EMD 4 Stroke Cycle Engine

Trains Magazine Locomotives
41

I feel like I was respectful and I also stated that I’d defer to him precisely because of what he said his background was.

That said, I was providing what the publicly known details were in order so that he’d hopefully post with a further explanation and erase some confusion.

Hopefully he doesn’t have the reaction that you did, since it very much wasn’t what I was after.

42

Found this image http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=4062538

43

Interesting, thanks for posting. It seems to have the raised hood for DPF, and its inverters outside of the usual cabinet (just because it is a testbed.)

44

That was discussed, too. The SD80MACs weren’t purchased with the intent that they’d “convertibles”, but could have been converted.

Despite what EMD said out loud, they’d been messing with four stroke engines for quite a while in the early 1990s. The H engine was just a scaled up version of stuff they’d been working on.

I saw their four cycle test engine in LaGrange on a trip to go over specs for an SD60I order - probably in June or July of 1992. I was told “you didn’t see that” by EMD guys I was working with. They then went on to explain “what I didn’t see” and asked I not blab about it. The H engine design work was well underway at that point in time. The need for a 6000 HP prime mover to go with AC propulsion was a well established fact by that point - from the AAR ad-hoc committee work in 1992.

The SD80MACs were delivered Dec 1994 thru early 1995. The 6000 HP H engine was expected to be ready for service about that time - which meant Conrail would have been first with them. Our CMO wanted no part of that distinction! (In fact, it took a some persuasion to get him to go along with the 20-710…)

45

Is EMD no longer saying they have full confidence that their two-strokes will qualify under Tier 4? Last I read about this in Trains magazine, EMD confidently stated that their hotter engines allowed for relatively simple EGR and could meet Tier 4 with, and I’m paraphrasing, “no problem.”

46

Thanks for the response.

As for EMD qualifying the 710 under Tier 4, that was what they were hoping. Despite optimism that they were in an even better position than GE to meet this mandate, it didn’t work out that way in the end.

While I haven’t seen an official statement that 100% confirms that it’s dead, it sure looks like their attempts to meet Tier 4 with this tried and proven powerplant is finished.

Hopefully their Eco repowering solution starts to build up steam.

47

Yes, it was reported here and in Trains that they will, if nothing else, not have the 710 pass Tier IV next year. And they’ve unveiled a new 4 stroke. So that’s the nail in the coffin. The test bed SD59MX UP9900 could never make Tier IV and has been troublesome.

48

Thanks for the information. I couldn’t imagine how a two-stroke could possibly meet emissions standards. It looked, to me, that some unburnt fuel would always end up in the exhaust.

49

The problem for EMD is not unburned fuel but the NOx emmisions.

50

Relatively easy to catalyze that out… remember that regeneration of the particulate filter is probably done by running the exhaust ‘richer’ in hydrocarbons than any degree of excess hydrocarbon release (or bypass) that a two-stroke would inherently produce.

On the other hand, the ‘hotter’ you yourself mentioned should have been a guide that NOx emissions were going to be the bugbear. As I understand from looking at what test data is available on the Web, EMD actually came reasonably close to the Tier 4 final NOx standard… they just couldn’t quite get there without compromising the engine power or combustion. And with Government specs of this kind, ‘close is no cigar’…

(I wonder whether Caterpillar ought to take the money they’re going to pay for the Siemens passenger-engine lawsuit and use it to … influence … people in Congress or the EPA to come a few points off the Tier 4 final locomotive NOx… )

51

If 710 was really within a cat’s Whisker of passing, I wonder why they didn’t just iterate the 2 stroke again to get a design that would? Is it a Caterpillar thing that they aren’t or is it just not worth the engineering effort? After all, a lot of money already invested in 265 and some amount of Tier 4 work. It may just have been cheaper to start from that test bed rather than a new 2 stroke block.

Not that it should matter at this point. I doubt any of the major railroads would treat a 2 Stroke successor with any deference versus a 4 stroke, but well, might have been more interesting as an engineering (inside prime mover baseball) discussion.

52

Ainsworth should be shunted to a sidetrack. Out of his league. Colossal blunder that EMD has no Tier 4 locomotive ready for 2015.

