While we are shutdown due to covid, like many other museums we are still working on projects and displays.

Anyway, we are working on cleaning up the cab of our 45 and adding tags. One item I am not seeing is a bell control valve. Most GE's have it just above the heater.

Attaching pics, does anybody else see it where maybe I have missed it? I am wondering if it and the horn operate together and the bell only rings when the horn valve opens but the plumbing doesn't look like it is routed that way.

Thanks
Bill

While I have no experience with 45 Tonners, I"m familiar with 44 Tonners. The 44's that I ran had the sand and bell valves mounted as you stated, just below and in front of the engineer's window, over the heater. On those, the bell valve used the same air source as the sander valve. Looks to me like the stem valve in front of the sander valve may have been where the bell valve was mounted.

It should be that round-handled stem valve pointing up right under the reverser.

There are plenty of interior cab photos of three different GE 45-tonners in the links in the post in Clasifieds on the ones up for auction in Milton, Pa. this week and next........

....and not 1 decent photo of the bell valve in any of those.

we have an ex-Santa Fe 44 tonner on the Midland RR in Baldwin, KS. It's been out of service for years, and I never looked into the cab since I've been there. Next time I get down there I'll take a look and see if the bell valve is still there, I get you a photo if it is.

We have a couple 45 tonners at the R&GV Railroad Museum... I can grab a few photos later today. Stay tuned!

I dug out the operators manual for a 44 - don't have one for a 45 - and the sander and bell ringer valves are mounted on a bracket fastened just maybe 5-6 inches below the window on the side wall - not the end wall - of the cab. Bell valve is a simple single lever two position valve (open / closed).

Since we have both a 44 tonner and a 45 tonner I went and had a look today. Both have the bell and sander valves in the same place, on the side wall of the cab in front of the Engineer's side window, as Dave described.

The bell valve handles on both units have the word "BELL" cast into them.

Our two are later units, both built in 1956. Earlier units are likely different.

I was able to take a couple photos this afternoon...

Here is our 1941 built 45 tonner; bell valve is circled in red:



The small brass valve to the right of the bell valve is for the windshield wiper. The sander valve is below that, clearly labeled.


Here is our 1950 built 45 tonner (pardon the mess, she's awaiting restoration); bell valve circled in red:

Joe, I don't know whether you can see the photos that you posted above, but they are not visible to me (and likely not visible to anyone else either).

My guess is that you may need to adjust the Google account permissions for those photos to make them "public".

Thanks Rader, how about now?

Yes I can see the pictures.

Thanks,

Brian

Thanks for the pictures.

So the maintenance manual shows it along the front wall but each one is different. Hmmm

The stem valve aimed horizontal directly below the reverser in ours is connected to the wiper. The one just above it has a stub of broken tube hanging from it. I can see in the paint where said tube went up the wall along the horn line through the wall and outside you can see where it went across along the cab roof. Pipe from the bell looks to run up directly under the cab. Me thinks someone made off with the original valve.

This thing has some mods to the train air lines for connecting air lines between coal hoppers and the loco without climbing between cars. So who knows what other mods were made.

Looking forward to seeing more pics of these units.

Here is the bell valve circled in our 45 tonner, which looks almost identical to yours. The little red oval valve behind it is for the front wiper.