Help with an old Williams E60

If you can find a tank off a Lionel MPC era locomotive like the early SD40 or GP20 it should work.  I have the Conrail version with the SD40 trucks, motor and tank along with two later Williams versions in Amtrak that have the twin vertical can motor set up.  Plan on using one with an additional undecorated shell to kitbash a scale version on an MTH E33 chassis someday.

Let me get a photo of mine for you when I get out to my train room.

It's Forum to the rescue. I have everything you need. The tank is from a Lionel engine, I don't remember what it was on but it's long and fits right on your Williams electric. I also have the horn but you need to paint it black and I have extra pantographs for you. I put Lionel six wheel trucks on mine and it looks much better.  Don

GG-1, I'd like to see either current or finished projects of your when time allows- no rush.

Don, what do you want for those? ...my pants are good{pantographs too} but spares, if you don't need them, wouldn't hurt. I'll toss you an email in a minute...

I'd prefer the 6 wheel trucks too, but the money was right and I finally got one, so maybe an upgrade later on if I can find the stuff.

Mine has twin pullmores and I might guess magnatraction since there's a lack of traction tires. 

Well, lets see. Let me add this up. There's a rare silver horn that you need to paint black. The vintage Lionel tank that came from a hard to find engine of some kind and a matching set of pantographs that are not made anymore. Now with your Forum membership, you get 6% off full retail. Also being a Cub Scout leader in good standing. That's another 10% off. Now let me add all this up. Well I think it all comes to FREE to get rid of all this junk. Just send $7 for shipping from beautiful Maui to your door and it's all yours. Don

Nice find.

As has already been written, the early Williams E60's were designed to use the then current Lionel Geep trucks, e-unit, and fuel tank. They came as kits. The owner had a choice of using either two power trucks, or one power and one dummy.

I have a couple of the unassembled kits. One of these days I am either going to assemble one, or pick up another that is alreadypout together,

Bob,

I bought one of those from Trainz last year.  Mine only has a single power truck.  i would like to add a second power truck and I believe I have a donor from a contemporary U36B.  I f you ever have the body off could you take some pictures or draw up a wiring diagram so that I can install a second truck and have them pull in the same direction.  Also My pantograph springs a very weak, what kind of spring did you use to replace the missing spring?

A few pics of one of my very, very few non Lionel train.  Early Williams E-60 with Lionel Magnetraction 6-wheel trucks and a Lionel fuel tank.  I added the single stripe many years ago.

IT appears the Lionel "Fuel Tank" [it's really a battery box] on John'sgg1 E60 is from the C40-8 along wiht the trucks. Looks really prototypical[except 4 the paint scheme]!

Looks like a fuel tank for an EP-5 to me,the  fuel tank for the WILLIAMS '60's was LIONEL GP 7 or 9 if you have the 4 wheel units and LIONEL GP 18 or U-33C for the 6 wheel units.

I have built several units over the years, and enjoyed running all of them, the 6 wheel ones can be the eArly LIONEL SD-40 motor trucks also. Adding about 1/2 to 1 pound of weight makes them real bears.

P. S. I have beeen looking for the EP-5 f uel tanks for some time.

Rod

Hey Coach, here's some shots of the wiring and a drawn wiring diagram, though there's alot of light green going on in there.

Here's the wiring break down since I think this is old school-

LT GRN- light green

DK GRN- dark green

BLK/WHT- black/white

YLW- yellow

BLK- black...{sorry if you already knew all this!}  

This pic shows where the lights are mounted and wired to in the body

This pic shows the front end {- if you count the pantograph end as front}

Here's the rest of them starting with the back end and also including other angles as well as the wiring diagram.

Oh, I got the springs at Ace Hardware but don't have a part number...they just looked right.

Burlington Route:  Looking at your wiring diagram for the E60, It would seem that you have both motors running in the same direction: that is forward. Placed as they are in the E60 frame, they would both be going away from each other.   When wiring the motors to run in the same direction when attached to the frame, one motor gets wired like the one on the left and the other has to have the brush wires reversed. Example would be to wire one motor and then just run the wires straight back to the rear unit and then they should run together, meaning the same direction

          If you need a printed example, any Lionel dual motor diesel, like an F-3 A wiring diagram will show where the wires should go.   Hope this helps. Dennis M.

