TO UP MACHINEST I HAVE BEEN AN EMD MECHANIC FOR MANY YEARS I LIKE WHAT I SEE IN THE GEVO ENGINE BUT HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO TALK WITH ANY BODY WHO HAS WORKED ON THE GEVO. ALWAYS WILLING TO LISTEN HERBYDG@AOL.COM
As the UP was the only American road that operated 265H engined locos, I would think that there should be tech manuals, etc available @ N Platte in either paper or pdf form.
Probably too early, but does anyone have a guess on horsepower? I’d suspect they’d try to match GE’s 4400?
The SD89 was rated at 4500hp.
Rail Express (a UK fan magazine) is reporting in their latest issue that the EU is backing off on their Tier IV emission standards as there is no railway sized diesel that can meet those standards and fit within the UK clearance envelop. Interesting!
IIRC,The GE GEVO engine (the only locomotive engine at the moment with a Tier IV complaint Exhaust Gas Re-circulation system that works) is too big to fit within a locomotive envelope that will accomodate the loading gauge in the UK and much of Western Europe.
There are certainly diesel engines on the market that meet Tier IV that would fit in a UK/Europe sized loco but they all use SCR/Urea based exhaust treatment. A good example is the Cat C175 family of engines, which power the Vossloh built Class 68 locomotives being delivered to UK operator Direct Rail services. A Tier IV version of that same engine will be in the new EMD F125 commuter locomotive being built for the US market.
So perhaps the EU realizes that SCR is not an optimal system for many types of rail operatorions and they want to wait until EGR is a more mature technology.
Just a question based on the basic conservatism of the industry. Assuming Cat/EMD do a good job on their new 4-stroke, how long would it be before it is trusted? It’s not like EMD has a long history of 4-stokes, or Cat has a long history of successful rail powering’s. Plus the cost of engine failure is at a kill the market level so who would buy much on spec?
How many years before even a really good engine would be trusted?
Years. In the past, when EMD and GE made evolutionary changes to existing engines, there has been trouble. Fixable stuff, but still trouble that caused wailing and gnashing of teeth. New engines are very scary.
It’s why Conrail decided against the 6000 HP AC units and settled for a 20-645 engined SD80MAC. Even those had some teething problems - mostly with the electronic fuel injection (which was new to rail applications at the time).
But, 29 of the 30 SD80MACs are still pulling f
Perhaps SD80MACs with 20-710G3A engines?
These engines have since been built for South America (SD80ACe) and India (WDG-5) and may have a long future in India particularly.
EMD did try to get the 710 to meet Tier 4 requirements because that’s what the customer wanted.
However the GEVO was a new engine to meet Tier 2 and now everybody has one (or a few). There were a lot of problems, including a complete redesign of the turbocharger relatively recently.
If EMD and CAT support a new engine the big roads will support it because they don’t want GE to have a monopoly and the new EMD engine will work, even if there are a few early problems.
After all if it is based on the 265H which has at least 300 units running in China right now (ten times the number of SD80MACs) it will be based on some real experience in service.
M636C
Oops. Of course!
That’s a big help. It certainly helped that there were over 100 20-710s in tow motor service prior to the SD80MAC construction.
Conrail wasn’t considering the SD90MAC. They were buying GP60M’s and SD70MAC’s, but changed the order in 1994 to SD80MAC’s (At a time when the H engine only existed on paper) and they started entering service on Conrail in early 1996.
The H engine didn’t even start stationary tests until 1996 and the first prototype didn’t even appear until that Fall. Production models didn’t start rolling out until 1998.
I doubt they even seriously considered it when they ordered a further 28 examples in 1997 (Actually, supposedly over 100 were ordered before it was quickly reduced), before changing it due to the split to the SD70’s and SD70MAC’s that they recieved instead in 1998 (that NS and CSX wanted).
Is there any new info on the EMD 12 cylinder 4 stroke? Also is the planned EMD/cat CNG engine going to be based on the this engine or the 710?
