Well, all you European (and especially Great Britain) railfans: the exciting, newsbreaking story concerning EMD’s new JT56ACe for China Rail sounded exhilarating, until I Googled it and found an artist’s rendition and specs of what, to me, looks like an EMD Class 66-family locomotive.
http://www.thedieselshop.us/Data%20EMD%20JT56ACe.HTML
They’ve been around for quite some time, so there’s really nothing new about them. What do you guys think?
The big difference is internal: The JT56ACe has a 265H engine and the JT42CWR (Class 66) has a 710 engine.
The Chinese locomotives were designed by the Chinese, and are much larger. They look like a more angular version of previous Chinese locomotives with some modifications to some components. With the Class 66 EMD designed the biggest box that would fit the British loading guage and then figured out how to stuff the necessary components into it.
There is virtually nothing common between the Class 66 and the JT56:
-Class 66 uses a radial cast truck, JT56 uses a rigid fabricated truck
-Class 66 has a conventional underframe with non-structural carbody, JT56 is a monocoque carbody with integral fuel tank and isolated cabs
-Class 66 uses 12-710, JT56 has 16-H four stroke engine
-Class 66 is DC traction, JT56 is AC traction
-Class 66 uses a water cooled shaft driven air compressor, JT56 uses an electric driven rotary screw compressor
-Class 66 is designed to British loading gauge, JT56 to Chinese clearance diagram
BTW, the JT56 was fully designed in LaGrange, all units will be manufactured by Dalian in China.
Dave
Hello Dave!
I am a train fans from China and I am very interested in EMD locomotives.
Since 2008, JT56 locomotives has been used in China for 15 years, its performance is very good, stable and reliable, currently 300 EMD locomotives are still in good operation in China railway. JT56 equipped 265H engine, with 6000 horsepower, AC traction, it can pull a maximum of 10000 tons of freight trains with one engine，that’s powerful! I really like this guy and have been looking at it and doing a lot of research.
I noticed that you are an engineer of EMD Company. Now I have a few questions to consult you and hope to get your reply. Thank you very much!
I am very wonder about who designed the appearance of JT56 , because it does not look like the traditional style of EMD locomotives. I also read that some articles said that its appearance was designed in Dalian, China ,but it doesn’t exactly look like a Chinese locomotive…So I’m a little confused.
Who designed the monocoque carbody? You said that this locomotive was fully designed in LaGrange , but according to the Chinese railway academic , the carbody of JT56 was designed by EMD with Dalian together.
In its early years, EMD supplied Class 67 locomotives to British Rail and PL42AC locomotives to the New Jersey Transit , they also had monocoque carbody , Did the JT56 reference their design? Whether their technology is the same?
It’s good to hear the locomotives have been good performers. When these locomo
I would like to know, from someone technically qualified in China, what was done to the 265H as provided to make it operate reliably at 6000hp.