly fought back and occupied the Sinai and Golan Heights.
The result was great unrest in the oil market. There were fears of a shortage of oil and a sharp increase in the price of diesel fuel, among other things. People began to think about ways to make themselves less dependent on oil and gasoline, not least in the United States. Here it would be possible to electrify the railways and reduce dependence on oil.
The situation was further aggravated in 1973 by the next war, in which the Arab side struck on the great Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. This, too, was a total failure. We are still feeling the consequences and the unrest in the Middle East has not diminished.
ASEA was a supplier of electrified railway equipment and saw its opportunity. The question is whether that opportunity is still affected by climate change influenced by emissions of exhaust gases from fossil fuels.
The Railway Scenario in the United States
The railways had had their heyday during the 1800s. That was when the great wave of immigration came, long before the age of aviation. Railways were built all over the continent. They were essential to the conquest of West. Large private companies handled the construction and transportation.
Many Swedish immigrants began their careers as railroad workers. They were welcome and they were skilled. A general in charge of railway construction particularly appreciated these Swedes. He is said to have remarked, "Give me Swedes and whiskey and I will build railroads all the way to hell."
Giant railway stations the size of cathedrals bear witness to this era. You can visit Grand Central Station in New York to witness the importance of passenger rail travel.
There was talk of demolishing Grand Central Station and replacing it with one of the usual business complexes. It was saved, perhaps not least due to the intervention of Jaqueline Kennedy, who believed that one should have some respect for historical value even in this commercial society.
I appreciated this during a simple meal I enjoyed in "The Oyster Bar."
It was the era of the great steam locomotives. Incidentally, these would entice Antonin Dvořák to settle in 1892 opposite Grand Central Station so that he could see the gigantic locomotives on a daily basis. The Americans knew how to lure the great Czech composer to their country.
During his years in Prague, Antonin would go down to the platforms of the Prague Kaiser Franz-Josef Bahnhof every day and check out the carriages and locomotives that came and went. He was a real railfan [Eisenbahn Freak].
He was greatly disappointed that he did not have access to the platforms from Central Hall. He usually had to buy a ticket for a ride to the next station on 155th Street. The next big disappointment was when he and his wife Anna made a longer trip to Iowa by train. He ordered a glass of beer and was told that they were in the state of Pennsylvania, where there was a total ban on alcohol. "Is this the land of freedom?" he exclaimed! They secretly arranged a beer for him at the next station.
Antonin Dvořák
When Antonin Dvořák returned to Prague in 1895, it was a relief for him to be able to walk freely down to the platforms of the Prague main railroad station [Praha Hlavni-Nadrazi]. He brought with him from America his most famous symphony, the Ninth, best known under the name "Aus der Neuen Welt - The New World."
Antonin Dvořák once wrote that he would have gladly traded his career as a composer for that of a skilled designer of steam locomotives. As flattering as it may sound to a railway engineer, it must be said that it was just as well that he became the masterful composer that he did.
The Decline of the Railways
After the Second World War, the conditions for the railways changed radically. The airlines took over the passenger traffic. Greyhound buses competed very successfully with the rail traffic that remained. That left freight traffic, which became a very big business for the railways. Freight went from coast to coast in very long trains, now pulled by diesel locomotives. Powerful railroad companies, e.g. the Union Pacific, Southern Pacific, Santa Fe, Burlington Northern and all the others, made a fortune.
The decline in passenger numbers led to increasingly poor service and deterioration. This meant that all passenger rail service was transferred to a federally owned, semi-public company called Amtrak. The trains were pulled by diesel locomotives or were diesel railcars with one exception, the so-called North East Corridor between Washington, DC, New York, and New Haven, which was electrified for 11 kV, 25 Hz. Also, Philadelphia to Harrisburg was electrified by the Pennsylvania Railroad.
The Metroliners
The following description of how attempts were made to save passenger traffic on the railway was written by Clas Göran Lundberg.
North East Corridor
This stretch of track was, for a long time, the great problem child in America's railroad history. It was the number one problem line. One could paraphrase the film director Ragnar Frisk: “Stumbling close to success.”
Ragnar Frisk directed all the Åsa Nisse films and is the most reviled man in Swedish history. After each new release, his colleagues would jokingly ask him if he had read the film reviews. Then Ragnar Frisk always answered: “Yes, stumbling close to a complete success!” Once a film reviewer wrote, “Surely the bottom has been reached!” Ragnar Frisk folded the newspaper and exclaimed, “Then they don't know Ragnar Frisk!”
During the 1960s, the American railroads lost almost all of their passenger base. On long distances, flying was 20 times faster than taking the train, and this more than compensated for the time it took to get to the airport terminals.
Over short distances, however, there should be room for fast trains. Unfortunately, the long period of decline in passenger trains had had caused domestic manufacturers of passenger rolling stock to lose both the expertise and the ability to compete with manufacturers from Europe and Japan.
However, there was still one electrified line on the East Coast. It was the Pennsylvania Railroad (colloquially the Pennsy) between New York (Penn Station), Philadelphia, and Washington, which was called the North East Corridor.
In order to offer high-speed passenger service on this route, the Pennsy placed an order in 1966 with the Budd Company in Philadelphia for 61 stainless steel multiple-unit railcars that would go down in railroad history as Metroliners. They were very advanced for their time, with thyristor converters and dynamic electric braking. All axles were driven by DC motors.
All the cars were extremely luxurious, with air conditioning, airplane-style armchairs, full catering, and stylish interiors. You could call from the trains via radio link. Each two-car set had a driver's cab at each end, but it was possible to walk through the entire train if several two-car sets were coupled together. The speed was set at 160 mph. Now the airplane was going to have a fight!
Metroliner
This was in the era of the moon landing, and the Americans then had an almost boundless amount of self-confidence. Clas worked at General Electric at the time. The Swedes regarded the American engineers as gods. Their manuals, such as SCR Applications and Microprocessors, were like hymnals. What couldn’t they do!
The client ignored its normal old procedures and allowed Budd to build the trains directly from the drawing boards, without either mock-ups and prototypes, or doing the usual tests of each subsystem. The result, of course, was disastrous. After much sorrows and grief, all of the trains had to be rebuilt for half the original contract price.
Amtrak took over the trains in May 1971 and operated the North East Corridor with 14 daily trips between New York and Washington. The trains never reached a speed higher than 152 km/h (95 mph), although they were originally designed for 241 km/h (150 mph). They had actually achieved 164 mph (264 km/h) during a test run. But they were real troublemakers, and Amtrak eventually took them out of service. Instead, they invested in locomotive-hauled trains. That's where Åke begins his story.
General Motors Electro-Motive Division, EMD
After World War II, two completely dominant manufacturers of locomotives remained in the United States. General Motors had built a gigantic factory for the production of diesel locomotives in La Grange, Illinois: its Electro-Motive Division, or EMD. If I remember correctly, all their workshops were built by the legendary Swedish master builder Benson. He was entrusted with building on a cost-plus basis. It is also said that Benson primarily employed Swedes in his construction company. EMD would have a major impact on ASEA's entry into this market.
General Electric
The other locomotive manufacturer was General Electric, which also had a separate large division for the manufacture of railway equipment, mainly locomotives. At this time in the mid-1970s, GE accounted for 20 percent of the market, while EMD was completely dominant with an 80 percent market share.
Unlike General Motors, General Electric also manufactured electric locomotives. As a result, they were effectively the only supplier of electric locomotives for the corridor. General Electric would also cross our paths in the United States, but that was much later, in the early 1990s, when we were called ABB.
Technology
ASEA had developed so-called thyristor locomotives in good cooperation with SJ. ASEA's electronics division had developed semiconductors for speed control of motors and for converters in industrial applications. The engineers in the railway division recognized the value of the controllable semiconductor, known as a thyristor. It was exactly the component they needed. It made it possible to steplessly control the locomotive's DC motors. ASEA was the first to apply this chopper technology to the electric locomotive. The first series production thyristor locomotive was delivered to SJ in early 1967.
The lead-up to SJ's order for thyristor locomotives was dramatic. SJ knew that its competitor, AEG, was working on developing this new technology. According to the story I heard from the head of the railway division’s design department, Tore Nordin, SJ had sent a request to AEG for a test locomotive. One of the technicians at SJ, who was friendly to ASEA, made sure that the letter requesting a quote was sent to ASEA instead of to AEG.
This triggered feverish activity within ASEA. A meeting was held in Curt Nicolin's office. They discussed what ASEA should do. The decision was made to quickly develop such a locomotive within ASEA and offer it to SJ. They presented their plans to Nicolin, who thought they were good but demanded changes on two points. The locomotive would have twice as much tractive effort, with the same weight, and the time to develop the locomotive would be drastically reduced from one year to four months. The engineers explained that this was impossible. Curt Nicolin stood firm on his demands with the usual terse message: "The night is long, gentlemen" ["Natta är lång mina herrar"]. And so it was.
It is said that Uno Lamm gave the thyristor its name. It was General Electric in the United States that first developed it. ASEA bought a license from GE to manufacture and use it, but was foresighted and skilled enough to pursue its own development on the basis of the basic patent.
A Crucial Choice
Here, Clas Göran Lundberg provides an interesting background to ASEA's own development of control systems for engines. They had evidently taken the wrong path but had to change their minds just when they were going to about to develop the converter for the locomotives. The meeting at Nicolin's seems to have been decisive for the entire course of ASEA's development of motor control systems.
Clas writes, on June 16, 2007, “In today's newspaper I see that Waldemar Bengtson has died. He was the first director I met at ASEA when I was hired as a young “25-cent” [“25-öre”] engineer in 1962 in the dry-type rectifier department at ASEA Ludvika.”
Waldemar Bengtson was one of the participants at Nicolin's meeting that Åke talks about. He was perhaps the most important person at that meeting when SJ was to get its first thyristor locomotive. His division, which had moved from Ludvika to Viksäng in Västerås, was supposed to manufacture the most vital parts! I remember Waldemar after that meeting. After the meeting with the engineers of the dry rectifier department, he turned pale. The technicians had invested their entire careers in Dr. Ulrik Krabbe's transducer technology. That is, controlling diode rectifiers with magnetic regulators (transducers). Waldemar understood that he would not be able to develop a new rectifier for the new locomotive in time if he tried to push it through the established organization.
He turned to Arvid Karlsson. Arvid had started at ASEA as a young “25-cent” engineer and had the chance to study for a master’s degree in civil engineering at KTH [Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan, the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm] at the company's expense. ASEA had a very generous personnel policy at that time and you were allowed to study half-time if you were willing and qualified. After graduating, Arvid wanted new challenges and, together with the principal of Västerås Technical High School, Gösta Olofsson - the brother of John Olofsson, the visiting general at ASEA - formed the electronics company REMA.
Arvid was thus recruited back to ASEA by Waldemar Bengtsson and became the leader of the Y-sector's part of the locomotive project. ASEA had never built a thyristor converter for DC traction motor operation before. Even Hägglunds in Örnsköldsvik had developed motor drives with thyristor converters long before ASEA.
Arvid is a gifted engineer. He has a practical disposition and dared to take calculated risks. As a human being, he is also a great person. I often think about which people I've met in my life who would be among the top ten and who have made the greatest impression on me. Arvid is one such person.
Per-Erik Olson
I have described above how Clas Göran Lundberg contributed to this story. In the same way, perhaps the most vital parts of the story have been incorporated by his friend Per-Erik. He was more in this project in the United States than anyone else. As we shall see below, he had a technical background that proved to be of great importance for the implementation of the project. Per-Erik also paired his technical background with a great sense of how to sell advanced technology. He was head of ASEA Traction in the US during the most important period of the project.
Vehicle Dynamics
As early as the 1950s, SJ and ASEA had been collaborating closely on research in the field of bogies and the impact of wheels on the tracks. This is fundamental for managing derailment risks and achieving good running characteristics for railway vehicles. At ASEA, an engineer named Stig Jonsson worked on theoretically describing the phenomena of steel wheels against rails, a classic subject. At SJ, the young engineer Per-Erik Olson became head of SJ's laboratories in Hagalund. This resulted in a very fruitful collaboration that would give the Swedish railway industry a leading position.
This is a long story. I personally remember that in the machine laboratory where I started my career in 1957, I was shown a very strange machine called the analog machine. People from SJ and the Railway Department at ASEA came there and connected simulations of bogies using cables that were reminiscent of those used by the telephone operators at their switchboards. I later understood that it was Stig Jonsson who was there. The picture shows Stig Jonsson sitting in front of the analog machine. Behind him is Berglund. He was the one who persuaded me to join the choir.
It was soon said that this machine was not capable enough to simulate the complex phenomena they wanted to study. ASEA bought a mainframe computer that was placed in the NORE office. It was so secret that we were not allowed to go behind the walls where the railway people had moved with their intricate simulations, and it was soon said that it was not enough. Now the Nuclear Power Department had been established and they needed even greater computing resources.
To Measure is to Know
It was extremely important to get a handle on the track forces through computer simulation. However, all computer models had to be verified by measurement. The old methods involved mounting measuring equipment on the rails at specific points that indicated the impact the wheel exerted at those points. This was an uncertain and inadequate measurement method. Therefore, the measuring wheels produced by SJ Lab, together with Surahammars Steel Works, represented a decisive breakthrough. Surahammar [Surahammars Bruks AB, in Surahammar, that at the time was owned by the ex. ASEA company] had been a manufacturer of railway wheels since the early days of the railways. They created a measuring system that allowed the train's special measuring car to continuously read the track forces while the vehicle was in motion.
Two proud railway engineers in front of their measuring wheel, Stig Jonsson and Per-Erik Olson.
In the 1960s, ASEA's Railway Department focused on developing the mechanical design of vehicles, especially for the running gear, the bogies that affect the vehicle's running characteristics. They had two goals: one was to be able to tilt trains in curves and thus shorten travel time while maintaining passenger comfort. The second was the area of vehicle dynamics. They gained good knowledge about what happened between the wheels and rails and about how to design bogies to minimize the risk of derailment at higher speeds. We had a skilled team of bogie designers: Stjärna, Bengt-Göran Eriksson, and Sten Otterbeck.
There were plenty of curves and less-than-ideal tracks in Sweden. Progress was made here through research led by Evert Andersson and Nisse Nilstam.
The picture shows how the forces between the wheels and the rails act when the locomotive is traveling through a curve.
Simulation models were created with the help of increasingly advanced computers. Engineers gained an understanding of the phenomena at the wheel-rail point of contact and their importance in controlling track forces. This built on the findings of previous researchers, but now they were compiled into useful tools. Evert explained to me that it was necessary to have computers solve millions of equations in order to mathematically clarify how the forces between the wheel and the rail changed as the locomotive moved a few hundred meters along the track. We would make use of this when we simulated the entire route laying in between Washington and New York.
In the picture, we see Evert Andersson on the left and Nisse Nilstam in front of a picture of an early model of the X 2000.
Two Different Railway Worlds - Europe and the United States
Europe
Europe saw all its nation-states developing their own railways. They ended up as state-owned companies, although from the beginning many of them had started as private railways. They developed independently of each other within their national borders. At border stations, trains were changed and, unfortunately, also systems. When electrification came, which happened early in the 1900s, everyone developed their own systems. They had already managed to standardize on different track gauges. Spain, Portugal, Finland, Ireland and Russia had a wider gauge than the rest of Europe. The United Kingdom used a smaller loading profile, but the track gauge used was standardized at 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches, for all new British railroads since 1846.
Despite this almost ridiculously impossible situation, a large European rail network was developed for both passengers and freight. It managed to get by even after the construction of an excellent road network with fast motorways criss-crossing the land, combined with excellent air connections.