53

It is bigger than just “colossal”. They will have no new product to sell to the domestic railroad market until (according to rumors) until 2017. Assuming they come up with something, they will then rejoin the fray with a market share of zero.

That should be an enterprise ending error. If it is not, it will only be due to the presence of a very deep pocketed parent.

I would think that Cat would step in here with an engine adapted for rail use that can meet the standards, but I know nearly nothing about their product line.

A look at what happened at EMD would make fascinating material for Mr. Fraley, but we probably are not far enough removed from the event as yet that those who know are willing to discuss it.

54

Binged the guy and found this:

"Education

  • bachelor’s degree , MarketingAuburn University"

Just ask any accountant what the think of marketing types…

(Just don’t ask an engineer what they think of marketing and accounting)

55

CAT’s expertise is in making cheap engines not good engines. If they try to pass off a CAT powered locomotive in 2017, if nothing else they will finally beat GE on price. It might be the perfect locomotive in that every part on it wears out at the same time and they can sweep the pile of junk into a dumpster.

56

1: Don’t blame Ainsworth for things that land squarely at the feet of the General Motors Corporation. They mismanged EMD for at least a Decade prior to the sale if not 2. This is known and has been reported on.

2: Cat doesn’t have a non-Urea Tier IV engine either. So they can’t solve the problem. In fact, if Urea were an acceptable solution to the Railroads, we probably wouldn’t need new engines. I’d bet the 710 could meet standards with Urea. Could be wrong, but wouldn’t be surprised.

57

At the recent Work Boat Show in New Orleans a Tenneco Company introduced their exhaust after treatment scrubber that would make any tier 0 engine tier 4 compliant. Just cut out the exhaust pipe and weld it in. This is great for marine and industrial engines where there is plenty of room overhead but these things are rather bulky,about the size of a marine engine muffler or at least a third the size of the engine. The dinky size of locomotive size mufflers shows that there isn’t much room above the engine.

58

(I wonder whether Caterpillar ought to take the money they’re going to pay for the Siemens passenger-engine lawsuit and use it to … influence … people in Congress or the EPA to come a few points off the Tier 4 final locomotive NOx… )

[/quote]

I doubt General Electric would let them get away with that…

59
  1. Ainsworth and company were/are junk merchants, plain and simple. No doubt the basics and the nuances of running an enterprise such as EMD were well outside the scope of his comprehension.
  2. The private equity ownership did ‘a bit of work on EMD’ in order to ‘polish it up’ for the sale. What GM did or didn’t do is besides the point.
  3. PR bought EMD for approximately one dollar of purchase price per dollar of sales. Cheap…cheap…cheap.
  4. The only ‘business technique’ Ainsworth seems to be familiar with is cost cutting. Not exactly cutting edge business mechanics. To be a viable competitor, understaffing the engineering functions won’t be of any value when you are a distant number two in the marketplace…and fading to black in a few days.
  5. Odd that when PR was sold to CAT, the PR management team wasn’t kicked to the curb. Not doing so is contrary to what usually happen one company buys a smaller outfit.
  6. Given all the above, it appears that CAT senior management is not all that sharp, either.
  7. When your competitor is none other than GE, Nos. 1 thru 6 loom even larger !!

CPM500

60

I’m not sure that all the blame can be sheeted home to EMD management.

With the SD59MX test unit UP 9900, EMD had a locomotive demonstating the currently preferred means of meeting Tier 4 (exhaust gas recirculation plus diesel particulate filter) but 9900 couldn’t get NOx down to tier 4 levels.

Remember that GE built an ES44 with SCR and urea injection, which might have been a “Plan B”, but just maybe the EGR+DPF was the “Plan B” that finally worked.

Caterpillar build a lot of engines, the majority for non railroad applications, and Cat management would not be keen to develop what would be a completely different engine just for railroads. Had GE (and MTU) not been able to build a compliant non urea engine, or not in time for the Tier 4 deadline, railroads would be using SCR and urea just as most other engine buyers are doing.

You could argue that Cat hadn’t had EMD long enough to understand the particular conditions of the market. The C175 equipped with EGR and DPF might have given EMD a freight locomotive engine while the new engine was developed. It works, after a fashion, in the PR43, and some PR43 problems are probably due to trying to match the C175 with the C18 in a meaningful way.

M636C