The EMD 4 stroke EGR engine being developed from the 265H will probably be kept under close wraps until it’s official unveiling. It is supposedly being installed in a “test bed” built from a retired SD90Mac-H…
I have read that the EMD LNG (not CNG) dual fuel locomotive will use a 16-710 engine…
Rather than start a new thread, today at work we were given a brochure from GE on the Marine V250 engine as equipped to meet what they describe as Tier 4i and IMO Stage III emissions compliance.
I just checked GE’s website and couldn’t find a copy of the brochure, number 20254-A (If anyone has an online reference to this version of the engine, feel free to post it).
However, I was struck by the similarity in appearance of what I take to be the exhaust gas recirculation installation to that illustrated in the Trains photograph of the EMD experimental four stroke engine.
Have any photographs of the GE Tier 4 engine been published (as opposed to the GE Tier 4 locomotives which are reasonably well known)?
It is worth noting that all the ES locomotives built to date have used air to air intercooling, as indicated by the intercooler box with two fans on top in the centre just forward of the radiator. The Tier 4 locomotives do not have this intercooler, so the engines must have air to water intercoolers as fitted to the FDL and the marine V250, equivalent of the GEVO engine.
So it seems to me that the V250 is probably set up the same way as the Tier 4 GEVO since both have EGR and air to water intercooling.
Anyway while the Marine V250 pre Tier 4 brochure illustrates a twelve cylinder engine with twin turbochargers, each supplying one bank of the engine through air to water intercoolers mounted symmetrically on each side, The Tier 4i engine is not symmetrically arranged. There appears to be a single turbocharger offset to the right side (in locomotive terms) at the free end. Below this turbo, there is a heat exchanger that looks a bit different to the standard intercooler. On the left side of the engine there is a duct splitting into two and feeding into what might be a pair of intercoolers. There are a number of pipes, possibly for cooling water in locations not seen on the older engine.
But the GE V250 package has remarkable similar
I was there and in on the decision! We DID look at SD90MACs. 6000 HP would have been nice, but it was too scary. The H engine was in test in LaGrange at the time. I saw it. EMD would have sold us SD90MACs if we wanted them.
I’m just a railfan, so I’ll take your word for it. But are you certain that it wasn’t when they were considering a 2nd order? The date that the H engine first was stationary tested is in B&W in publications like this one and supposedly occurred in March of 1996.
It wasn’t back in 1994 (Or earlier) according to the press, which is when Conrail officially ordered their SD80MAC’s (Early 1994) and EMD officially started design work on the H engine (18 months from the initiation of design work to that March 1996 firing up of the prototype 265H, a timeline which EMD publicized at the time).
Conrail’s SD80MAC’s were being outshopped approximately a year before the H engine was even first installed on a locomotive for testing (September 1996 for the official roll out of the first SD90MAC prototype), per publications like Trains. Production models started rolling out in 1998.
I could see you guys having seriously considered an order of convertibles with an eye towards upgrading them to 6,000 HP a few years later, as Union Pacific was doing at the time. I believe that the dates I have for their first convertibles vary only slightly from Conrail’s 80MAC’s and probably were on the shop floor simultaenously (Although Conrail’s SD80MAC’s were assembled in Juniata, not London).
(sound of palm smacking face !)
What does someone (Don ) know…who happened to be THERE ?!
CPM500
I don’t think that’s the point here. Sometimes reminiscence can be mistaken… but in any case I’m looking forward to having Don actually explain in more detail what Conrail was buying, and about the precise date he saw the 265 engine – prototype or production? – running on test at EMD. Were the proposed Conrail SD90MACs going to be delivered with ‘temporary’ 710s as the UP’s were (we having established that “SD9043MAC” is a strictly railfan term, and the factory designation for them was ‘SD90MAC’ as Don said the engines Conrail was considering were)? What precisely did Conrail consider ‘scary’ about 6000hp locomotives, considering how close the SD80’s rated power is to that number; I suspect it refers more to the untried aspects of the 4-stroke powerplant, but I’d like to hear it from the source that ‘was there.’
In other words, more, please, Don.
Yeah, My guess is that Conrail was pitched convertibles at the SD80 time frame, not actual H-Engined SD90s. That would make the most sense.