Railway administrations and industry invested in locomotives that could haul both passengers and freight. In the 1970s, the French led the way by introducing very fast passenger trains, the TGV, or "Train à Grand Vitesse". It was seen as realistic to reach speeds of 300 km/h [185 mph]. However, this placed high demands on the quality of the track. It had to be up to the task. In Sweden, with our climate, it would be difficult to maintain such a consistent and high standard.
United States
As described above, passenger transportation did not survive competition from buses and planes. On the other hand, the geographical and economic conditions for heavy, long-distance freight transport by rail were very good. This included the transport of wheat, coal, ore, and, more recently, containers from coast to coast. It was not a question of high speeds; 60 kilometers per hour [37 mph] was enough.
Powerful locomotives were constructed and sometimes six locomotives were connected to cross the prairie. They never stopped, but changed crews on the fly. It was possible to increase the axle load on the locomotives to 30 tons, compared with the 20 tons they had as a limit in Europe, so as not to get track forces that could lead to derailment at the high speed that was strived for there, at least 120 kilometers per hour [75 mph] for so-called express passenger trains.
Marketing in the United States
Sigfrid Franzén became head of ASEA's Railway Department in the 1950s when he took over from Jan Liljeblad, who was a good technician and had, among other things, helped design a high-performance electric motor for railway vehicles. Erik Sjökvist also participated in this work. Sigfrid was a native of Småland, possessing all the best qualities of a Smålander. He was determined and had boundless energy. Sigge, as we called him, was a talented engineer but above all a skilled businessman. He wanted to make money for his company, and he did—and was appreciated for it, not least by Curt Nicolin, whom he admired. I don't know when he came to ASEA's Railway Department. He had worked previously at Kockums in Malmö, that I do know.
When Sigge took over the Railway Department, it was in trouble. SJ had met its need for locomotives. The Railway Department was completely focused on the domestic market. Sigfrid Franzén realized that he had to expand his business with exports. That was easier said than done. His competitors in Central Europe had joined together in a consortium they called the "50-Hz group." It included all the major manufacturers: Siemens and AEG in Germany, BBC in Switzerland, Alstom in France, ACEC in Belgium, and Elin in Austria. Their own home markets were practically completely protected. The strategy was that for each locomotive project outside the domestic market, a joint tender was submitted.
Sigge challenged the consortium and managed to secure large orders in Romania and Yugoslavia in the 1960s. ASEA even took an order for electric locomotives for the Austrian railways. It should be said in this context that Sigfrid had a very talented and resourceful engineer who played a major role in all these successes. It was the Norwegian Per Wiig, who had been recruited from the Norwegian State Railways (NSB).
Marketing Strategy
Per Wiig knew his subject. He came from the Norwegian State Railways and was also a skilled engineer. It was probably often Peer Wiig who ruled Sigfrid. They aimed to break into the American market. The situation there was such that it was completely unrealistic to sell locomotives manufactured in Europe. They realized that they had to partner with a domestic manufacturer. General Motors did not manufacture electric locomotives. Sigge launched a campaign to demonstrate the great benefits of electrified railways. But the conditions were radically different from those in Europe. There was no need for fast locomotives. ASEA demonstrated that even for America's freight traffic, there were economic benefits to be gained by electrifying its railways.
Customers had two established suppliers to choose from. They were General Electric and General Motors, and that was enough. General Electric also manufactured electric locomotives for Amtrak. General Motors was the world's largest locomotive manufacturer, focused on continuing to produce diesel-electric locomotives.
In its presentations, ASEA had shown that switching to electric operation would be a brilliant deal in ten years' time. It would entail large initial costs in the form of electric wires and transformers, but in the long run, it would pay off well.
There were two catches. In America, people are not interested in ten-year scenarios. And there were two very powerful manufacturers who did not want any change in their highly profitable production of diesel-electric locomotives.
License Agreement
It must be considered a sales coup to have persuaded General Motors' management, under these circumstances, to sign a license agreement with ASEA, granting them a license to manufacture ASEA locomotives in their workshops in La Grange using ASEA’s technology.
Perhaps fears that the oil crisis could escalate were a driving factor. The agreement, which was signed by Curt Nicolin for ASEA, was concluded with General Motors Corporation in Detroit in 1972. The head of the General Motors Electro-Motive Division, or EMD, was Peter Smith. He was always called Pete Smith. He later emerged as a wise man and may have viewed the whole thing as a hedge. ASEA possessed Europe's best technology for electric locomotives at the time.
The person pictured is Pete Smith's predecessor, B. B. Brownell, who signed the license agreement on behalf of EMD. He was succeeded soon afterward by Pete Smith.
Perhaps EMD intended to shelve the license agreement as a safeguard only. However, ASEA had included a clause in the agreement that would prove to be of crucial importance. It was an unusual clause for a license agreement. It gave the licensor, ASEA, the right to market electric locomotives in the United States on its own. They did not have the right to sell the locomotives, but they had the right to encourage customers to switch to electric operation. Sigge Franzén took full advantage of this right. This would be a source of great annoyance to the people at EMD. When I entered the picture a few years later, EMD's sales manager, Warren Fox, said with great bitterness, "You’re traveling around this country and disrupting our relationships with customers with your talk of electrification."
The World's Largest Locomotive Factory
When you arrived at the EMD factory and had the opportunity to see this gigantic plant on the plains of Illinois, your mind immediately went to Chaplin's film "Modern Times." Every day, 1,200 tons of raw materials and semi-finished products came in through the gates at one end of the factory. In the evening, eight fully assembled and ready-to-run diesel-electric locomotives rolled out, ready to be picked up by customers.
Crankshafts were forged, large frames for bogies and diesel engines were cast, electric motors were wound, sheet metal was bent, painted, measured, and tested. They did it all. Everyone was utterly fascinated.
One of the world's great business leaders, J.P. Sloan, provides the background to this company in his book "My Years with General Motors." If I remember correctly, after the Second World War, they had an excellent diesel-electric engine that had been used in submarines. The market for submarines had, for obvious reasons, dried up. What were they to do with such a fine product? They came up with the idea of mounting it on a platform with wheels, and thus had a good locomotive.
But they weren’t satisfied with that. They said to themselves, "Now we’re going to manufacture this locomotive on a very large scale. We have a technically advanced product, and we’ll be sure to sell it in large quantities. We will make sure to sell it at a very competitive and low price. That combination is unbeatable. This is America."
When I, as sales manager for ASEA locomotives, heard this story, I thought about how differently we viewed our products and sales strategy. If we had developed the world's best electric locomotive, we would have wanted to sell it at the highest possible price. We were in two different worlds in this respect as well.
The Two Prototype Locomotives
I am not entirely certain on this point either, but I believe that the license agreement stipulated that the parties would jointly develop and demonstrate an electric locomotive adapted for the American freight market.
The law stipulated that complete locomotives could not be imported. They had to be built in the United States, but nothing prevented importing parts to install in locomotives. EMD would thus be responsible for the mechanical components, while ASEA would, naturally, be responsible for the traction equipment. It was to be a six-axle locomotive for the axle load standards in the United States. I assume that what ASEA wanted to demonstrate was that such a locomotive had superior performance compared to conventional diesel-electric locomotives, such as the ones EMD manufactured.
Apparently, disagreements soon arose regarding the design of the locomotive. EMD wanted to build a Co-Co locomotive with two bogies and less powerful motors. ASEA wanted to start with proper traction, and to increase the speed on the poor-quality tracks, they wanted three bogies: a so-called Bo-Bo-Bo configuration. This locomotive was designated GM 10, where 10 stands for 10,000 horsepower.
The compromise was to build one of each type. The line where the locomotives could be tested was the one between Philadelphia and Harrisburg.
Although this project had nothing directly to do with Amtrak, it was of great importance for the future cooperation between ASEA and EMD. It was through this project that we got to know each other. Lars Olof Nilsson was appointed as the project manager from ASEA.
Lars Olof gained valuable insight into our partner's way of working and got to know many of EMD's engineers who would later become our supporters on the Amtrak project, including Harry Quinn and Wayne Aldrige, among others. We made contacts at all levels. The technical director at EMD, Max Ephraim Jr., visited Västerås. Warren Fox was the sales manager, and Pete Smith would later be succeeded by Pete Hoglund, with whom we had our share of disagreements. Pete Smith was promoted to the corporate management team in Detroit. Pete Hoglund was a big, burly man who always greeted us with "Hey there, little boy. Hey, elves, clink your glasses." He was of Swedish descent.
A major benefit of of our licensing partnership with EMD was cooperation with them in markets outside the US. EMD had large manufacturing facilities around the world, including in Canada and South Africa, and had a major licensing partner in Australia. Customers in these countries began to demand electric locomotives. We built large electric locomotives at EMD's factories in Port Elisabeth, South Africa. In Canada, we jointly built very powerful electric locomotives [GF6C] for the British Columbia Railway to pull long, heavy, coal-laden trains in very harsh environments with harsh winters across the Rocky Mountains on the Tumbler Ridge line. Here, it was Claes Göran Lundberg who led the sales effort. Olle Ewers, who drafted the initial bid for the Amtrak locomotives in Västerås, later became the head of our railway department in the USA. These locomotives were designed to operate at the highest voltage found in railway operation, 50 kV. SJ's consulting firm provided the technology to build overhead catenary system [Overhead Line Equipment/OLE, or Overhead Contact System].
In the picture, we see the always witty and shrewd Olle Ewers, who spent five years in the United States with his family. Olle was the head of Traction USA and was probably the person who came to know EMD best, as we will see from his account below.
While the locomotives in British Columbia ran in bitter cold, our locomotives in South Africa had to work in the hottest conditions that any locomotive had ever experienced. They pulled cars loaded with coal from the interior down to the coast, traveling downhill through miles-long tunnels. They had to be braked electrically, and the heat from the brake resistors radiated into the tunnels. You could fry eggs on the rectifier plate inside the locomotive. The exhaust fumes would have made it completely impossible to operate diesel locomotives. It was Johnny Meijer who was involved in both the design and the sale of the locomotives. My co-workers had remarkable expertise.
A train loaded with coal, pulled by a locomotive manufactured in cooperation between EMD and ASEA, somewhere in the Rocky Mountains of Canada.
EMD had a licensing agreement with the Clyde firm in Australia. When Queensland Railways (QR) built a new railway for transporting coal from the interior to the coast, they decided to electrify the line.
We elected to build our locomotives in Clyde's workshops.
In these projects, we encountered no resistance from EMD to our marketing efforts. These customers had themselves recognized the advantages of electric operation even for very large locomotives; they did not want to buy diesel locomotives, and EMD needed this production at these factories. Their deliveries of diesel locomotives were replaced by electric locomotives.
A parallel worth considering is here in Sweden, where the country has gone even further in the direction of expensive, environmentally harmful freight transport by investing in long-haul trucks and road transport for heavy freight, all while considering itself to be a pioneer in environmental issues. From any long-term perspective, this is the absolute worst option.
The Amtrak Project – A Fatal Start
Amtrak issued a request for an electric locomotive that could pull the passenger cars it had bought from the Budd Company. ASEA saw its opportunity to sell electric locomotives and entered the bidding process. We subcontracted the electric traction system to our licensing partner, General Motors/EMD. They proposed a fairly conventional six-axle locomotive capable of reaching 200 km/h [125 mph]. The toughest competitor was General Electric. The outcome was probably a given, what with the preferences for locomotives produced in the United States under the provisions of the so-called Buy American Act.
This is said to have taken place in 1974. GE received the order and manufactured a six-axle Co-Co locomotive for a maximum speed of 200 km/h. The first locomotive underwent the customary tests in 1975. During the final test on Penn Central's track, the locomotive was to attain its maximum speed. That is when the fateful accident occurred. The track forces from the front bogie pushed the rails to the sides. They overturned, and the second bogie dropped onto the sleepers, and the locomotive came to a stop from 200 km/h on the sleepers. "A shocking experience," said one of the test engineers. The entire sequence of events was recorded on a printer. It was a shocking experience for the top-level American railroad authorities as well as for Amtrak, who realized that they could not use this locomotive. This paved the way for ASEA.
The diagram below is unique. It shows the recording made by the measuring equipment on board the E-60-CP locomotive. It illustrates how violent the lateral forces between wheels and rail finally became - so violent that the rails overturned and the bogie dropped onto the sleepers. The diagram is part of the report that the National Transportation Safety Board submitted to the Federal Railroad Administration, recommending that this locomotive undergo a thorough inspection before it was permitted to pull passenger trains.
It was, therefore, a great challenge we took on when decided to operate regular service on this line with an ASEA locomotive that was not yet designed for this speed and had never gone faster than 140 km/h [87 mph].
Amtrak's Chief Mechanical Engineer and Vice President was Joseph Smith. For years, he had followed Swedish developments in the field of railway technology with great interest. He was well acquainted with SJ's technology for measuring track forces and was impressed by the Swedish Rc locomotive. Joe Smith was a good friend of Per-Erik Olson and had attended his lectures on the subject. Per Erik Olson became head of ASEA Traction in the US in 1974.
Now the Pieces Fell into Place
ASEA was well prepared to take on the project. It was not the first high-speed locomotive to have run on American tracks. In the days of steam locomotives, there had been locomotives and passenger service with respectable performance. But passenger rail had taken several steps backwards since the time when Antonin Dvořák took his evening stroll down to the platforms of Grand Central to see his beloved locomotives, which inspired him to cross the street and compose "From the New World."
The time was ripe. ASEA had developed advanced technology for electric locomotives. The Rc locomotives for SJ were in mass production. It was proven technology you could sell, not just hopes. The conditions had been created to be able to sell similar locomotives in the United States. Without the license from EMD, it would not have been possible. Good personal contacts had been established and developed between EMD and ASEA.
But it wasn’t really high-speed locomotives for Amtrak that Sigfrid Franzén had his sights set on. He had envisioned electrifying one of the lines that stretched across the continent, from the Pacific Ocean in the west to the Atlantic coast in the east. He had intended to sell thousands of large, powerful locomotives for freight service that would replace the slow, expensive-to-run diesel-electric locomotives from which his new powerful licensing partner, the Electro-Motive Division of the General Motors Company, so successfully made millions.
Paul Reistrup
Amtrak, the scorned, semi-public, run-down railway company that had been tasked with maintaining passenger rail service, got a young, ambitious leader and president, Paul Reistrup.
Reistrup realized that if Amtrak was to survive at all, it had to focus on service along "the Northeast Corridor", i.e., the Washington, DC – New York – Boston route. There was a solid passenger base here. Along the route were large, magnificent railway stations from the past heyday. It was a densely populated area. Along the route were large cities: Baltimore, Wilmington, and Philadelphia. The service was lousy and the travel times were too long.
New, modern cars, called Amfleet, were purchased, and the service was improved. As mentioned above, Amtrak bought new electric locomotives from General Electric, powerful six-axle locomotives designated E60C. The goal was to reduce travel time between Washington and New York to 2 hours and 40 minutes. The analysis had shown that this was the critical time frame for attracting travelers.
The E60C was not up to the task, leaving Paul Reistrup with a major failed investment in Amfleet cars. Faced with this situation, he decided to look across the Atlantic for high-speed locomotives that could do the job. He invited the entire European locomotive industry to come to the Northeast Corridor and demonstrate whether they could meet the challenge.
It should be mentioned here that Paul Reistrup was probably guided and supported in this by his technical director, Joe Smith, who had a wealth of experience and knew what had to be done.
