Climate Change fanatics…eat your heart out (heh-heh). Impressive performance for a train load of sand.
Seems like the Engine Control Module and the turbochargers are having trouble getting their acts in sync with all the smoke coming from the lead units after the train gets rolling. The full black smoke I am taking as a overly rich fuel mixture.
Coming out of the hole at 8300+ feet with power that normally is operating set up for 1000 feet. The rack settings and how that is modified/controlled on the locomotive explains some of that bad combustion.
Thought that was the halmark of Electronic Fuel Injection - being able modify the injection pulse to the conditions of the available atmosphere and the conditions that affect it such as pressure, altitude, temperature and all the other aspects that affect combustion.
The electronics, esp. with the GE’s, still have a long way to go. The old carbonning-up phenomena is still evident here at 5280+ feet. (There is a stretch of old C&S along I-25 south of town near US-6/Sixth Ave./South Park Jcn. on the joint line where that is evident when the hogger puts the carrots to 'em when turned loose that sees this regularly. UP or BNSF)
If you looked closely it wasn’t the GE engines throwing the haze itit was the EMD engines both the 70Aces and the 70Mac at the end. Why the answer is the 2 stroke engine they’re running. Above 5k feet even turbocharged 2 strokes can’t fully purge their cylinders before firings. The pistons especially at full power are moving way to fast to allow a complete change of the air.
cool video, looked like Alco’s with the smoke, but know they were not.
The west switch at Tolland is just shy of 9000’ elevation.
Loved working out here!
Please leave politics out of this.
Cool video, looks like wheel slip controllers modifying the load on the engines in an already oxygen limited enviroment.
4:30 video - 3 x 2 DPU lcocs - best part is the start to about 2:00 as the EMDs wind up, then about 3:30 to end with the DPUs going by.
Baclighting of the exhaust likely makes it look worse than it really is.
Lot of railfans out that day - not only the videographer, but a couple cars and 4 or 5 others at the grade crossing ahead in the last 30 seconds or so.
Thanks for sharing!
- PDN.
Perhaps not political per se, but certainly a controversial topic, especially for those that have zero understanding of the atmospheric sciences.
I just cannot figure out what the OP meant by “eat your heart out”, which is a phrase usually meant (informally) to encourage feelings of jealousy or regret; or more formally, to suffer from excessive longing for someone or something unattainable.
It’s the ever elusive human goal that regardless of cost vs. benefit or what is even realistically possible… humans can engineer a perfect world on earth if we just pass enough laws and spend enough tax money.