I have a train question! Is there a specific locomotive that you think doesn’t get enough love compared to others?
Locomotives are a lot like Pokemon in that every single one is someone's favorite somewhere, but if we want to get specific, a lot of the PRR's non-GG1 electrics were actually really solid, like the DD1 and P5a (the modified form of which somewhat does resemble the G).
The DD1s were built to run between Manhattan Transfer and Penn Station when it opened in 1910 and ran on direct current; when the PRR main line switched to alternating current in the 1930s (and the GG1s arrived), the DD1s that weren't scrapped were transferred to the LIRR, and some survived until the 1950s, with two pairs remaining as of 1962. Today, there's one surviving DD1 pair, which lives at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg.
These guys were cool because they always ran in what we call "married pairs." You'd always see them as a set of two. They're also notable for having coupling rods on their drive wheels like a steam locomotive would. They weren't glamorous, but they did their duty well.
The P5a was another excellent freight workhorse, although it was originally designed to work passenger trains. It was eclipsed by the significantly more successful GG1 soon after its debut and was relegated to freight duty, where it performed excellently. It had one major design flaw, though, in that it had a box cab, which left the crew vulnerable to injury or death in the case of an accident. This did inevitably happen, and the P5a received a modification moving the cab to the center of the vehicle to improve crew safety.
This is the "before." There were two prototypes of this design simply referred to as the P5, and then the production models were referred to as the P5a. The modified production models became known as P5a (modified) locomotives. They looked like this:
Looks an awful lot like a GG1, doesn't it? This was by design. From Wikipedia:
Documentation published in 2010 disproved the decades long belief that the modified P5's new shell design came first and was then applied to the GG1, R1, and eventually the DD2. Instead, it was revealed that the GG1 project, under the direction of industrial designer Donald R. Dohner, was the first to receive the center cab design, and that soon afterward it was applied to the R1 and P5.
To compare, here's an image of Old Rivets, the prototype GG1 (and my dear childhood friend who was the first GG1 I ever saw):
(The R1 was the other prototype the PRR tested alongside the GG1; the GG1 was the one they chose to put into production but the R1 prototype remained in service as well. The DD2 was also a prototype that resembled a smaller GG1.)
Obviously, all the GG1s after Rivets were famously streamlined, but Rivets is the easiest design comparison to use here since she came first. Most railfans will instantly recognize a GG1 the moment they see one because most of them look like this:
And of course, the GG1 was a wildly successful locomotive, with the fleet's last members surviving in service until the early 1980s. They lasted nearly 50 years, outliving the other PRR electrics by decades. Arguably they're still the most successful and best electric locomotives of all time, which is why other PRR electrics tend to be overshadowed. But those other electrics are important too, because they're how we got to the GG1 in the first place, and they did incredibly important work in their own rights!