The Quality of the Track
Railway officials said that in Central Europe, the tracks are of the highest quality, surpassed only by Japan. There, the tracks were measured and adjusted every night. In Germany and France, deviations measured in millimeters are permitted. Here in Scandinavia, with our severe winters and frost, we are unable to maintain such a standard; we measure deviations in centimeters. In America, with its heavy locomotives whose axles are allowed to exert 30 tons of pressure on the rails, the tracks are so damaged so that deviations in track geometry were measured in inches. It may be an exaggeration, but it is something along those lines. This is the background to all the research that Evert Andersson and his colleagues at ASEA so successfully applied to bogies for locomotives capable of running fast on rails of lesser quality. Evert is now a professor of Railway Engineering at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology [Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan, Stockholm].
Selling Locomotives
The entire process described above had been preceded by negotiations with Amtrak for the purchase of the locomotive that would pull its exclusive cars [Amfleet cars, built by Budd of Philadelphia].
ASEA's operations in the United States were led by Arne Mark. He headed a small division focused on railway sales. We also worked on the market for railcars and subways. The head of this division was Per Erik Olson. The Amtrak project would span many years. Per Erik was succeeded by Olle Ewer, who in turn was succeeded by Claes Göran Lundberg. All were of great importance in the execution of the deal.
As described above, Per Erik Olson is an experienced railway man who has developed a method for measuring track forces while the vehicle is in motion. This was achieved using strain gauges integrated into the steel wheels in a very sophisticated manner.
The contacts Per Erik had established with the customer, not least with Joe Smith and Paul Reistrup himself, were also crucial. Joe became a good friend and supporter of ASEA. In the end, human relationships prove decisive in these large and risky deals.
Although Paul Reistrup was a powerful president of Amtrak, he depended on the support of his colleagues and a critical board of directors. Electric locomotives had never been imported before. Amtrak was not exactly a profitable company and it was, and still is, dependent on federal and state support. Per Erik realized this and provided Paul Reistrup with supporting documents for his arguments. Per Erik chased Reistrup to get new documentation to justify the decision to cross the Atlantic for locomotives. Reistrup had a lot on his plate and could not give ASEA preferential treatment. Per Erik found a way. When Reistrup left his office in the evening, he was sitting outside the president's door. They rode down in the elevator together. In the elevator, Per Erik handed over fresh supporting documents and was asked new questions by Paul Reistrup in the elevator the next evening. It succeeded.
Everyone was Invited – Two Came
Everyone was given the opportunity to send a prototype locomotive to the United States. None of the major, reputable Central European manufacturers took up the challenge—not Siemens, AEG, Krupp, Henschel, or Krauss Maffei in Germany; nor Brown Boveri and SLM (Schweizerische Lokomotiven Fabrik); none of the other big ones in Europe. The two who dared to take on the challenge were Alstom of France and ASEA in Sweden.
Alstom had a highly renowned engineer named Nouvion, whose reputation was comparable only to that of the German oracle Professor Sachs, who had written all the textbooks on locomotive technology of the time. Nouvion had designed the so-called monomoteur locomotive. The locomotive had a gigantic electric motor that drove all four axles via a system of mechanical gears. You hardly have to be a locomotive designer to realize that this is a very clumsy design. In all fairness, by the time of these tests, Alstom had switched to a more versatile concept with one motor for each axle. ASEA had an excellent design based on a hollow-shaft motor. The French were leading designers of high-speed trains.
The French test locomotive had already derailed on the way from the port to the depot. They then ran tests on the main line, and the locomotive began to oscillate when it reached speed. It went so badly that the pantograph ended up off the overhead wire and was damaged, so the locomotive once again had to be towed back to the depot. At that point, Alstom's people did want to try again. Amtrak made it clear to the Alstom that if they tore down the overhead wire on the next attempt, which could very well happen, they would stop traffic on all four tracks of the corridor and would face large claims for damages. At that point, they decided to abort further attempts and sent the locomotive home.
On the basis of its many years of research and development work, ASEA had designed bogies that allowed the wheel axles to move radially in curves, as shown in the sketch under the heading “Technology.” This was one of the secrets to minimizing track forces. In America, the tracks were poor, and everyone knew it. That is why not many people were willing to try. You had to run fast to meet the set requirements.
It Was a Long Way To Get There
The Swedish Rc4 locomotive that was being considered for the task was by no means ready to be put into service on the corridor. It required a fairly extensive overhaul. Amtrak used a different voltage and frequency in the catenary than in Sweden. This required a new transformer and modification of the control electronics. There were different safety systems on those tracks. A funny detail was that American locomotives used a large conventional brass bell to sound a warning at pedestrian crossings. In Sweden, a horn is used for that purpose.
All these were technical matters that our skilled engineers could handle. But then we had to get SJ on board with the venture. A lease agreement had to be made between the three parties: Amtrak, SJ, and ASEA. This was arranged. SJ would prove to be very supportive and positive, making its engineers available both in Sweden and in the United States. SJ undertook to train Amtrak's locomotive engineers. The person at SJ who gave us the strongest support was the knowledgeable engineer in SJ's machinery department, Bengt Wenning.
Reistrup in Västerås
ASEA had succeeded in its sales efforts. Paul Reistrup travelled to Västerås to finalize negotiations on leasing a Swedish locomotive. It was to go into trial operation on the Northeast Corridor for an agreed-upon number of months. If the tests proved satisfactory, ASEA would be in the running for a production order.
Reistrup's meeting was arranged by his colleagues who traveled to Västerås. A meeting had been scheduled during which Paul Reistrup and Curt Nicolin were to shake hands at the ASEA villa on the agreement that ASEA would send a locomotive for test runs in America. That Sunday afternoon and the dinner that followed I will never forget.
Sigfrid Franzén had been out on one of his long trips abroad that week. He had many irons in the fire. I was his sales manager. He had given me the task of making sure everything was ready when he got home on Sunday morning after flying all night. Our engineers had become increasingly hesitant about the project. It was not without risk. They could not guarantee that we would succeed. Sigge knew this. He didn’t expect the summary report I was to submit to be completely uncontroversial. I was supposed to come to Sigge's home on Pettersbergsgatan at 3:00 PM [1500 hours] to report on what our experts had concluded.
We were supposed to be at Villa ASEA at 6 PM [1800 hours].
Sigge had rested, but he was dissatisfied with my report. Sigge's wife, Britta, served coffee. The engineers wanted us to postpone the entire project. We would have to make radical changes to the bogies. I had not been able to get a grip on our technicians. Sigge sat down at the phone and called those who were opposed. The key decision-makers were not at home. Then Sigge made a comment that was drastic but decisive. "If they don't stay at home, they have only themselves to blame." Then he said with a twinkle in his eye, "What the hell do you think Curt Nicolin would say if we came to Villa ASEA and told him that we didn't dare? We would get a kick in the butt." The fact was that Sigfrid Franzén was such a confident engineer with enough perspective to assess that we would be able to cope with what we set out to do. He was justified in this because our engineers were so skilled and dedicated that they would solve any problems we encountered. It would turn out that he was right about this.
One of the people I had consulted was Arne Magnusson. Arne was a section manager in the technical department and an experienced traction engineer. He was one of those who recommended that we should take on the project, precisely on the grounds that we would tackle the problems we would encounter. I felt very positive about that at the time, I remember.
Dinner in Style
There were four of us at dinner: our host Curt Nicolin, our guest Paul Reistrup, Sigge, and me. We ate in the large dining room. It was a dinner in style. No one could help but be captivated by the sophisticated atmosphere that prevailed at a dinner hosted by Nicolin at Villa ASEA. I had never been there in such an intimate gathering. There was not much talk about the details of the agreement itself. It was taken for granted that together we would usher in a new era of high-speed locomotives under the ASEA brand. The handshake, if there was a formal one, took place over coffee and the fine Havana cigar that Curt Nicolin was happy to offer.
Was it, after all, Curt Nicolin who was the mastermind behind our entire American project? He had already signed the license agreement with General Motors five years earlier. In any case, it was the two of them, Nicolin and Franzén, who could feel satisfied that evening. For me, it marked the beginning of an interesting time. As Sigge told me personally, I had been selected by Curt Nicolin to serve as Sigge's right-hand man in ASEA's Transportation Sector in 1971. I was recalled from my position as head of ASEA's subsidiary in the Philippines. My technical background came from many years in ASEA's power department. This was a new exciting field.
The Thunderclouds are Gathering
Reistrup went home, but within our organization, there was growing concern and criticism about getting involved in the project without deeper investigations and studies. Tore Nordin came home from the United States with measurements and photographs. They gave us all cause for concern. It looked worse than we could have imagined. On these tracks we were supposed to run tests at 200 km/h [125 mph]. In retrospect, it may be easy to say that they were less optimistic and wanted to move forward more cautiously. But at the time, it was justified to be careful. Evert Andersson's calculations showed that we would derail. I said, in a discussion with Evert, that we proceed cautiously and increase the speed step by step. Evert informed me that there might be even greater risk at lower speeds, so bad were the track conditions. We were especially worried because these tests meant that we would be pulling trains with passengers.
Insurance Against Disaster
America is a country where there is a high risk of so-called consequential damages. If our locomotive derails and the cars overturn, we could face very large claims for damages from injured passengers. Our legal department asked us to assess what the worst-case scenario would look like for which we would be liable for damages.
Our engineers came up with a disaster scenario that sent chills down our spines. The scenario described our train approaching the bridge that crosses the Delaware River. At that moment, our locomotive derails. The whole six-car train set, in which 500 passengers are seated, plunges at 200 km/h into the river, killing everyone.
ASEA considered the risks involved for all its other projects in the United States, but this far exceeded all previous estimates. I don't remember how much we increased our insurance coverage, but it was probably about $100 million in risk coverage. It was an expensive policy, but we took it out. It’s worth noting that once we started delivering locomotives, we had to continue paying that premium from then on.
Measuring Wheels – Our Salvation
To measure is to know, said the great Werner von Siemens.
It was in this situation that Per Erik Olson's and SJ's measuring wheel came to our aid. I have described this technique above.
Joe Smith of Amtrak agreed that the test locomotive should be equipped with measuring wheels. This would make it possible to read in the driver's cab how close the locomotive was to derailing during operation and to be able to take the necessary measures. The locomotive could be operated over the tracks and the tracks could be corrected on the sections where it was necessary. I believe Amtrak funded this part of the project. I only remember the name of one of the talented SJ engineers who was involved in conducting these tests in the USA, Åke Nellgran.
Now we were ready to go to the United States.
In America
We appointed Lars Gunnar Brodin, who worked in the technical department at the time, to ensure that the locomotive was ready for trial operation in the first place, and then received necessary maintenance during the tests. He moved to the United States with his wife Lena. It was an important and demanding task that Lars Gunnar took on. He would go on to a fine international career in our company. He became the head of our company in Australia and ended up as the company's representative in Hong Kong.
I traveled there at regular intervals and took part in meetings with EMD, at their McCook plant, LaGrange, Illinois. We always stayed at a Hotel called William Tell, Joliet Road. They would host many Swedish engineers in the following years.
Lars Gunnar and Per Erik had problems getting the American locomotive engineers to operate our locomotive. Something as simple as turning off the battery power when the locomotive was parked on the marshalling track overnight seemed almost impossible to get into the routine. When they went to start it the next morning, the batteries were dead; all the equipment, with fans and other things, had been left on. Lars had to go down in the evening and check that they had turned everything off. I remember going with him one evening. It wasn’t entirely safe to be down there at night.
We had met with the Amtrak locomotive engineers in Västerås in connection with the training and had established good relationships with them – and, just as importantly, with their union.
During the initial test runs, the quality of the rails was assessed using our measuring wheels. The SJ specialists had installed their measuring equipment in a measurement car behind the locomotive. The tests we conducted were invaluable. Amtrak repaired the tracks according to our instructions. What we demonstrated was advanced railway engineering. The conventional methods of measuring track forces involved placing the stationary measuring equipment next to the track, but it was completely inadequate. You didn't know where to measure along the track.
SJ's technicians in the measurement car between New York and Washington, unknown. Åke Nellgran and Bo Strömbäck is in the photo from the measurement car.
The Big Day
I am quoting one of the many newspaper articles written in connection with the test trip that marked the beginning of the trials, during which the locomotive was put into commercial operation to pull six cars in scheduled operation with paying passengers.
It was a day of celebration and jubilation, but it could have been a dark day in our history. The purpose of this demonstration, with an entire train, was to demonstrate to our customer, politicians, and other decision-makers that we had the product needed to revitalize traffic on the Northeast Corridor. Amtrak's board and management were there, as was ASEA's management, headed by Curt Nicolin; even our former CEO, Åke Vrethem, was invited. He was on ASEA's board, I believe. The press and TV were on site at Union Station in Washington, DC, to board for a trip to Penn Station in New York.
On the morning of that day, Lars Brodin went down to the marshalling yard to make sure the locomotive was ready for the day's big task. To his horror, he saw that the floor was flooded with oil. He determined that oil had leaked from the transformer. He identified the cause of the leak and corrected the fault that had occurred. I don't remember what caused the leak, but Lars and his assistant had to wipe up the oil. They managed to do this.
This is the nightmare scenario for occasions like this. All the guests on their way and to have to cancel a demonstration in that situation is pure nightmare. One can imagine what the press and TV would make of it. I have been in this situation many times since. My German colleagues played it safe by having an "Angstlokomotiv" ["anxiety locomotive" or reserve engine] coupled behind the locomotive they were to demonstrate. We did not have this option. There was no locomotive that could protect us from such anxiety.
Rc4 on Rails in the USA
October 5, 1976, arrived. The newspaper headline read "Rc4 on rails in the USA." I quote:
In 1628, the sailing ship Kalmare Nyckel reached the shores of North America. On board were the first Swedish immigrants to the New World, who then founded "New Sweden" – Nya Sverige – where the city of Wilmington in the state of Delaware is now located.
In 1976, another ship arrived in America, also carrying an "immigrant" that was the first of its kind: an ASEA Rc4 electric locomotive intended to operate on American railroads and demonstrate the superiority of Swedish technology. The locomotive, built in Falun, is a unique product. Its bogies were built at Kalmar Verkstad in Kalmar, which is Wilmington's sister city in Sweden.
These ties between the old world and the new were not forgotten when the ASEA locomotive was formally accepted and put into service on October 5. Among those present were ASEA Chairman Curt Nicolin and Paul H. Reistrup, CEO of Amtrak, which today is the semi-governmental organization responsible for all passenger rail service in America.
Paul Reistrup and Curt Nicolin in the cab.
Curt Nicolin highlighted the historical connection at a ceremony at Washington's Union Station when he cut a ribbon just before the locomotive, with the Amtrak train "The New Statesman," departed on schedule.
On board the train were a number of representatives from the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Federal Railroad Administration, and other government departments, plus a large number of other invited guests.
In addition to Curt Nicolin, Torsten Lindström, Åke Vrethem, Gunnar Engström, Sigfrid Franzén, Åke Nilsson, Arne Mark, Per Erik Olson, and members of the Swedish community in America, including Sweden's ambassador, Wilhelm Wachtmeister, participated.
In the picture we see a very happy Curt Nicolin with Wille Wachtmeister and Sigge in the background.
On board the train, the guests sipped champagne, toasted to the ASEA locomotive, and dined on a Swedish smorgasbord while following the train’s progress on on internal TV. The locomotive, designated X995, had left Gothenburg earlier in July. Arriving on July 21 in Port Elizabeth, New Jersey, the locomotive was rolled ashore and lifted onto the tracks, after which it was towed to Amtrak's workshops in Wilmington. Thus, the historical link was completed.
In Wilmington, the locomotive was modified according to American standards to adapt it to service on the American railroads. The locomotive was then subjected to about six weeks of rigorous testing at various speeds under different track conditions, which confirmed its safety and stability at speeds of up to 190 km/h [118 mph]. The successful testing program was completed in record time and "exceeded our expectations," according to Mr. Reistrup.