Just for information, the tank (battery box) fell off my Conrail unit so it is separate at the moment.  It is stamped 8855-080 on the inside.

Thank You.

 I like your discounts better than my father-in-law's{TV store}...family pays twice what the customers pay...well, that's what he said at first...

 Toss me a reply email with your address and it's sent with a Thank You...or I can wait for the package to arrive and use your return addy- you did get my email, right? 

Ok, now I have to go a run a train to double check this...

Crud- they are opposing each other!...the one end 's traction tires are slipping and getting pulled backwards. Thanks for bringing that up!

Ok, what wires do I need to swap- and Coach, we need to pay attention to this, please disregard my schematic as it's wrong!

Got it Robert, it is packed and going out Monday. Have fun and don't forget to post a picture when it's finished. Don

Burlington Route:   Just select one motor and swap the brush wires. That will make that motor go in the opposite direction or in this case to run with the other motor, and not against it.  Dennis M.

Don...I will do that.

Dennis...I will do that!

Thanks to the both of you!

Dennis...no I won't...lol...and I'll tell ya why.

I just came from reversing the wires one one motor and the engine wouldn't move at all. Last time I was looking at each of the motors armatures and saw they were turning opposite of each other and thought it was wrong....wrong.

Then I get my epiphany....I says to myself...hey dummy, instead of watching the armatures turn opposed on the track and thinking the "gearing" is the same...why not test them by finger...the two trucks have opposite gearing from each other! Let me show some pics as to why this might be...well, it is for sure, but the colors will explain better.

Note, please, the plastic winding covers{for lack of a better word}...one is red while the other is yellow.

I like the $18 price tag on the one truck- too funny.

 I guess this means that one truck when powered will turn clockwise while the other turns counter clockwise - with the same leads as shown above in my schematic.

If your motor winding covers are the same color, then you "will" need to reverse them from the above schematic...wierd, huh?! 

Yeah, I got cornfused for a little bit, but now I've got it. {I Was trying to do afew too many things at once I guess}

When viewing the motors from up top, coupler end facing away, to rotate the armature counter clockwise makes the truck pull away from you...now turn the engine 180 degrees and it's the same thing on the other end- counter clockwise makes that one go away from you too.  

Odd that they'd use different colors for the field spools{thank you for that}, but I guess they'd use whatever they could lay hands on since any color worked the same.

Another oddity would be MPC winding trucks backwards from lionel.

Bob....here are a few pictures of one of my Williams E60.  I have one that has the black 2 axle trucks with a black fuel tank and the one you see in the pictures below.  Perhaps this will help you get an idea of how some of these came from Williams...

Alan

I have two of the E60's both with mangled pantographs.....hope Bachman will rerun them someday.....

I hope they improve them or maybe someone will come out with after market replacments.

How mangled chief?

Getting these things to line up and pop up straight is an art, but mine are "now" decent...not perfect, but decent.

It was a neat idea back when, but I'd doubt there's be much interest these days where folks just want to buy a runner...however, to make a shell for other obscure engines would be neat- but I'm not holding my breath.

The Williams Metroliners have the same flimsy pantographs. I applied a drop of super glue to the ends of the springs to prevent them from flying into space and gone forever if I do open one.

The one thing I learned about running overhead wire is you need good strong pantographs. Those Williams pans would never hold up very well in real running. Even their regular pans had a bad sway under wire. Don

Mangled bad and missing components. I think of the two units I have I have 2.5 in parts......so not enough to fix even. And like stated....they are not very good any way.

Don, 2 neat things about the williams silver horn paint-

1- it's over molded black plastic horns

2- it easily scrubs off after a 24hr soak in castrol super clean...now they match.

The newly aquired tank....Thank you Don!...is a tight fit between the 4 wheeled trucks, so I'll have to trim them off a little bit for my liking...don't want the trucks to hit them and it looks like they might.

 Lastly...hehehe...in an effort to keep my new-to-me E60 from getting lonely we just aquired a bay friend for it...a conrail E60 with 6 wheel trucks.

