That would be why ATSF purchased the GP60Ms/B40-8Ws I think the 6000HP just weren’t worth the teething problems in that service.
It seems as if 700-750 HP per traction motor has become the effective maximum that the current state of the art can put to the rail effectively. The efforts with the 6000 HP, 6 axle locomotives seem to have ended in relative failure with the demo AC6000 being donated to a museum and many of its brothers and cousins being scrapped.
Higher HP on the ACS-64s may be another factor although the axel ratios are different. So are they 1600 HP each? and they have short time ratings higher.
Their initial plans were actually to assign them to coal trains to increase their velocity. That didn’t last long though and by the time that 600-602 were delivered (The pre-production units), CSX already had changed their tune and were eyeing them for high-speed intermodal trains.
That initial plan is what gave birth to the “heavy” concept for modern CSX power. Knowing they were destined for coal service (Or so they thought), GE engineers worked out how to up the production examples for CSX from 420,000 to 432,000 pounds and developed special adhesion management software.
When CSX changed their strategy and settled on AC4400CW’s for coal trains, GE developed a similarly modified AC4400CW for CSX that eventually was of course embraced by CSX.
It should be noted that the ES/ET44C4s translate their 4400hp to four axles, ergo, 1000hp per axle has been achieved.
The standard of the 3000hp, six-axle road locomotive lasted about 20 years. Then came the 4000hp, six-axle road locomotive and then came AC traction and higher tractive effort. Even though the locomotive replacement rate has not continued the trailing tonnage has increased.
It’s not for me to tell you about the seemingly
Indeed and the B40-8 achieved it previous and the GP60 was a mere 50HP short per axle.
What those locomotives struggled with was they didn’t succeed as well in general service and locomotive weight, initially with the bigger cabs became an issue.
The C4s and EMD P4s exist, because they couldn’t fit the entire locomotive on 4 axles anymore.
But there are hundreds if not thousands of Diesel Freight locomotives out there in regular service making ~1000+HP per powered Axle.
No, the tubes would be on the piston facing side of the cylinder head adjacent to the injector (perhaps a pre-chamber with a lot more openings?). The spray from the injectors would travel through the tubes, with the fuel evaporating and mixing with the air entrained by the fuel spray. I’m guessing the benefits come from the fuel being almost fully vaporized before combustion starts, along with more turbulence promoting better mixing. The high speed videos of the combustion process show a much dimmer flame from much lower PM formed during combustion. My impression is that this technology is still in the laboratory demonstration phase, so long term durability is an open question.
What intrigues me is that this addresses the NOx and PM problem at the combustion stage and may have less negative impact on fuel efficiency than after treatments.
And passenger. The P40/42s as well as the entire Charger family have 1k hp per axle. For early AC transmissions the sticking point was not the traction motors but the inverters feeding them. Much has been learned and applied in last 30+ years of experience in North America.
Were the inverters a limitation for both manufacturers?
When Seimens was upgrading the Sacramento plant to build the ACS-64, the German VP who came over to oversee (Who is not the person currently overseeing it) the upgrades was a member of our club. He had STRONG opinions on the drivelines in the SD90s and SD70MAC as you might expect. He was of the opinion that the Siemens gear could more than handle the SD90 output.
Lake Shore is getting a pretty amazing (and one of the most modern) collection of diesels in the country by far.
I wonder if they have any plans for a building to house all this stuff?
GE did infact have 2 different designs of steerable trucks. The Generation 1 steerable truck is the model that’s found so commonly on hundreds of CSX and CP AC4400CW’s, ES44AC’s and other AC traction GE models. Many roads opted for this. However, the lead truck on GECX is indeed an example of the Generation 2 steerable truck. This truck type was first tested on CSX AC6000CW #600. Sister unit CSX was refitted with the Generation 1 trucks
EMD’s MAC series had GTOs. The ACE series, retreads and DC-to-AC conversions are IGBT supplied by MELCO. Same thing with GE except they are providing the new IGBT hardware. GTO has limitations and is not as robust as IGBT but obviously work as they are still in regular service in large numbers all these years later.
Yes I know that, but in the context of the discussion on 1000HP per axle. Did the SD90 have inverter problems in the 6000HP configuration. If it did, it’s not something I’ve heard of.
No, failures of the AC6000 and SD90MAC cannot be blamed on their respective AC transmissions.
My understanding that GTO’s themselves are robust, but the associated circuitry may not be very robust. The turn-off process for a GTO involves pulling about one third of the current passing through the GTO through the gate (hence Gate Turn Off thyristor), which could be several hundred amps. Turning off an IGBT involves pulling out a few amps for less than a hundred nano-seconds. Overall turn-off time for an IGBT may be on the order of a micro-second needed to sweep out minority charge carriers - which is a similar process to reverse recovery in a junction diode.
Another limitation of the GTO is that it they are slow, with maximum switching speed not much higher than line frequency. Locomotive size IGBT’s can switch at a few kHz.
IGBT’s are easier to use in a inverter per axle arrangement than GTO thyristors.