After entering service on October 11, the locomotive made a daily round trip between New York and Washington at an average speed of 120 km/h [75 mph], replacing the regular locomotives.
According to Mr. Reistrup, investigations were underway to see whether this locomotive could see regular service at higher speeds. If that proved to be the case, it could mean the advent of a new generation of locomotives in the United States. Curt Nicolin replied that the inaugural trip, which took place just 10 months after the lease was signed, reflected the excellent cooperation between Amtrak and ASEA.
Locomotives, unlike ships, are rarely given individual names. However, Americans often give their vehicles nicknames. The nickname of the ASEA locomotive used by the American engineers who worked on it was "Mighty Mouse," reflecting the fact that it weighed only half as much and was much smaller than the American locomotives it might replace.
The ASEA locomotive, painted in Amtrak colors, had now been tested both in special test runs (pictured above) and in regular service. To get an idea of how the locomotive behaved at different speeds and different conditions, extensive measuring equipment had been installed in the train.
Also on the trip were EMD President Pete Hoglund and Chief Sales Officer Warren Fox. I asked Warren whether he thought we could sell this locomotive to Amtrak and I remember his answer very well - it went straight to my heart: "You are just now selling it." You can say a lot about Warren, and he was not exactly a spreader of joy, but he knew how the American market worked.
The Locomotive Comes Home
Under the headline "After six months of rigorous testing - well-deserved rest for ASEA locomotive," published in Västmanland Tidning sometime in early 1977, there is a picture showing myself and Lars-Gunnar Brodin in the locomotive workshop with our test locomotive in the background.
Lars-Gunnar talks about the successful test drives. The locomotive had covered 80,000 kilometers [50,000 miles] in six months and passed all the tests with flying colors. It had received praise, not least from the American train engineers. There was 6,000 horsepower under the shell of the small, lightweight locomotive, which had been nicknamed "The Mighty Mouse." One of these train engineers proudly said as he pushed forward the throttle for more power, "If you ask for power, you get it."
I downplayed the expectations that the reporter had about billion-dollar orders for ASEA. I was very modest and explained that, in contrast to Sweden, only a very small part of the American railways were electrified - only 400 km [250 miles]. My estimate was that if we received any order at all, it would be for about twenty locomotives. This stood in contrast to an article in the same newspaper a few months earlier, when Tore Nordin had predicted that there could be hundreds of locomotives.
Amtrak
Before we go into the bidding process that followed, it may be appropriate to say a few words about the organization we have talked so much about – Amtrak.
Amtrak was a newly formed company when we entered the scene. It had been established on May 1, 1971, to consolidate what was left of passenger rail service. Paul Reistrup was one of the very first executives of the company.
Amtrak had been created by a decision of the U.S. Congress. It was entirely dependent on government appropriations. The company did not cover even half of its operating costs through ticket revenue. There were abrupt fluctuations when it came to budget appropriations. Amtrak was dependent on sitting administration. In general, the conditions were more favorable when the Democrats were in power.
Amtrak is Created
In 1930, the railways accounted for 75% of all intercity passenger traffic. In 1950, this was down to 45%, and then plummeted to 7%. Roads and planes had taken over. Rail traffic was handled by privately owned transport companies, and they simply couldn't withstand the competition. The situation became critical, and rail lines were shut down. At this point, Congress enacted a law requiring railway companies to maintain a minimum level of service. The result was that they ran trains with a single locomotive pulling one car on a lousy schedule.
The situation became untenable, and Congress intervened and created a new state-owned company for passenger rail service. The government offered the private companies the opportunity to transfer their operations. All but three companies accepted. The three were:
• Rio Grande, which operated the Denver to Salt Lake City line
• Southern, which operated the Washington to New Orleans line
• Rock Island, which ran between Chicago and Rock Island
The new company was named the National Railway Passenger Transport Corporation and was called Railpax. It was soon renamed Amtrak, a portmanteau for the "AMerican TRain trAcK" also referred to as being the ”The National Railroad Passenger Corporation”.
The Rio Grande and Southern surrendered in 1983, and the Rock Island went bankrupt.
When Amtrak took over the private companies, they received 115 locomotives and 1,300 cars with an average age of 20 years, and most of them ready for scrap. By 1985, the situation had somewhat corrected and Amtrak had 300 locomotives and 2,000 cars in its fleet.
Amtrak operated from coast to coast. They transported 20 million passengers annually, of which 19 million were on the Northeast Corridor. The total route length was 3,500 km [2,100 miles], of which 400 km [250 miles] were electrified between Washington and New York, and 730 km [450 miles] in all between Washington and Boston. This latter line was owned by the company; otherwise it was dependent on leasing track access from private freight railroad companies in various states. These companies were also responsible for operating the locomotives and for providing conductors. Amtrak was responsible for food service and other onboard services on board as well as for selling tickets at stations. Crews were changed at the borders between the different states that were crossed.
Amtrak had difficulties with labor unions. In 1979, it was in a real crisis.
The Carter administration wanted to cut operations by 40 percent. There were even forces that wanted to close down the company. As so often happened, Amtrak was saved by Congress. Many congressmen had to consider opinions in their home districts. The price of fuel rose drastically and passengers flocked to the trains again. Now, Amtrak did not have enough cars. Traffic on the corridor got a boost, with trains running every half hour.
Then came the Reagan administration, which viewed Amtrak as an unnecessary expense. The focus shifted to defense, and Amtrak was again on the top ten list of programs they wanted to cut. Despite this, Congress appropriated $675 million for Amtrak in 1985.
The corridor service was thus the profitable part of Amtrak's business. On other routes, diesel locomotives and older cars were used. Amtrak initially had a poor on-time performance record - only 50 percent of trains arrived on time. It was not an encouraging picture we were confronted with regarding this prospective customer.
Business Week – July 21st, 1982
An article titled "Amtrak gets on the right track" provides a good picture of the company to which we were to sell locomotives.
Amtrak President Alan S. Boyd said that for the first time in the company's 11-year history, the economy was seeing a brightening in the economy. In 1981, the number of passengers fell slightly, but revenues rose to $506 million, an increase of 16%. This, Boyd said, indicated that the situation was stabilizing. This was particularly important because he would now hand over the company to W. Graham Claytor Jr. Boyd was 59 years old and took a job with the American branch of Airbus. Claytor was 70 years old and had two qualifications that were considered important for his new job. He had a political background as a Democrat, having served as Secretary of the Navy and Deputy Defense Secretary under President Carter. The other qualification was that he had been president of the Southern Railway Company. Those who supported Amtrak's future believed that these two credentials were what Amtrak now needed.
Congress appropriated $732 million for 1982 and expressed support for passenger rail service. The conditions for Amtrak were therefore considered favorable. It was said that Amtrak would now continue to improve service. Over the preceding four years, on-time performance had improved from 51% to 80%. This was partly due to agreements reached with the freight carriers that owned the lines, regarding access for passenger traffic, and partly to considerable investments that had been made in new rolling stock totaling $563 million. Agreements had also been reached with the unions on reductions in the number of employees.
"Congress demands that Amtrak cover 50% of its operating costs with its own revenues as early as this year and fully cover these costs on its own in 1985. This is a tough goal for a company that only managed 42 percent last year," writes the reporter.
I once met Claytor in his office in Washington. The conversation was about Amtrak's plans to launch its own high-speed rail company. Together with the Japanese, they had set up a company they called the "American High Speed Corporation". The idea was to introduce the Japanese high-speed train, "The Bullet." We had learned of this and presented our ideas about running tilting trains on existing lines. Nothing came of either plan.
Order
We had shown what our locomotive was capable of. The people at Amtrak were satisfied and convinced that this locomotive was what they needed to ensure their survival. The situation was favorable; petroleum prices rose sharply and passengers flocked to the railways.
Now we were working hard to secure the sale. Per Erik had to deal with resistance from EMD, which reluctantly accepted the situation. It went so far that he went behind the backs of Pete Hoglund and Warren Fox in La Grange and contacted Pete Smith, who was now part of the corporate management team in Detroit. Pete Smith contacted La Grange to push them to be more active. One day when Per Erik, as so often before, visited La Grange, he was called into the manager’s office and given a proper scolding for going behind his back and turning to Pete Smith for support.
A request came from Amtrak for 15 locomotives adapted to corridor service with 1000 kW motors. These locomotives were designated AEM7.
To comply with the so-called Buy American Act, it was necessary to persuade EMD to act as the bidder. This law stipulated that imported locomotives had to be largely manufactured in the United States and that they had to be assembled in American workshops. This was intended to protect domestic manufacturing. We received the order, and the first locomotive was expected to be delivered sometime in 1979.
We were then surprised to discover that ASEA was the only bidder. This put us in a completely new situation. In this case, the Buy American Act did not apply, so we had more freedom in relations with EMD for the following bids.
EMD was hesitant for many reasons. They had a large factory, but it was set up for mass production of diesel-electric locomotives of a completely different type. They came to the conclusion that they could use their repair workshop for this small batch of locomotives.
The image shows EMD's repair shop with AEM7 locomotives under construction.
You get a good idea of how big EMD's locomotive production was when you see that this was only the maintenance workshop.
We received a first order for 15 AEM7 locomotives, and soon thereafter another order for 15 more. In March 1980, we signed a contract for a further 17 AEM7s. We made a decent profit on these deals, but I am convinced that EMD made very good money from them as well.
Commuter Trains for Baltimore and Philadelphia
Those responsible for other traffic along the tracks of the Northeast Corridor realized that this locomotive could also be used to pull commuter trains on their systems. We first received an order for a small number of locomotives from the Maryland Department of Transportation, and in March 1987 we received an order for seven locomotives for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA). These locomotives, which were of the same design as the AEM7, were designated ALP44.
I remember Per Erik coming to Västerås to take the first proposal with him to the United States. Olle Ewers was probably responsible for preparing the entire bid package. I became head of the Transportation Division in September 1976 when Sigfrid Franzén retired. I believe the bid was prepared during Sigge's time.
The original test run with the X995 was supposed to last just a couple of months, but it was extended through the winter, which turned out to be the region’s coldest winter in many years. The X995 coped with it, as you could expect—it had been built to run in Sweden, all the way up north.
Sven Lundholm
I have memories of these extended trials. We took the opportunity to ride in the cab whenever we were in the United States. I remember how we squeezed into the cab, and the locomotive engineer would say "sardine time again." The cab was like a sardine can. Harry Quinn from EMD was there, as was our highly skilled engineer Sven Lundholm, who mastered everything, not least the locomotive's electronics. Harry Quinn said to me, "Åke, you should expect that we will offer Sven a job with us at EMD. There’s just one obstacle we have to overcome to get him to come over to us. Every winter we’d have to make sure that we have a 500-meter-high mountain of snow that he can ride on." Sven was a dependable, down-to-earth northerner from Kalix.
Fortunate circumstances would give me the opportunity to meet Sven at my home long after this was originally written in February 2008. Sven came with pictures and his memories of the project. I am including what he wrote, along with some of the pictures he brought with him.
I had been looking for a photo of Sven Lundholm for a long time to put into the Amtrak history. I contacted him and got not only a photo but many new perspectives on the project. I am attaching his contribution.
Sven writes: "I have quite a lot of photographs, mostly slides. I seem to remember having seen a photo in the old ASEA Traction archives of myself sitting in front of a printer in the measurement car during the X995 tests. At that time, I was working in the Y division and was sent to commission and start up X995. An overtime ban was then imposed, which meant that I had to stay there in case something happened. I was, therefore, present throughout the entire testing period and helped out in the measurement car."
AEM7
In 1978, I transferred to the T Division (or whatever it was called at the time), with Arne Magnusson as my immediate supervisor. My first project as technical manager for locomotives was the AEM7. I remember how difficult it was to communicate with EMD because there were basically only telex and telephone available to reach EMD relatively quickly. Telex messages were written by hand and left with the telex center, where sometimes text emerged that was unrecognizable. Sigge Franzén once came to my office to speak with me but heard me talking on the phone with EMD. He came back almost an hour later and I was still talking to EMD. The decision was then made that I would travel over to EMD, and repeat the trip at least once a month, because it would be cheaper. A trip cost less than an hour's phone call, according to him. That was probably true. From the AEM7 period, I don't have photos left except for one, which I have included.
The photo was taken while the first locomotive was under assembly and shows EMD personnel who were involved in the project. I have forgotten the names of most of them.
Many of the people we see in the picture were very important to the project. There are three people that I, Åke, think I recognize. The man on the left in a brown suit and tie is probably Max Ephraim Junior. He was the head of Engineering. The short man in a tie and white shirt standing in the front, to the far left among those wearing ties, is Harry Quinn. He was responsible for the project and was our direct counterpart and point of contact at EMD. Second from the right, we see Wayne Aldridge, one of those who coordinated the project and who was very positively inclined towards us.
Here are some episodes from the AEM-7 era that are examples of L.E. Wedin's desire for the locomotives to run. He often called me at night, from some telephone booth, when he was having problems. I would then, half asleep, tell him how he could solve his problem. I can assure you that it wasn't always easy, but sometimes we solved the problems over the phone.
We had problems with the journal box bearings and a big meeting was called in La Grange with lots of experts from EMD, someone from SKF, and Lasse and me from ASEA. SKF then asked for grease from a failed bearing and, if I remember correctly, also for the bearing itself. These items were in Wilmington, which in most people's eyes made a quick solution impossible. Lasse then said "I'll fix it for tomorrow morning." He got up and drove to the airport, took the plane to Philadelphia, drove to Wilmington, removed a bearing, and took the bearing and grease back with him on the return trip. He was back at La Grange at 8:00 in the morning. There were probably few people who thought he would make it. The result was that we found that the wrong grease was in the bearings. SKF had specified Esso Beacon EP2. That was what had been used, but it was American made, which was not the same as the European version.
I am attaching a photo that was taken when we were about to lose a wheel on the six-lane highway in between New York and Wilmington.
Sven came home one evening and handed over some of the photographs he had, including this one. He then told us about the story behind this photo.
Some of his colleagues were going to travel from New York to Wilmington and they had hired a limousine service. Sven sat in front next to the driver. They went out on the six-lane highway towards Wilmington. Sven soon noticed that there was something wrong with the wheel and alerted the driver to it. The driver said nothing could be wrong. The car was in perfect condition. Sven noticed that the problem was getting worse and worse and asked the driver to stop. The driver refused, as he did not believe that there was a reason to do so. Finally Sven said "Stop, because I refuse to go any further in this car." The driver managed to maneuvre onto the shoulder. When they removed the hubcap, they found that all the wheel bolts except one had come loose and fallen out. Dieter Stejuhn took the picture.
The picture below was taken in connection with the measurements and tests carried out with X995 on the Northeast Corridor. Seen from the left are two engineers from the SJ lab. We recognize Åke Nellgran, second from the left, followed by Evert Andersson, Sven Lundholm, and Lars-Gunnar Brodin. On the far right, Per Erik Olson shakes hands with the head of the American locomotive engineers’ union. PEO skillfully won him over to our side; otherwise, it would not have been possible to operate locomotives in America.
I have mentioned elsewhere that, together with EMD, we built locomotives in other countries. One of these projects was the locomotives for British Columbia Railway in Canada, which Claes Göran Lundberg has also written about.
The GF6C for BCR
Each 98-car coal train was pulled by three locomotives. To reach the first tunnel with a full load, the doppler radar-based "SUPER SERIES WHEEL CREEP CONTROL SYSTEM" introduced by the EMD in 1981, had to work properly; otherwise the train would come to a dead stop in the tunnel. I used to say that it would have taken 13 Rc locomotives to pull such a heavy train. I am enclosing a a photo. Photo B026 shows the first locomotive during commissioning and testing. I'm there as number three from the left, along with my handyman. Wayne Aldridge is on the left. Wayne and I had a very good working relationship on both AEM-7 and GF6C.
