The General Electric Company were pioneers in the building of railway motors. Twenty years' experience and large manufacturing facilities have made their product a recognized standard throughout the world.
[Photo: Section of Railway Motor Department (Building No. 10): original size (14K) | 9x enlarged (101K)]
Two of the General Electric Company's large plants (Schenectady, N. Y., and Lynn, Mass.) are fully equipped for the manufacture of railway motors complete in every detail. The work includes making castings, cutting gears, winding armatures and fields, assembling and testing and a variety of general machine work which is naturally distributed among several shops.
The factories are building over thirty types of railway motors, ranging from 18 to 550 H.P. A number of these motors are built in several forms to meet different styles of suspension, track gauges, etc., and most of them have a variety of windings to meet the varied conditions of railway service. In addition to the large number of combinations which can be secured with standard capacities and speeds, a considerable amount of special designing is carried on.
The majority of the General Electric railway motors of large capacities are of the box type, which most readily lends itself to compact, accessible and durable construction.
At the present time, a number of locomotives to be used on the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad are being equipped with General Electric motors embodying novel and special features. These motors, known as the GE-84 type, are bipolar gearless machines rating about 550 H.P. The locomotive frame acts as a part of the magnetic circuit, thus greatly simplifying the design of the complete locomotive. The large air-gap permits the armature to pass between the pole-horns for removal and insures ample clearance in operation. The laminated pole pieces and field coils are supported on three intermediate and two end transoms of the locomotive frame. One hundred and twenty of these motors are on order at the present time.
[Engraving: GE-66 Railway Motor Used by Interborough Rapid Transit Company, New York: original size (7K) | 9x enlarged (46K)]