Yes 90 MACs did have problems from time to time .
I had one let go coming out of Anderson Point one morning .
Another time had a H let go in a big way on a 40,000 tonne ore train out of the Creek . I was amased the almighty lurch didn’t break the train .
Also was involved in a load test with a pair of 90 MAC Hs , one in 8 against another in DB8 . The one in power let go and I nearly went through the back wall of the cab .
Museum press release from a few days ago. 6002 does still contain a HDL engine.
How exactly did they “let go”? I love gruesome details about mechanical failures…
I’ve always gotten the impression that out of the two 6000 HP designs, GE had the worse diesel engine but EMD had the worse overall locomotive.
The first one out of the Port lost an inverter and under relatively light load , it was the middle of 3 units . Basically squeeled in fright .
Went back identified the fault (one inverter) and isolated it . Control asked if I cut a traction motor out , no cut an inverter or effectively 3 motors or one truck out .
Second time had 3 units on 42 000 metric tonnes , Dirty Harry was again in the middle and let go under full load at about 20-25 km/h . The sensation was a almightly reef then back to the other two units . As I said I was surprised it didn’t break a nuckle or drawbar given the trailing tonnage involved . The unit was isolated and went through with the other two , which from memory was a 70ACe and a Dash 9 .
The last one involved a couple of 90Hs in a yard . The idea was to have one loaded in run 8 against another in DB8 . Noisy as you’d imagine and short lived as the one powering in 8 , probably at 7-8 km/h , let go and offloaded very quickly against the other loaded up in DB8 . As mentioned it stopped so quickly I would have slamed into the back wall of the cab if I’d not braced myself .
I personally don’t agree that the H engine itself was the only issue with these units . At the time it was said that the Siemens control system was not as evolved as it could have been , also whispers that the relationship beetween them and EMD could have been better .
We mostly ran units converted to the 16-710 and while more reliable they still seemed fragile control system wise . As I’ve mentioned in other threads that Earthquake effect was not fun though it didn’t happen all the time . Basically the control system cycled through rapid on and almost off load and the isolated cab danced around with everything (human and otherwise) trying to shake itself to pieces .
A little off topic but I think EMD would have been better off trying to refine the SD80MACs , the 20-710 was a lot less problematic and a control system upgrade ACR style
The first one out of the Port lost an inverter and under relatively light load , it was the middle of 3 units . Basically squeeled in fright .
Went back identified the fault (one inverter) and isolated it . Control asked if I cut a traction motor out , no cut an inverter or effectively 3 motors or one truck out .
Second time had 3 units on 42 000 metric tonnes , Dirty Harry was again in the middle and let go under full load at about 20-25 km/h . The sensation was a almightly reef then back to the other two units . As I said I was surprised it didn’t break a nuckle or drawbar given the trailing tonnage involved . The unit was isolated and went through with the other two , which from memory was a 70ACe and a Dash 9 .
The last one involved a couple of 90Hs in a yard . The idea was to have one loaded in run 8 against another in DB8 . Noisy as you’d imagine and short lived as the one powering in 8 , probably at 7-8 km/h , let go and offloaded very quickly against the other loaded up in DB8 . As mentioned it stopped so quickly I would have slamed into the back wall of the cab if I’d not braced myself .
I personally don’t agree that the H engine itself was the only issue with these units . At the time it was said that the Siemens control system was not as evolved as it could have been , also whispers that the relationship beetween them and EMD could have been better .
We mostly ran units converted to the 16-710 and while more reliable they still seemed fragile control system wise . As I’ve mentioned in other threads that Earthquake effect was not fun though it didn’t happen all the time . Basically the control system cycled through rapid on and almost off load and the isolated cab danced around with everything (human and otherwise) trying to shake itself to pieces .
A little off topic but I think EMD would have been better off trying to refine the SD80MACs , the 20-710 was a lot less problematic and
I personally don’t agree that the H engine itself was the only issue with these units . At the time it was said that the Siemens control system was not as evolved as it could have been , also whispers that the relationship beetween them and EMD could have been better .
You have to admit that FMG’s SD90MAC-H units weren’t exactly fresh out of the Factory… All of them had been discarded by UP as too much trouble. Only a few of them were rebuilt at Juniata with 16-710s (and those had the Juniata “AC” symbol on the cab side.). The locos with the 265H basically got a coat of paint…
They were bought to ship ore during the mining boom and most days they did that. FMG earned a lot of money from them, even those with the 265H. When the boom ended they were stored. Now the Brazilians found that they couldn’t build tailings dams twice, FMG are running anything they can lay their hands on including very sad looking Dash 8s still in BNSF paint.
There are serious rebuild units coming from GE with new FDL enines, new inverters and AC6000 radiators (so something lasting came from that program, with 150 radiators of AC6000 design running on EVOs in the Pilbara already).
I recall a day on the Mt Newman line when it was raining on the Chichester range* and we had tumbleweed blowing across the track. and the two C636s trailing had no sand. We had 144 wagons, so maybe 20 000 tonnes. Whenever a trailing unit slippe