On the photograph, left to right, are Wayne Aldridge, Lennart Sandberg, and on the far right, Peter Sandberg of ASEA.
This was a little from my memory, that is getting old, especially when it comes to names.
Speaking of Harry Quinn's offer that I could get a job at EMD, as mentioned in the story —I certainly did receive such an offer, but did not accept it, because my impression was that EMD staff in this position had no decision-making power. All decisions, large and small, first must be be cleared with a superior, sometimes through several levels. The reason was not snow.
Later, I learned from Lasse Wedin that he was going to quit and get himself three goats. One would be called E, the second M, and the third D. This was because of the indecisiveness of the staff at EMD with whom he was dealing.
Speaking of the subject of skilled engineers, salespeople, photographers, and the people who provided support from home—for example, those made sure that materials were transported to the United States, not to mention those who then made sure that our locomotives worked. It would be appropriate to insert a long list of names here. I can't name them all.
Lasse Wedin and Dieter Stehjun
Once we got into full service and all the problems emerged, which is inevitable, our service organization came in to fix it all. Dieter Stehjun soon earned the respect of Amtrak’s engineers. We had the tough and experienced Lasse Wedin as a rock-solid presence on the shop floor of Amtrak's maintenance and service facility in Wilmington. He drove an elegant American car, but he could also lift a traction motor into place. He was a giant; people saw him lifting a motor in his arms. Perhaps a retiree may be allowed to make the reflection that fortune was kind to me, making it so that I got to work in such a positive environment with such knowledgeable and dedicated colleagues.
Olle Ewers
The farewell party for Torsten Florinus on January 31, 2008, provided an opportunity to renew contact with friends from ASEA Traction. I took the opportunity to send version 15 of the Amtrak history to my former colleagues and co-workers in the hope of receiving their contribution to the story of our adventure in the United States. As a result, Sven Lundholm's contribution has been incorporated into a chapter I have added.
Olle Ewers called me and invited Kerstin and me to his home on Stålverksgatan on February 28th. Ingegerd and Olle treated us to an excellent dinner and it was another evening of shared memories. Olle had written his part of the Amtrak story and had many good photographs, which I have now included in his account.
I am currently listening to the story of IKEA, where Ingvar Kamprad describes how that fantastic organization was built. Without making any direct comparisons, I am struck by the similarities between how he and his colleagues built IKEA and how we built ASEA Traction. It was a group of devoted people who had great freedom to act, but each was competent in his field. They could act without bureaucratic control. There was a lot of risk-taking involved with it all. Like Ingvar Kamprad, we made major mistakes, but we learned from them. Above all, our capable colleagues were always able to solve the problems we encountered. Without them, and the lessons we learned from them, we would not have achieved the success we did.
There is a good English word that could have stood as a motto for our actions – "audacity" - boldness bordering on impudence. Much later, that is how one of our new colleagues at BBC [Brown, Boveri & Co.] described our actions.
Now, thirty years later, when I read what Olle writes about his work on the front line with our partner EMD, I am reminded what a Swedish prime minister once said when he was caught off guard by not knowing what a liter of milk cost - "I had no idea." I should have had a better idea of this, since I had overall responsibility for the entirety of this – I can say – highly adventurous and even dangerous project. But that was the point, as at IKEA. I could rely on my co-workers. Olle himself took all the initiatives required to master the situation at the front line. In any case, we would never have been able to direct this work from an office in Västerås.
Read what Olle himself writes below and you will understand what I mean.
I could almost paraphrase the railway general who, in the pioneering days of the railway in the American west, said " Give me Swedes and whiskey and I will build railroads all the way to hell." As for the whisky, Olle didn't even need that. A cup of coffee was good enough.
Olle Takes Over the Story
My first experiences with the US and the railway equipment business there date to the early 1970s, when I was involved in the collaboration with EMD. The license agreement had just been signed (March 22nd, 1972), and in late April/May 1972 I was allowed to accompany Sigge Franzén to La Grange for discussions and an exchange of experiences between EMD and us. On that occasion, a proposal came up from EMD for an envisioned US electric locomotive that would use motor-generator [MG] sets for feeding the traction motors instead of Rc2-based inverters! Sigge Franzén immediately countered that ASEA could never support that, and we never heard of that proposal again. Otherwise, a lot of technological matters were discussed and comparisons were made between their diesel locomotives and our electric locomotive. The trip also included a visit to Amtrak in Washington, DC with, among others, Pete Smith and Warren Fox from EMD. Amtrak was then in the process of acquiring new electric locomotives for the Northeast Corridor.
In the autumn of 1972, Amtrak issued a request for proposals for 15 electric locomotives to replace existing Metroliners and locomotive-drawn GG1 trains, and in January 1973, EMD submitted the "Model GMD52B 5400 kW Electric Locomotive." ASEA's contribution was mainly electrical equipment (except for US-specific components), bogies, and electric brakes.
The locomotive was a four-axle "bastard" weighing 260,000 lbs (118 metric tons) with only half its supplies aboard! To produce heat for the passenger cars, there were two steam generators in the engine room plus a water tank with a capacity of 6,000 gallons (22,700 liters). The top speed was 120 mph and the traction motors each had a continuous rated output of 1,350 kW. The layout of the cab was the same as one of the diesel-electric locomotives models from the very same time frame.
Later in 1973, the order was expanded to include a total of 26 locomotives and was awarded by Amtrak to General Electric under the designations E60CP and E60CH. Eventually, most locomotives were equipped with MG sets for generating head-end power for the cars instead of steam generators.
The locomotive, which was essentially a geared-up freight locomotive, had poor running characteristics and derailed during test runs at high speed. As a result, the FRA reduced the maximum speed of the locomotive in service, from 120 to 90 mph, and the payment to GE was based on their performance, e.g. on a pro rata basis only.
(Olle's comment was: "We should be glad we didn't get this order.")
We also traveled around promoting the electrification of the American railways, which was perfectly okay according to the license agreement with EMD. The railroads were interested because the first oil crisis came in 1973, with the consequent increase in the price of diesel fuel. However, the increase was soon forgotten, and everything returned to normal until 1979, when the next oil crisis came. The same thing was repeated.
(Max Ephraim Jr. was Chief Engineer at EMD and, as such, a very important person in our collaboration. Olle remembers how Sigfrid Franzén, in his enthusiasm, pointed out the advantages of electric locomotives. Fewer crew members would be needed on board the trains. "Don't use that argument here in US, Sig," Max advised him. "It would not go down well with the powerful the labor union."
Max was once visiting Västerås and managed to get lost on the way from ASEA's Melker office to the downtown located hotel [Stadshotellet in Västerås, Sweden]. He managed to get help by making a phone call to Ingegerd Ewers, who made sure he got home to the hotel. He was from Chicago.)
All in all, a lot of computer scenarios were run for various railroads in the USA – Santa Fe, Burlington Northern, Union Pacific, and others. The Santa Fe was so interested that they sent a team to Sweden for discussions and then traveled to Austria to study the ÖBB Class Rh 1043 locomotive. The Rh 1043 is practically almost identical to the SJ Class Rc2 locomotive, although Rh 1043 has an approximately 10% higher continuous rated power output of 4 MW, rather than the continuous rated power output of 3.6 MW in the Rc2 locomotives. Previously, Canadian Pacific had participated in harsh winter tests of an Rc2 locomotive [road no. 1044] on the Bergen railroad line [in Norway] during 1971.
Initially, our contacts with EMD were mainly handled by Advance Engineering, the department that handled development work and was mostly, of course, working with diesel locomotive applications. Electric locomotives were a new experience for them. When the order for the AEM 7 was received, a project group was created with people from EMD's normal, highly product- and production-oriented organization. The following people were involved:
Project Manager Howard Kraegel
Electrical Engineering Harry E, Quinn
Wayne Aldridge
Charles Horton
Traction Motors Ben Liebenthal
Bogies Curt Swenson
Ron Yoshino
Karl Smith
Purchasing Thomas W. Burke
Norman Dunteman
Estimating & Pricing James Forward
Samuel P. Stephenson
Accounts Payable Virginia Garmon
Service Walter Weck
Craig Prudian
Located in Wilmington
James Spiegel
Kenneth Mels
Henry Marta
In the picture we see Olle Ewers, Wayne Aldridge, Howard Kraegel, Ron Yoshino, Sven Lundholm, Lage Marcusson, and Rosemary Martinsson.
The EMD staff were without exception very knowledgeable in their respective fields and were also very good to work with. Our solutions were scrutinized very carefully and sometimes many objections were raised to their suitability for an American application. In general, they were used to large, powerful designs, whereas we advocated leaner solutions. For example, they specified a very large air compressor "because the passenger cars leaked so much air." Personal relationships were created that lasted long after the end of the project.
However, what worked well in EMD's regular diesel locomotive organization did not work as well for electric locomotives. There was really no one who had full technical knowledge of the entire vehicle, in the way we were used to in ASEA’s matrix organization. However, the one who really took on that role was Harry Quinn, who understood and often supported our positions in the discussions that arose between EMD and us. EMD also had an unfortunate habit of resolving issues in "a meeting," where a whole bunch of people would be invited or assume they were invited. I was often the only outsider, sometimes accompanied by specialists from Västerås. Engineering's large conference room would first fill with people sitting around the table, and then there were chairs along the walls that would also be occupied to the last seat. The majority of the participants smoked, so it was sometimes difficult to see who was present. The meetings were usually chaired either by Max Ephraim, Jr., Chief Engineer, or Henry H. Koci, Assistant Chief Engineer.
One concern we constantly had to contend with was the difference between EMD and us when it came to the metric system. All of our measurements were metric, whereas EMD was used to feet, inches, lbs, short tons, US gallons, etc. Complications arose, for example, when we traditionally drew our traction curves in Megapond, which they first interpreted as "Megapound."
Another topic of discussion that persisted throughout the project was the weight of the locomotive. We were used to always having problems with excess weight, while EMD’s experience with the diesel locomotives was that you had to add ballast by using an overly thick underframe plate. When converting metric plate thickness, for example, you could not always find an exact equivalent in inches, and if you consistently took the larger dimension, the weight naturally increased.
A factor that definitely increased the locomotive’s weight compared to the Swedish Rc locomotive was the requirement for increased buffer strength. European standards specified 200 tons while the requirements in the United States were significantly higher, with the figure eventually being set at 600,000 lbs. In addition, a so-called "anticlimber" was required at each end.
The wheel axles were a story in themselves. We were used to the axles being painted to protect them from rust and cracks. Painting was forbidden by the FRA, though, so it had to be a wax-like protective film instead, so that visual inspection would reveal any cracks or crack indications.
During the time that the project was underway at EMD, I visited them on average once a week. I rented a car at O'Hare (an American car, of course, preferably a GM but certainly not a Japanese one!!), normally starting by visiting Purchasing to review the status of our purchase orders. Then, it was time to visit IQC (Incoming Quality Control) to see if there were any unidentified items that had been shipped from ASEA Traction. There often were. However, we had been instructed "Do not ever ship any material without a Purchase Order and a Part number." Unidentified items ended up in a special place, so it was just a matter of going there yourself and providing instructions. If items could not be identified, they were discarded.
The next stop was at Accounts Payable to ensure our invoices had been prepared correctly and were not sitting there unprocessed. Then, a turn in the workshop, and finally up to Engineering.
They thought I could solve every question related to the AEM7! I certainly couldn’t, but I did try to make sure that issues were handled back home so that the person involved got an answer. Much of the communication was by telex and by regular mail. It took a while before the air mail routine had been worked out.
Olle represented ASEA Traction in every context. We see here a photograph taken when the first AEM7 locomotive was to be delivered. From left to right we see Arne Mark, Lou Thomson of the Federal Railroad Administration, Tom Hackney, Vice President from Amtrak, and Peter Hoglund, EMD President.
The Amtrak order for the AEM 7 came during a boom period for EMD, when they were delivering an average of five diesel locomotives per day. They made great efforts to get up to five and a half. These figures came up early in our collaboration with EMD when we asked how many locomotives they built. We received the answer above, and then they asked how many electric locomotives we built. The answer was 20, and you could see how impressed they were – until we added "...per year."
The picture shows the most important man in our collaboration in the center: Harry Quinn. On the left is Frank Abate, Amtrak Vice President of Engineering, who succeeded Joe Smith. On the right is a thoughtful Lars Olof Nilsson.
A similar incident occurred when an employee from EMD was in Sweden and we were discussing locomotive maintenance. We explained that SJ had inspection pits in their workshops to access the undersides of the locomotives. The question then became, in good Swedish, "In the US, do you also have a grave?" The American looked very amused and we were told that grave meant "six feet under" and was something you didn’t come back out of. We asked what the correct word was, and got the answer: "pit." It was our turn to smile, but being well-mannered, we never told them why. Well, on the return flight to Chicago with SAS, he asked a flight attendant what the word pit meant in Swedish. He got no answer – and no more drinks on that trip.
The GM people at that time were well looked after. If flight times exceeded a certain number of hours, they traveled first class, regardless of position in the company. I don't remember whether the flight to Stockholm met that threshold, but when they flew from Chicago to South Africa, it definitely took longer. However, harder times were waiting around the corner, and after that it was coach for everyone. A special privilege that the senior officials had, and that we from ASEA also often shared, was to have lunch in EMD’s executive dining room, which was truly comparable to a first class restaurant. The senior officials could eat there even if they had no guests with them. It was a place for people in leadership positions to meet outside of formal meetings.
The traction motors were often a source of discussion. Our motor had more power than the largest motor EMD used in its diesel locomotives. It was also much more advanced and, among other things, separately excited and equipped with compensation winding. The three-point suspension in the bogie and the hollow axle drive meant that it was almost fully suspended. EMD’s traction motors used nose suspension, a very robust and simple design that was, however, impossible to use at high speeds. The price difference between the motors was therefore considerable, and was also due to the fact that they made their motors in much larger quantities. I remember that the price difference was a factor of five. Our motor also required more careful installation in the bogie and it took a while before you learned the procedure in the workshop.
In this context, it may be mentioned that EMD, either to have in stock themselves or for immediate resale to Amtrak, later ordered five virtually complete traction motors in parts, so-called kits. This meant that they had to be delivered in five different batches, with each kit containing all ordered parts for one motor. When the delivery finally arrived at La Grange and was inspected, I received a phone call from there. They had received six crates. Sure enough, the parts had been packed by component, not as complete kits. We had to send out a man from Västerås to sort it all out.
During the assembly and testing period in La Grange (a short stretch of track had been electrified at 25 kV in the workshop area), we had our service engineers present. They were also on site in Wilmington, DE, where the locomotives were eventually stationed. The contrast with EMD’s normal use of its service engineers was notable. ASEA’s representatives, primarily Lars Wedin and Thord Hellman, worked hands-on to solve the problems that arose with the locomotives, while EMD’s counterpart was primarily a communications link between Wilmington and La Grange. Since, as mentioned above, there was a lack of familiarity with the new type of traction motor, there were some incidents in the beginning. Dieter Stejuhn made a number of trips there, and has probably continued to do so over the years, including for other reasons, such as for discussions about transformers and inverters.
Lars Wedin has many anecdotes associated with him, and also in connection with the AEM 7. I recall that it was in connection with endurance testing of the first locomotive in Pueblo that problems arose with the axle bearings. ASEA personnel from Västerås were called to a conference in La Grange, and Lasse and I were there as well. They discussed the issue at length and parted at the end of the first day to meet again the following morning. That is what happened, but Lasse had flown to Wilmington during the evening and night, picked up a bearing to use as a demonstration piece, and flown back. The EMD people were astonished by his initiative! They were perhaps less pleased when Lasse asked what kind of "chuck-wagon grease" they had used! The damage was believed to have been due to pitting, and it eventually turned out that the grease used by ASEA in Rc and other locomotives was a European version of the specified type Esso Beacon EP2, while EMD had used an American version that lacked lead. After that, the problem was worked out!