 Funny thing is that this same auction was up a while ago and I offered $25 less than the asking price and seemed to offend the person{sorry whoever you are but I didn't think offering $50 for your asking $75 was that bad}, and I just won it thru highest bid last night for $8 less than my 1st time offer - he should've taken my 1st time offer 2 or so months ago! And yes, I sniped it with 1 second to go so the auto bidders couldn't nail my bid...old school still works even with today's technology.

Good going with that buy. Here's a little history about your E60 from Williams dated April 1 1977 when I was a dealer. First a dealer poster and then a letter. You might want to hit the letter and enlarge it. Don

I always loved these engines.  There are actually several models/roadnames produced by Wukkiams.  Besides the Amrrak, there are Penn Central (black), Pennsylvania (Tuscan), Virginian (blue and yellow) and Burlington Northern (Black and Cascade Green).

We need to get pictures of all of these up here.

Thanks,

A BN version?!...Hmmm, I could make mine cascade green with just "Burlington" on them for a pre-merger paint scheme, except I'm not the biggest fan of that green....

...or find another set of Rock Island decals since I have the paint already- would have to be double ended{2 sets of decals} to look right.

...still want a Milwaukee road or Great Northern engine too...ooooh, decisions, decisions...

Don- Thanks. 40% mark up, huh?

Here was the line up. I had two blank ones for myself. Painted them Milwaukee orange and black. Both had six wheel trucks. They really looked good. Don

Hah, cool!

Well, I have the Amtrak and soon to posess the Conrail variant, but I'd love to see others as well...origonal paint and otherwise!{hint hint, nudge nudge, wink wink, eh}

The pans on top remind me of what I'd call the high speed variants, but I'd wonder what the engine would look like with a single GG-1 type...non prototypical, I know, but I'd think it'd look and work better.

-Just noticed the "E60-C" name, implying a class C truck, yet alot were B type 4 wheelers.

Thank you for posting the dealer literature on those E60's. I have the Greenberg book on Williams. It has a section on these engines, I don't think it includes the literature.

I have two unbuilt kits, an Amtrak and a black Virginian. The kits are set up to take MPC Geep motors and an MPC Geep fuel tank. The frames are punched to take two motor trucks and came with an adaptor plate to allow the use of one dummy truck.

The literature reproduced above "talks" about other adaptor plates. I got my kits from two different sources. Neither one has any other adaptor plates.  

No Williams pic of the Pennsy version.  I wonder how that was advertised?

The stripes and dust are mine.

I have one of the later Amtrak E60C's with the three-axle trucks taken from their E-unit diesels. My first modification was to place a strip of white pinstriping tape across the Phase I stripe to convert it into  Phasse III. Next up would be to paint the roof black (Williams' excuse for not fixing that error was "so it matches the earlier units")

The last modifications planned were to fill in the nose-mounted headlights and number boards, moving the latter above the windshield and using the cab-mounted headlights instead. That would entail inserting light bulbs into the box (I did go so far as to drill access holes for them), but I waited so long to continue the project that I'd rather put LED's in there now.  I'll also light the strobe lights, hopefully with flashing LED's or a flasher circuit driving hi-intensity LED's.

I'd love to replace the flimsy pantographs with something more prototypical, but at the rate we're going, I'll have to learn to scratchbuild some out of brass. Anyone know where I can get diagrams of Faively single-arm pantographs?

---PCJ

As I wrote, both of my kits have an adaptor plate to allow a dummy to be used for one of the trucks. The instructions included sections on using the plate, and the Greenberg book on Williams mentions it.
I think some other sort of adaptor would have been needed to use F3 trucks, as mentioned in the letter above.

By the way, the Greenberg book was written by John Hubbard, who worked for Williams and built the prototype model of the E60. According to Mr. Hubbard, there were 2000 Amtrak, and 100 each of Penn Central, New Haven, Conrail, Virginian, and Pennsylvania. Of the 2000 Amtrak, the early ones were decorated with pressure sensitive decals, and the later ones were silk-screened. He does not give quantities of the Amtrak variations, but states that there are more silk-screened ones.

Most folks don't think of Williams as being collectable, but I think these engines are interesting because they are William's first original body style, and they did not include trucks or a reversing unit. They were designed to use Lionel Geep trucks, e-unit, and Lionel Geep fuel tank.

Adding my NH to the group. First Photo post to the forum