A happy trio – Arne Mark, Olle Ewers, and Lars Olof Nilsson.
The original order for the AEM7 was for 30 locomotives. In 1980, it an additional order for 17 locomotives came under consideration, and I attended the Amtrak board meeting in Washington, DC, where the matter was to be presented and decided (these meetings consisted of a "public" session, where the public had access, and a "closed" session where only the board members were present). Mr Luna, presenting the proposal, introduced the matter by saying, "I heard that the first unit went up to 120 mph yesterday and did not fall apart!" On these reassuring words, the motion was passed, and they moved on to discussing window placement in new passenger cars.
The AEM 7 locomotive was designed to run on three different electrification systems planned for the Northeast Corridor: 11 kV/25 Hz, 12.5 kV/60 Hz, and 25 kV/60 Hz. The New Haven section to the Hell Gate Bridge in NYC was fed via an ancient, "coal-fired generating plant" (Cos Cob) in Greenwich, CT, whose (upper class) residents were keen to get rid of the associated pollution. So, the system was converted to 12.5 kV/60 Hz, which is probably one of the worst electrification systems in history – low voltage and high frequency. However, the isolation distances to existing bridges, tunnels, etc., did not permit the higher voltage, and infrastructure reconstruction was considered too expensive.
Eventually, the 25 kV/60 Hz electrification from New Haven to Boston was completed, so for a number of years now, it’s been possible to travel between Boston and Washington, DC, without changing locomotives. All investments in the Northeast Corridor were part of the so-called NECIP (Northeast Corridor Improvement Project), which had a goal of running the Boston-to-NYC route in 3 hours 40 minutes and the NYC to Washington, DC, route in 2 hours 40 minutes with five stops each. This was to be done with eight passenger cars, which we barely managed in our computer simulations before the first bid for the AEM 7 was submitted. Parallel connection of the car auxiliaries helped us.
Bob Day, who is standing here between Arne Mark and Olle, together with Joe Smith, were the two representatives from Amtrak who assured Amtrak's management that ASEA possessed the technology necessary to run at 200 km/h on the Northeast Corridor.
Olle's Addition:
When Olle read what I had inserted above, he sent me an addendum to his story as follows:
Thank you also for the kind words! It was certainly, as you write, a dedicated group at Traction who enjoyed a lot of freedom, even though most of us were not that old. Whoever we dealt with among our clientele, it was usually older people we met, and not least at SJ at the time. But it was fun!
You included the story of Max E in the document, i.e., when he got lost. Ingegerd and I remember it well because it was rather amusing. It is certainly not my intention to be pedantic, and you are essentially right.
Max had left Melker’s place and was going home to ASEA:s guest hotel - wasn't it called Aros? - on Källgatan, but although it was straight route, he managed to get lost. He could have asked for directions, but he didn't know what the hotel was called or where it was. So he went into a bank and asked for help, producing my last name, probably because it was most distinctive. Why they didn't call the company I don't remember, but the bank called Ingegerd at home and she knew where he was staying, so then the bank could give him instructions.
Another story about Max was how he visited us once when it was winter and we had sent a car to Arlanda to pick him up. The drive to Västerås apparently went in the best Emerson Fittipaldi style despite icy roads, and a rather pale Max finally let us know that "he didn't want that driver on the return trip!"
Lessons Learned
EMD certainly learned a lot through our collaboration, but it never reached the point where they replaced their system of pulling freight trains with electric locomotives. In that respect, nothing has changed up to today.
At ASEA, we learned a lot from the collaboration with our licensing partner in the US. It was a company with very well-functioning quality control. It was essential to ensure that every component performed as intended for that environment. Railway operation is a tough environment. EMD by no means manufactured every single component. They were rigorous when it came to purchasing. When they bought components, there was someone in EMD's engineering department who was completely familiar with the details of how the component was constructed. They also made sure that they always had at least two suppliers.
Keeping production on schedule was sacrosanct. The subcontractors delivering their products, for example sheet metal, had to be at the factory gate at a certain time with their delivery. If they were an hour early, they had to wait outside the gate. If they were an hour late, they could be sent home with their load.
It was a different world, but it was undoubtedly a lesson for us too.
Projects Abroad
As I have described above, our very best cooperation was on contracts for electric locomotives that EMD had to quote from facilities in other countries. We really had a good and constructive working relationship there. We were preparing to set the price for the big quote for electric locomotives to South Africa, a project that Johnny Meijer on our side was working on. I was personally called to La Grange. We were to establish the final price of the locomotives in a joint meeting. Our share was quite large, maybe 40 percent. The locomotives were to be built at EMD's works in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. I had been there. The EMD director there was a very personable American, Scott Murray.
At the meeting in La Grange, where I was the sole representative for ASEA, I was impressed by the procedure. At least 40 engineers and financial staff gathered in a large conference room. Pete Hoglund opened the meeting by introducing me and saying that it was the first time in the history of EMD that a non-EMD employee had been invited to this final session, where they would set the price of the locomotives to be quoted to the South African Railways (SAR).
I understood that by bringing together everyone who would be responsible for the successful execution of a large contract, they wanted to give everyone the opportunity to provide their opinions. After that, everyone was responsible for keeping to their budget. We won this contract. It would give us some problems, through, due to the total trade boycott that was imposed because of apartheid. Nevertheless, we overcame that, too. Here, Pirre Wallenberg actually came to play a certain role. But that's another story.
Olle Ek
You can't write anything about ASEA Traction without getting help from Olle Ek. Olle has been, and still is, a pillar of the company's sales operations. He has primarily worked on promoting sales in Sweden. He has worked tirelessly to ensure that the railway as a means of transport has its rightful place. He has stood on the barricade against political ignorance.
Olle has also made sure that we have the ammunition we need for sales efforts, through his research and production of printed materials.
In the picture, we see Olle on the left and Clas Göran Lundberg on the right.
As mentioned above, I hoped for the support of colleagues and co-workers in order to produce as good a story as possible. I received it.
Clas Göran Lundberg
By chance, Clas came across my draft and quickly responded with additions and comments. I have incorporated most of what he contributed. He was one of those who was there at the center of events, serving for a time as the head of our railroad division in the United States and later in the same capacity in Canada. Clas and I had a very good working relationship for many years. He was a masterful liaison and first-rate salesman. No one matched his ability to reach politicians and senior decision-makers. His technical background and strategic sales skills are of a much higher caliber than the modest description he gives of himself. I have therefore chosen to include his contributions just as he wrote them.
Clas's contribution also provides insight into his activities with ASEA in the development of so-called dry rectifiers [silicon rectifiers] for motor operation, as well as his experience in ASEA's industrial division. I am including this even though it is not directly related to the Amtrak deal. It completes the image of "good old ASEA" and, not least, does justice to the efforts of some colleagues.
This is what Clas Göran writes:
Åke Nilsson has asked me to supplement his account of the Amtrak adventure. I don't think there's much to add. The story is just as exciting to read as one of Mankell's Ystad detective novels.
What I can do is offer some reflections of my own. I consider myself very privileged to have experienced the heyday of Swedish industry in the years between 1950 and 1990.
When I browse through an ASEA product catalogue from 1955, there is scaracely a product in the electrical field that the company did not consider itself capable of manufacturing. ASEA was a paradise for engineers!
Big profits and satisfying the customer's wishes were not the highest priorities; it was the engineers who were the real heroes of the company. Legends such as Orvar Dahle (the Pressductor expert), Arne Dybvig, Török, Ytterberg, Uno Lamm, and Ragnar Liljeblad were what we junior “25-cent” engineers could only dream of.
But ASEA also needed salespeople. The legendary head of the industrial division, Gunnar Lindahl, recruited sales engineers according to the following criteria: they had to be good engineers, have a good physique (good physical education grades), and be able to sing well. He knew that it was important to entertain customers during late-night negotiations! I failed on all these criteria and was instead hired as a proposal engineer, where I had to back up the real salespeople. At that time, everyone who applied to ASEA got a job as long as they had some kind of engineering education.
Much later, when I ended up in Canada as a salesman, I often thought gratefully about all those talented ASEA engineers.
Åke mentions Per Wiig. Per was one of the most dedicated ambassadors for railway electrification I have ever known. Chain-smoking his unfiltered Player cigarettes, he was constantly in action. Through Per's efforts, the Canadians—Canadian Pacific Railroad (CP Rail) — conducted trials with electric locomotives on Norway’s Bergen Line. They wanted to investigate whether electric locomotives could pull heavy freight trains through the Rocky Mountains, and the Bergen Railway was suitable as a test track.
This effort created valuable contacts with CP Rail, which would later turn out to be of great benefit to me.
"I add a comment here: Per often made his technical calculations for the required tractive effort and other locomotive performance figures on the back of the Players cigarette packets."
The picture shows Per Wiig with his wife Karen. During his last years, Per was reluctant to leave Västerås because of his ailing wife.
EMD – An Unwilling Partner
Clas Göran has described how difficult the collaboration work with our partner could be. For all of us who were focused on accomplishing our business, the situation often became critical. I include here Clas's story of how we succeeded in winning the order for locomotives for the Maryland Department of Transportation.
One of the transport sector's most skilled engineers, Olle Ewers, relocated to the United States and made sure that the Amtrak delivery was carried out as planned. Olle was also responsible for new sales.
When Olle wanted to move back home, Åke Nilsson asked if I could spend a few years doing market research in the US and Canada and prepare for further expansion in North America.
There were many in the sector who raised their eyebrows and wondered what kind of craziness it was to send out the sector's party organizer, and its biggest party animal, to sell locomotives in the United States. But luckily, Åke and Lars-Olof had provided a young brilliant engineer, Åke Wennberg, to back me up at home.
I had always been fascinated by the opportunities of that land [North America], and remember Åke Nilsson's vivid descriptions from all the trips involving mining locomotives at Climax. There, the train drivers were cowboys and were as tough as the Molybdenum that was being mined.
The great year of celebration and jubilee in 1983 (ASEA’s 100th anniversary) was coming to an end, and I found out that EMD would be selling another batch of AEM-7 locomotives to Maryland. The Maryland Department of Transportation (Maryland DOT) had requested proposals for four new electric locomotives for its commuter operation, which also ran over parts of the Northeast Corridor.
So my first visit when I moved to New York was to EMD's regional sales office in Pennsylvania. Olle Ewers used to joke that the salesmen there had the most well-polished shoes in the whole of the United States, and they could talk – often, and at length.
At that first meeting, I found out that EMD had priced the AEM-7 out of contention and instead intended to sell its high-speed F40PH locomotives. The F40PH is a 3000 hp diesel locomotive that can operate at speeds over 160 km/h [100 mph].
I was depressed. It didn't seem right to run diesel locomotives on electrified lines, and I asked to see the cost calculation on the AEM-7 quote. It turned out that the price quoted by the financially troubled Budd Company for the locomotive carbody was unreasonably high. Åke Wennberg found a new supplier in Europe that could manufacture a carbody for a fraction of Budd's price. But EMD was adamant. They were furious that I was disrupting their deal on a number of F40s!
Desperate, I sought advice from home. Åke Nilsson advised me to contact Joe Schmidt, Per Erik Olson's old friend. I arranged a meeting down in Washington. I found him to be a real gentleman, with closely cropped hair and a determined face. Joe was retired but as extremely helpful.
A salesperson needs to be lucky. It is said that when presenting to Napoleon a candidate for general, he used to say: “Is he good? But does he have luck on his side?” Napoleon knew that a commander had to be lucky to win a battle.
My lucky break was tunnels.
Joe knew that the route that the Maryland DOT would operate included a couple of long tunnels.
It's not exactly passenger-friendly to follow stinking diesel locomotives in dark tunnels. Joe also knew that there was a "commuter’s association" that lobbied for better public transportation in Maryland.
Joe arranged a meeting with the association's chairman. He was enthusiastic when I promised an "affordable" electric locomotive. He didn’t understand that I had not cleared what I said with EMD.
The chairman then requested a meeting with the Governor of Maryland. In the United States, politicians are much more accessible to their constituents than we are accustomed to here in Sweden.
When I told EMD about it, they laughed and said that the Governor would politely but firmly throw out the president of the association. But he didn't. The governor was himself an engineer, and was interested in trains.
EMD received a new request for a proposal for a cheaper electric locomotive. Now the salespeople got furious with me. They had assumed that the F40 deal was all but done, and now I had caused more trouble for them. They now refused to attend new meetings with the customer together with me.
So I had to bluff again. I arranged a meeting with the customer myself and called EMD, saying that I had been unexpectedly summoned to Maryland and that the salesmen from Philadelphia needed to come to Maryland as quickly as possible. That gave me time to explain to the customer the advantages of electric locomotives before they arrived. I will never forget when EMD's regional sales manager burst into the meeting after a while. In his hand, he waved a fine for speeding. He threw it at me with a murderous glare. "You pay for this!"
EMD was forced to submit a new quote for the AEM-7, but there was still too big a price difference versus the F40 to close a deal.
Then Åke Wennberg calculated the operating cost difference between diesel locomotives and electric locomotives and came to the conclusion that, in the long term, Maryland DOT would actually save money running electric locomotives on an already electrified line.
As a result, they did not have to operate several diesel locomotives on the Northeast Corridor.
Today, in the age of bonuses and incentives, one may wonder what ASEA had to pay for Joe Schmidt's invaluable help.
I asked him what he wanted in compensation. "Clas, can you ask Åke Nilsson to mail me one of ASEA's small pocket almanacs with my name printed on it?" That's how a real gentleman speaks!
Tunnels were also the reason why the British Columbia Railway (BCR) undertook the first new electrification of a railway main line in Canada since 1914. Along came a naïve Swede in the early 1980s, rushing into BCR's office in Vancouver and asking in broken English, "Electrification and electric locomotives—could this be an option?"
At that time, BCR had just received cost estimates for the gigantic ventilation systems that would be necessary to ventilate the diesel exhaust in the long tunnels in the Tumbler Ridge mountains in northern British Columbia. Talk about perfect timing.
The Fathers
We would not have succeeded in our sales efforts if we had not been strongly backed up by the local ASEA management. I often say that I have had the privilege of working for ASEA's finest salesmen: Åke Nilsson, Alec de Lery, and John O'Hara.
John O'Hara was the new CEO of ASEA Inc. when I arrived in New York. It used to be said of him that he could turn any meeting into a full consensus. Participants who arrived discouraged and were at each other's throats would enter a meeting with John annoyed, and would walk out of the meeting happy, united and beaming with optimism. John was an ex-General Electric engineer recruited by Arne Mark. Although he worked under intense pressure from Percy Barnevik, who wanted to see rapid expansion in the United States, he always found time to discuss locomotive deals.
I remember one occasion in particular when we were invited to EMD by Warren Fox to discuss the payment of substantial damages due to all the complaints from Amtrak. EMD had demanded that John O'Hara be present, as there was a lot of money at stake.
Our small delegation arrived in Chicago the night before the meeting. Instead of hanging out at the bar and gulping down beer, John gave us each one task to prepare for the meeting the next day.
In the morning, we were called to breakfast together in John's hotel room. We rehearsed for a couple of hours and prepared every detail for the meeting. John instructed each of us on what to say in different scenarios, depending on how the meeting might unfold.
The EMD team was not at all prepared, and without much trouble we achieved our pre-determined goals. That's how a real professional salesman works!
The Amtrak locomotives were also the reason for uniting Bombardier and ASEA in their first joint venture. Alec played a major role in this project, and it led to me getting to know one of Bombardier's sympathetic salesmen, Bob Halperin. But that's another story.
New License
I imagine that the license to manufacture electric locomotives for the American market signed by Curt Nicolin and Pete Smith in 1972 expired after ten or possibly twelve years.
When the time came to renew the license, we had enjoyed a successful partnership with EMD, both in the US with the Amtrak locomotives and outside the US in South Africa, Canada, and Australia. It seemed clear that the license would be extended.
Then several unexpected and, for ASEA, unfavorable developments occurred. EMD no longer saw the oil crisis as a threat, and took a much more relaxed view of its situation vis-à-vis the electrification of freight railroads in the United States.
BBC had also launched its asynchronous (AC induction) motor drive for locomotives. They were at the forefront of developing technology that would ultimately prove to be a winner. We understood this at ASEA as well, but we knew that a new semiconductor, the GTO (Gate Turn Off) thyristor, would be coming. With old thyristors, the new asynchronous technology, despite a simpler motor that offered very great technical advantages, would become unsellable. ASEA chose to wait, and was content to test the new technology in an experimental locomotive that was given the working name Rz.
EMD hired a former ASEA executive named Erik Sjökvist. He had been head of the Generator Division during Nicolin's time. Erik was an expert in DC motors, the technology that was now to be replaced by asynchronous motors. He had left ASEA dissatisfied because he had not been allowed to create a separate company out of his division. This would happen anyway a few years after he left ASEA. Erik took a job with the competitor, GEC (the General Electric Company), under the notorious Lord Weinstock. From there, he was recruited by EMD as their specialist in electric locomotives.
That proved unfortunate. Erik Sjökvist prepared a study for EMD and concluded that they should use Siemens technology instead of ASEA's. It was doubly unfortunate because Siemens had chosen what turned out to be the wrong approach to asynchronous locomotives, using a so-called DC intermediary, which has since been abandoned. To BBC's dismay, EMD selected Siemens. We at ASEA were, of course, very disappointed.
ASEA in the Press
Our American project received a lot of attention in the media, both in newspapers and on television. Naturally, VLT [Vestmanlands Läns Tidning, the newspaper in Västerås] accompanied this adventure throughout the journey. We always had the attention of our local newspaper.
What was surprising was the attention the American press paid to our test runs on the Northeast Corridor. This applied to all American press, including the big ones on Wall Street. Under the headline "Record Publicity for ASEA Locomotives in the USA," one daily newspaper wrote on October 29, 1976:
"Admittedly, people are fond of trains, but American newspaper editors tend to be indifferent to corporate public relations efforts. Therefore, it is nice to note that ASEA has succeeded beyond measure in presenting Amtrak's new electric locomotive." This excerpt from a letter sent by the Swedish Embassy in Washington was reproduced by ASEA CEO Torsten Lindström in his speech at the Swedish Association of Mechanical Engineers.
This was confirmed by what our people at ASEA Inc. in the US had already reported. During the six months that our locomotive was running on the Northeast Corridor, ASEA received more publicity in the American press than the company had accumulated during its entire existence in the United States.
In a special issue of FORTUNE in September 1985, Percy Barnevik was interviewed. He highlighted two cutting-edge products of the company, industrial robots and electric locomotives, including a large picture of the Amtrak locomotive. FORTUNE wrote that ASEA had managed to develop its locomotives into a high-tech success story. Sales of transportation equipment have almost tripled since then. The article described the performance of the locomotives and compared them with Japanese and French high-speed trains, which required expensive infrastructure. The technology with measuring wheels was described in an easily understood fashion. This, of course, was of great value to our sales efforts.
Stig Throne-Holst
Stig Throne became a great asset in ASEA Traction's development. We didn't fully appreciate it at the time. Through the publicity he generated, ASEA Traction received sales support at the highest level from politicians and, importantly, from the company’s own management and board of directors. Our employees became aware that they were working for a forward-looking company. It made us all realize what our business meant. It was almost like there was a halo over the company. Employees felt proud to work at Traction – you could constantly read about us in the newspaper. It meant a lot to our self-confidence, which is important when people have to perform at their very best.
Stig had an excellent sense of style and quality in the design of the publications and marketing materials we needed for our customer relations. It was he who launched the concept of "Quality of Travel" for rail transportation.
The crowning achievement was ASEA's anniversary in 1983. The photograph shows Stig, together with one of his skilled colleagues, Sven Nordström (known as "Sven Lampa"), and myself. I think the picture was taken after I had made a presentation to all our VIP guests. Stig had arranged for a small train to pass in front of the podium.
Stig Throne-Holst had good relationships with the media. He knew what was needed to get a feature in tonight's news broadcast. Well before we announced that we had received an order, Stig made sure that the TV editorial staff had material available for the evening's program. I participated in a few such TV appearances and was surprised at the impact they had. Many years later, I still met people who remembered that I had contributed with some comment that took a few seconds in the program.
When ASEA celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1983, the company's history was written. Many books were published about the company's development and about the technology that had made ASEA into a major international firm. Our railway history is very well described in these works, and in all these writings the Amtrak locomotive [Amtrakloket] has been given a place of honor. In the "Big Books," you can find Stig Throne-Holst's photographs of the locomotive in its beautiful livery adorning the back cover.
The Postage Stamp
I don't know how big a role Stig played when it came to the nice stamp issued by the postal service featuring a picture of our Amtrak locomotive under a stylized image of a high-voltage power line mast. I am convinced that he had his hand in this as well. The Swedish Post Office issued a series of stamps celebrating great successes of Swedes and Swedish industry around the world. Among the stamps I recall were portraits of Birgit Nilsson, Björn Borg, and Ingemar Stenmark. Among the images that highlighted the success of Swedish enterprise around the world was our stamp. It was a great honor for us and gave all of us in Traction a sense of pride.
The Film
Stig made a film about the whole Amtrak adventure. It was the best of all the films that we produced to use in introducing our company to customers visiting from near and far. I never missed an opportunity to show it. It was especially nice when we had invited guests to dinner at FORUM, and before dinner could go into the elegant movie room and play it. Claes Göran wrote a letter to Stig Throne-Holst saying "Åke loved to show this film." He was absolutely right. It was therefore a lot of fun to read Stig's account of how the most memorable sequences, with the locomotive at full speed on the Northeast Corridor, were filmed.
Thoughts on a Locomotive Deal by Stig Throne Holst
It has been 30 years since ASEA held its 1977 Annual General Meeting and treated the shareholders to roasted almonds in Västerås. My photograph of locomotive X995 was on the cover of the annual report that was discussed—a proud moment for the Transportation Division and for me personally. The annual report described an agreement between ASEA, SJ, and the American rail network Amtrak to test an Rc-4 locomotive on the line between New York and Washington, DC. It turned out that the Swedish-built locomotive met the challenge with flying colors. The Americans were impressed by the small, lightweight locomotive's power and it was referred to as "The Mighty Mouse” - or "our little Volvo," the Amtrak's motive power men called her.
My task was to document the locomotive trials with movie film and photographs. When the locomotive entered service, a daily round trip was made between New York and Washington, DC. I must admit that I felt a certain frustration that we only had two chances each day to capture "The Mighty Mouse." One of my favorite scenes in the movie is the one where we managed to follow the train with a pan that lasted for several seconds! The rain was pouring down and it sprayed like a waterfall when the locomotive’s pantograph swept the overhead wire at 200 km/h (125 mph).
Bad weather was forecasted. We knew the timetable, but finding suitable camera locations and calculating when the train would pass was another matter. I found a solution in renting a helicopter in Baltimore. In the back seat sat cinematographer Lasse Hansare, positioned so that he could point his camera in either direction. I myself sat next to the pilot, Joe Cullen. He was no novice, as I would soon understand. We flew along the corridor to meet X995. It was like looking down at a model railway. We didn't have mobile phones, so we couldn’t check where the train was. I realized that time was slipping away from us. I had some experience with aerial photography, but in these circumstances I felt like a rookie. For a brief moment, a ray of sunlight appeared. Suddenly I saw "The Mighty Mouse." I got the feeling that I could reach out and pick it up, as if it were a Märklin model.
Now the first priority was to secure the film footage. It was critical to give Lasse time to take advantage of the light. Joe followed his directions and skillfully maneuvered the helicopter into "shooting position," but he had some problems. A stream of interesting invectives made it clear that he was having trouble keeping up with "The Mighty Mouse." He had probably not previously encountered a train that could outrun him. The daylight quickly faded, but he managed to bring the helicopter so that I too could fire off a few shots before the curtain came down. Knowing that my images were probably underexposed meant that we had to compensate for that when developing the film.
The above photograph and article appeared in "Vi Aseater" [the ASEA company magazine] in August 1981.
So X995, "The Mighty Mouse," became the cover star of the 1976 annual report, the subject of a number of book covers, and eventually the model for a stamp! By the way, though, what says that "The Mighty Mouse" is a boy? As of this writing, it happens to be International Women's Day. And in the postage stamp series, "The Mighty Mouse" keeps company with a strong personality - Birgit Nilsson - who enjoyed great success, not least in the United States.
After the successful trials in the United States, ASEA, together with General Motors in the United States, received orders for more than 50 locomotives.
A few years later I encountered "The Mighty Mouse" again – a happy reunion! I was on my way to England with my son. We took the train to Gothenburg and our train’s locomotive was X995, back home and painted in the characteristic colors of the Rc locomotives along with the number 1166. On the locomotive’s side was a plaque recounting its adventure in the United States. We had a beer and a herring sandwich in the dining car and enjoyed our journey in the knowledge that we would reach Gothenburg in plenty of time to make our boat connection.
I recently learned that "The Mighty Mouse" has become a freight locomotive for Green Cargo. It’s still going strong! One might shed a tear of sadness over her fate, no longer being in the spotlight. But one thing is certain: she has proven to be a high-quality Swedish product and a winner in a tough international market. Talk about sustainability!
The adventure with "The Mighty Mouse" provided experiences that would be crucial for further advances in railway technology. Passenger service with Amtrak has been crucial to the development of the Swedish X 2000 high-speed train. It has also supported increased speeds for freight transport, thus making better use of existing infrastructure. These are examples of the development philosophy that has paved the way for the success of the Swedish export industry over the years.
This was recounted by Stig Throne-Holst.
Västerås, July 14, 2007
Västerås, March 15, 2008
Åke Nilsson
Note from Magnus Sandgren: the film is available online at this link, starting at about 49:00.
Afterword
I sent a CD with the Amtrak History and the Australia History to Sven Lundholm and received the following email from him on June 27, 2009:
Thanks for the CD you sent me along with my old photos.
I have re-read the whole story. I am increasingly amazed by the remarkable historical documentation you have produced. I have learned a lot that I had no idea about, especially regarding the sales efforts and the people behind them.
During the time I was involved with the AEM-7 project, Olle Ewers was in the US. I worked closely with him then. He often attended meetings with EMD. He himself writes about the large gatherings in the conference rooms, with EMD people seated around the large table.
Olle Ewers' conclusion after one such meeting, where Olle and I were expected to answer questions from the EMD staff, was that EMD had an expert for everything: one might be an expert on the positive terminal of batteries, while another was an expert on the negative terminal. After these meetings, I would return home with lots of questions that we had been unable to answer. At home, the task was to try to find answers and convey them via telex to Wayne, who passed them along. In some cases, the answers were provided at the next meeting with EMD. Olle does not write anything about his favorite dessert in the EMD executive dining room. When the waitress took his order, Olle just said "the usual," and that was enough for her.
In a few places I have a slightly different recollection of the history, but these are trifles in the grand scheme of things and not worth commenting on.
Can I provide a copy of the CD to Arne Magnusson, if he has not already received one from you?
Thank you once again, with wishes for a nice nice summer for Kerstin and you and your family.
Sven
Locomotives to the USA – An Adventure
By Evert Andersson
In the 1970s, we managed to sell locomotives to the United States. This described as both an achievement and an adventure, since the conditions in America are in many ways different from what we are used to in Sweden and Europe. We – and, to an even greater extent, our competitors (the French) – learned this firsthand. This was long before the X2000 became a reality in Sweden and China. The dramatic background to the locomotive deal was as follows, step by step: Train travel in the United States is generally modest, with the exception of commuting around certain big cities. In the densely populated northeast corridor, the "North East Corridor" (NEC) between Boston – New York – Philadelphia – Baltimore – Washington, DC, there was, and still is, a not insignificant amount of rail travel, even over slightly longer distances. Rail service on the NEC had long been handled by the venerable old Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) and the New York Central Railroad (NYC), two large, prosperous companies, until the late 1940s. In the 1950s and 60s, the economic situation deteriorated. The American railroads were over-regulated behemoths and were subject to heavy taxation. The money-losing commuter services around the big cities had to be paid for by the railways themselves. At the same time, the US government was investing in highways and aviation. The financial situation became untenable for several railways. A NYC railroad executive committed suicide when he failed to get the company’s financial house in order.
In 1968, the PRR and NYC merged to form the Penn Central Railroad. It did not help, however, and in 1970 the new, larger company went bankrupt. Freight operations were taken over by the federal government. Passenger service was taken over by Amtrak, which was also partly owned and funded by the federal government. The rolling stock (locomotives and cars) that Amtrak took over was either old and outdated, or it was in poor working order and had low capacity. Among other things, Amtrak needed to acquire new, modern locomotives. So new locomotives were ordered from General Electric (GE), but in February 1975, the first of these locomotives derailed at 160 km/h [100 mph] during a test run. GE had modified a freight locomotive, intended for low speeds, into a locomotive rated at 193 km/h (120 mph). It was an overly simplistic solution that did not work. GE demonstrated obvious incompetence in this area. This was evident to the client, Amtrak, and the federal authorities.
Ten-axle GG1-type locomotives from the 1930s (formerly of the Pennsylvania Railroad) were acquired by Amtrak in 1971. The locomotive weighed 215 tons and required a lot of maintenance. Its power was less than that of a Swedish Rc locomotive of 78 tons.
Amtrak looked around for a European supplier. In Europe, the locomotives apparently operated at even higher speeds. The choice fell on France and Sweden. It was obvious that France had locomotives that could run at 200 km/h [125 mph]; they did this in regular service every day. Why Sweden was chosen was less clear; we had no locomotives, or trains at all, that could go faster than 160 km/h. When it came to regular trains in normal service, we did not run faster than 130 km/h in the mid-1970s. But we had a salesman, Per-Erik Olsson, who had long known the technical director at Amtrak, Joe Smith. It is likely these personal relationships that influenced the choice. Joe Smith, whom I met a few times, was also an interested and knowledgeable railway engineer who understood the technical arguments that we from ASEA presented.
Two locomotive types were selected for test runs in the United States: a Swedish four-axle Rc locomotive (see picture earlier) and a French six-axle locomotive, type CC 21000. The Swedish locomotive was geared up to a nominal speed of 100 mph (161 km/h), but by overspeeding the motors, we could easily test the locomotive at 120 mph (193 km/h). The French locomotive was already rated for 200 km/h, which was the speed at which trains were running in some parts in France.
Our locomotive was to be prepared and sent over to the US for testing in the autumn of 1976. Amtrak designated our locomotive X995. The French locomotive would arrive six months later; it was designated X996. An agreement was signed between ASEA on the one hand and with Amtrak and SJ on the other (SJ was to lease a locomotive and conduct measurements during the trial period).
Amtrak X995 (Rc4 1166) during the installation of the test truck with the measurement wheels in the Savenas locomotive workshop, Gothenburg, Sweden, 1976, just prior to the shipment to the USA.
Left: part of the instrument panel in X995/Rc4 1166 in the Savenas locomotive workshop, Gothenburg, Sweden, 1976, just prior to the shipment to the USA. The scale used on the Hasler AG Bern speedometer is miles per hour, instead of kilometers per hour. The red triangle indicates the gear ratio of 106:37 for 100 mph/160 km/h. Anyway, the locomotive X995 was tested up to 125 mph/200 km/h. The main air brake pipe is marked with PSI instead of BAR or kPa. The speed reference that is set at 40mph is approximately 64 km/h. Note the small holes for the name plates: absent here, they will most likely be mounted shortly after the locomotive arrives in the USA.
The RC locomotive had to be modified to be able to run in the United States, of course. Among other things, the pantograph had to extend significantly higher, the transformer had to be modified to the American voltage and frequency, centered [MCB] coupler was installed, and more. This was done in the spring of 1976.
The Rc locomotive as a test locomotive at Amtrak, designated X995.
The French test locomotive as Amtrak X996. (Photo: Amtrak)
Poor Tracks
The tracks in the United States are in very poor condition in some places. This is especially true in railway yards, where switches and track crossings complicate the maintenance and replacement of older tracks. The American railroad companies, almost all of which have been privately owned, do no more than is necessary to maintain profitable operation. The focus is on freight traffic at fairly low speeds, for which the demands placed on the tracks are significantly lower than for passenger traffic at higher speeds. An additional factor is that the axle load on freight trains is high, typically about 30 metric tons (in Europe, up to 22.5 metric tons is typical on the railways, and usually 8 metric tons for road traffic). The high axle load puts extra strain on the tracks. There are standards for how poor the tracks can be; the regulations are issued by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). When we saw these standards for the first time and the table said ”4” for permissible geometric errors, we initially thought it was 4 millimeters. Upon closer reading of the text, we realized that it was 4 inches (i.e., 100 mm).
Example of American track. The tracks often have significant geometric defects. Rail spikes sticking up are relatively common. (Photos from 1974-76)
This was the reality we had to deal with. Would we be able to run our locomotive under such conditions without derailing? A high-speed derailment would be a disaster in every respect. When we at ASEA received a request from Amtrak in the summer of 1975, we launched a major investigation.
We took advantage of our capabilities for computer simulation, as I mentioned earlier. We inputted the poor alignment of the track, and as a result we got an answer as to whether the locomotive would stay on the track or not. The simulations showed positive results, even though European standards and safety margins were exceeded. We also determined whether the forces acting on the track were within permissible limits so that the track would not be damaged.
But we could not know for certain whether the simulation’s calculations would hold up in extreme situations at the boundary between what was permissible and what was dangerous. After all, our simulation systems had not previously been tested and validated under such conditions. Nor could we be sure that the tracks in reality met the standard required by the regulations; they could be worse here and there. And the derailment that General Electric's locomotive had suffered a few months earlier did not strengthen our confidence that everything would go well. We would measure continuously – a pragmatic solution. We decided to proceed cautiously and pragmatically. We had access to SJ's measurement technology, which allowed us to measure the forces acting between the locomotive's wheels and the track. This allowed us to identify both the risk of derailment and track damage. The tests were to take place at gradually increasing speeds over the various sections of track, with the first test at about half the maximum speed permitted for other trains over a given section of track.
That’s what happened when the tests got underway in early September 1976. It was a huge undertaking. Typically, four tests at progressively higher speeds were conducted across all track sections along the "North East Corridor" electrified zones – from New Haven in the north to Washington, DC, in the south. A distance of a total of about 50 Swedish miles (500 km, or 310 miles) with two, three, or four parallel tracks. In order to operate at the desired speed for longer distances without being disrupted by other train traffic, we had to conduct many of the tests at night. We managed to complete this in just over three weeks. Amtrak and the authorities were very keen to get the tests done, so they worked to secure the necessary priority for the test train.
In most cases, we managed to run at the stipulated maximum speed – in some cases faster than for other trains – but not always. On some sections of track, we could not run as fast as Amtrak would have liked, so we set the speed limit lower. I never heard people ever insinuate or blame the locomotive for poor performance; everything was blamed on the often miserable condition of the tracks. Amtrak and the authorities were very pleased with our locomotive and the test results. A fundamental prerequisite for the successful outcome was the improvements to the locomotive's suspension and damping that had previously been made on the Swedish Rc locomotives. I traveled to the United States on August 19, 1976. I was on site and participated throughout the tests, as well as in the preparations. Three men from SJ's lab were also there. I was away for 7 weeks. Birgitta was alone with Anna-Karin, who was 7-8 months old at the time. Most of the time we were stationed in Wilmington, Delaware, which is halfway between New York and Washington. Amtrak has its locomotive shop there. Wilmington also has historical ties to the Swedish colony that existed there for a time in the 17th century. The SJ team and I stayed at a hotel at a highway intersection a bit outside the city, as was common in the United States even back then. The tests and their results were documented afterwards. I spent a long time after the tests doing this at ASEA in Västerås. It was a rather monotonous and boring job to go through all the test results in detail and record them. Staff from SJ's laboratory prepare to take measurements using a measuring wheel.
Staff from SJ's laboratory prepare to take measurements using a measuring wheel.
When the test runs were completed, the locomotive went into regular service between New York and Washington for 5 months, partly during harsh winter weather. The locomotive was said to have handled this well. The Americans wrote that this was a locomotive that could withstand "the worst winter ever seen." I don't know if this was truly the worst winter ever, but it shows how positively the Americans viewed the locomotive. It was seen as the savior of Amtrak, which had found itself in a difficult situation due to the American locomotive industry's lack of expertise in running at high speeds on tracks of dubious standards.
The locomotive in regular service between New York and Washington, winter 1976–77.
The French locomotive was a flop. So how did things go for the French and their locomotive? Not well at all!
There was probably nothing wrong with the locomotive by French standards, but it was not adapted to the poor track conditions that existed in the United States. This was summed up by the Amtrak Historical Society, which wrote:
In 1977, a French CC 21000 electric locomotive was tested on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor between New York and Washington, DC. X996, as it was known in the United States, underwent a test program to determine whether it would be suitable as a high-speed electric locomotive for Amtrak. Unfortunately, it was not to be, as a Swedish competitor outperformed it and became the basis for today's familiar AEM-7 locomotive.
It goes on to write:
French Locomotive Suspension Meets American Track
… the Northeast Corridor track was maintained to lower standards than the French track the suspension was designed for …
Rumor has it that the French locomotive derailed on a couple of occasions, though at low speed. I don’t know exactly what happened or what is true. But the tests were halted and the French had to go home with their locomotive. One might wonder why they were unable to address this problem before sending one of their flagship projects to the United States, only to have it fail. Did the engineers know, but their directors took a chance and hoped for the best, or were they unable to analyze the problem? I don’t know anyone who can answer that question.
Amtrak Buys New Locomotives – The AEM7
It was quite clear that Amtrak wanted to buy an Americanized version of the Rc locomotive. The locomotive would then have to be adapted to a variety of American standards. That was a challenge for a Swedish locomotive manufacturer. In addition, there was (and still is) something called the "Buy American Act," which means that the American government imposes harsh tariffs, fees, and requirements on imported goods that could be manufactured in the United States. So an American partner that provided American experience and manufactured part of the locomotive, as well as being the main supplier, was desirable.
For some years, ASEA had collaborated with General Motors's (GM) locomotive division, which was a major manufacturer of diesel locomotives. After the oil crisis of 1973-74, when oil prices tripled, there were discussions about electrifying parts of the U.S. rail network; otherwise, it is unusual to see trains powered electrically in the United States. The Northeast Corridor is an exception. So locomotive manufacturer GM began looking for a partner for electric locomotive in case a market for them emerged in America. ASEA and GM entered into an agreement to jointly develop and manufacture locomotives for Amtrak that were based on technology and concepts from the Swedish Rc locomotive.
The new locomotive for Amtrak from GM/ASEA was dubbed the AEM7. It means "ASEA Electro-Motive 7,000 hp." There are two interesting things about that designation: (1) 7,000 hp because the locomotive would require a 7,000 hp diesel engine to provide comparable propulsion power (the diesel engine is the norm and reference in the United States); and (2) it was ASEA that got to the name to the locomotive, not GM. The latter was something GM could do nothing about, despite their annoyance; it was the customer, Amtrak, that had created the designation!
The AEM7 was designed to have a maximum speed of 125 mph (201 km/h). Its weight was 92 metric tons (compared to the Swedish Rc locomotive’s 78 metric tons), resulting in an axle load of 23 metric tons. The continuous propulsion power rating was 4,320 kW (the Rc locomotive was rated at 3,600 kW). So the AEM7 was a heavier and more powerful locomotive. A 23-metric-ton axle load at 200 km/h sounds like a lot by European standards, but it was nothing that the Americans were concerned about.
The first AEM7 locomotive was delivered from the GM plant outside Chicago in January 1980. In February, the test runs began to show that the locomotive met the requirements that had been specified. One of the most important tests was to show that the locomotive met the safety requirements regarding derailment and did not overload the track. Many of the tests we had done with the Rc locomotive in 1976 were now repeated with the new locomotive. This time too (1980), SJ's laboratory was on site and took measurements of what was happening between the wheels and the rails. To accommodate all the measuring equipment and personnel, there was a special test car owned by GM.
The first AEM7 pulls the measurement car during testing in February-March 1980.
GM’s laboratory manager could not accept that Swedes had come over to take measurements on a locomotive that GM (the western world's largest locomotive manufacturer at the time) had delivered. There were some conflicts between the Swedish group and GM's staff. SJ's staff made their demands, which sometimes conflicted with Americans practices. GM's project management had to intervene to resolve the conflicts. The reason SJ's lab conducted the measurements was that Amtrak made this a requirement, simply because Swedish measurement technology was superior to what the Americans could achieve. As I stated earlier, SJ was a world leader in this field at the time (today, SJ has completely abandoned this type of expertise and work).
SJ's technology could measure forces between the wheels and the rails both laterally and vertically, continuously (i.e. not just at certain points) and with high precision. This was necessary to maintain continuous monitoring of, among other things, derailment safety.
Me and two SJ staff members (Bo Strömberg, Åke Nellgran) in the measurement car.
Apart from a few conflicts with GM's lab staff, the mood and atmosphere were good. We at ASEA cooperated very well with both SJ and the rest of GM's staff. SJ and we stayed at the same hotel, mostly in the aforementioned Wilmington, Delaware, but occasionally also in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The Swedish staff for the test runs: two from ASEA and two from SJ.
This time, I was over in the US for between 5 and 6 weeks. Birgitta was at home on maternity leave with the children, now with both Anna-Karin (4 years) and Johanna (1 year).
We Caused a Traffic Jam on the Approach to Washington, DC
One day in March 1980, we had been traveling south towards Washington during the day. We were approaching the terminal and went through a diverging switch to another track. I was sitting in the measurement car and saw the locomotive through the window in the end of the car. Suddenly, the locomotive sped forward without the measurement car following. The train also braked sharply. I shook my head and wondered if I was awake. Yes, what I saw was real. The cables between the locomotive and the measurement car began to rattle and fall from their mountings.
What happened? Well, American trains have what are called central couplers that automatically connect two cars when the two couplers come into contact, producing a "click." This is different from trains in Europe, where you manually hang a loop around a hook and then tighten a screw. The automatic coupling between the locomotive and the measurement car had now, for reasons unknown to me, opened and separated the two pieces of equipment. Since the line for the train's brake was also severed, the train applied the emergency brake, which is a built-in safety measure. The locomotive had worse braking than the rest of the train, so it continued to roll further than the cars behind it before the braking system stopped the locomotive. We were stopped at the entrance to Union Station in Washington, with the locomotive about 40 meters ahead of the measurement car and the rest of the train.
The brief interlude at the entrance to Washington, DC. The locomotive was separated from the rest of the train and remained that way for a couple of hours.
It looked as if the entire measurement system had now fallen apart, with all the measurement signal cables lying on the ground between the locomotive and the measurement car. Among the Americans, panic erupted: "Now the tests have to be cancelled, and we haven't tested everything as we were supposed to." Representatives of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), which was responsible for final approval of the locomotive, expressed particular concern. They called a meeting at their headquarters in central Washington to review the situation and decide how to proceed. I was one of those present. One faction believed that the tests must now be halted and that the tests already completed should be enough. Another faction did not think this was acceptable – there was still quite a bit of information missing – and believed that such a course of action could delay or even prevent the locomotive's approval.
Before I left the measurement car, I had talked to the SJ people who conducted the measurements. They didn't think it was that bad: most of the cable connections were working, but that there seemed to be a fault with one of them. The cables were so long that they had just unfolded without breaking the connections. They were also joined together in bundles. No American had bothered to ask these obvious questions of those who knew.
When the panic and disagreement between the factions at the FRA and Amtrak were at their peak, I asked for the floor. I explained that I had indications that it might not be that serious, that the tests could possibly be resumed soon, and that we should return to the train to see if we could continue the tests. This was before the time of mobile phones, so I didn't have any contact with the SJ staff in the measurement car while I was at the meeting – and, strangely enough, neither the FRA nor Amtrak seemed to have any contact with the train either. My proposal was accepted. So we returned to find that the locomotive and train had been reconnected and that the measuring system was working. What little had broken had been repaired.
But we had blocked the entrance to the central station in the US capital for two hours. What consequences this had for other trains and passengers, and how it was communicated to them, I do not know. I never heard anything more about this "intermezzo." It was quite embarrassing for the Americans. And the locomotive was – as planned – approved to enter service some time after the end of the test program.
Other Projects in the US
A little more in the background, we also had another project in collaboration with GM. As I have previously mentioned, after the oil crisis of 1973-74 it was believed in the US that parts of the railway network would be electrified. GM, which was the largest locomotive manufacturer in the western world at the time, wanted to prepare for this by developing prototype electric locomotives for heavy freight transport. So ASEA, in collaboration with GM, developed two different locomotives. The heaviest and most powerful was a six-axle locomotive with three bogies (the middle one could shift sideways to negotiate tight curves), designated the GM10B. It was extremely powerful, equivalent to 10,000 diesel horsepower, and weighed 179 tons. I had been involved in the development of the three-bogie locomotive concept itself. They wanted me to participate in the test runs with this innovative locomotive as well. But it conflicted with the tests of the Rc locomotive (X995) in the autumn of 1976. The latter was given priority.
The six-axle GM10B locomotive with side-shifting center bogie.
In the end, nothing came of the planned American rail network electrification once the oil crisis had subsided. So the GM10B went into service for a few years before US rail freight traffic completely switched to diesel locomotives – sadly.
However, the AEM7 was a success and was ordered in several batches both by Amtrak and by other rail operators along the North East Corridor. The locomotive was regarded as a revolution by some observers. It was nicknamed "the Swedish meatball."
An AEM7 on a train between New York and Washington in 1984. It was in regular service from 1980 to 2018. (Photo courtesy of Amtrak)
In the 1970s, we also supplied locomotives to a molybdenum mine in Colorado. I was there to consult on some problem – I don't remember what it was – and I got to visit the mountainous and beautiful state of Colorado. Among other things, we were up at an altitude of over 3,800 meters. We drove there comfortably by car, so it was not a question of mountain climbing. However, it didn't feel like there was quite enough air to breathe. And the cars had a special carburetor setting because of the thin air. The whole of Colorado is at high altitudes, with an average elevation of over 2,000 meters above sea level.
The projects in the United States were a testament to the achievements of Swedish rail technology at that time. They contributed both to Amtrak having functioning locomotives and to the successes and profits of Swedish industry. And not least: to interesting and unforgettable experiences for those of us who carried out the work.
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