How often do diesel locos used in switching duty need refueling? Say, once a week, once a month, etc?
On my layout, I plan to have a small, single bay engine/car shop and office (Walthers Allied Rail Rebuilders) located near a busy coal mine and the local industrial branch, where the local switching crew will be based out of. It will have at least one dedicated MP15 or SW1500 switcher, which may be supplemented from time to time with a road switcher like a 4 axle Geep. I won’t have a large yard or engine servicing facility anywhere else on the line, so I’m wondering if I should put a small fuel storage tank and refueling rack at the shop, or if it would be more realistic to have fuel delivered on demand and directly offloaded by truck?
Our yard uses MP15s and the occasional mother and slug set or the ubiquitous B30-7s CSXT seems to like…We run three shifts a day, and only refuel once per week. The fuel is delivered by a local commercial dealer. CSXT recently built a sand tower here in order to do away with contract engine servicers.
Jon Long, CSXT switchman, Sibert Yard, Mobile, AL.
With the UP yard close to where I live, the two Geeps are refueled once a week, every Saturday, with a huge tanker big rig.
Now, with SW and MP units having smaller fuel tanks, I think that depending on their use, refueling may be done accordingly, perhaps more than once a week?
It depends on your engine and how much its being used. We use our switch engines virtually all day, every day. I think that they refuel them about every 3 days, sometimes sooner. They hold about 4000 gallons each.
Generally they burn about 80-140 gallons of fuel per hour if they are running all the time. So your question didnt exactly mention if your engine was on or off, or how much it was being used that one day. Keep in mind that its generally not economical for railroads to only work any engine less then a few times a week.
That actually raises a good point, and another question… Why do railroads have the engines idling for such long periods between jobs? For instance, at the Lithonia ‘yard’ (not really a yard, just about 6 tracks where they store and shuffle cars for the local industry jobs) pre-9/11 I would sit across the street waiting for trains to pass, and the engines assigned to local switching duty would often be parked there, idling for hours on end.
I seem to remember sitting and watching one afternoon where they sat for 4 hours just idling and only two trains came through the entire time. My first assumption was that they were waiting on the tracks to clear enough so they could perform switching tasks, thus no point in shutting them down. But as I sat and watched, there wasn’t any activity going on anywhere, and the time between through trains would’ve given them plenty of time to shuffle some cars or get a train ready to depart.
Just seems to me that even a railroad with deep pockets would want to save on fuel costs, even pre-9/11 to the point that they wouldn’t keep an engine running for so long when it didn’t have much work to do.
That is exactly why the Green Goat makes so much sense. Instead of idling a big, slow-turning engine rated at 1500 HP or more, it runs a 180 HP pickup-truck engine at nominal load until the batteries are charged, then shuts down. Bringing that little diesel back on line and up to speed takes a lot less time and fuel than the same operation with a normal prime mover. In the meantime, the batteries provide full motor horsepower for the comparatively few minutes that the loco is under load.
Given that level of efficiency, if the fuel tank on the Green Goat is as big as that of a normal GP9, it will probably be able to go a month or more between refuelings.
I have heard of railroads leaving locomotives idling during cold weather, rather than having to either store them in a warm garage, or have to spend time on start-up. (I’ve heard of truckers doing this too, in certain circumstances.)
I would imagine starting a diesel locomotive would probably consume more fuel than simply leaving a running engine idle. I would tend to think that an engine in a yard needs to be available immediately.
Any insights on starting up a cold diesel from our professional railroaders?
Idling a diesel engine, on anything, isn’t as inefficient as doing the same on a gas engine, if that’s what you’re using as a reference.
They like to be kept warm
p.s. not sure what 9/11 has to do with fuel prices…
I was just making a time-line reference point, since it seems fuel prices were alot lower pre 9/11 than they are now. Not saying 9/11 had anything to do with it, just using that as a date to reference when I used to go train watching more often.
Starting a motor in cold weather is a pain. I pulled one out at 1 am on a night when the temp was 40 below and the windchill made it almost 60 below. The DSF didnt want it started said first trick would get it. Long story short she had to go back inside to be warmed up and restarted.
The problem is the oil in diesels is heavy for one, your qworking compression for two and diesel fuel gells if you dont treat it ( in some cases even treating it doesnt help. A filter in cold weather with a little bit of water in it will freeze and choke off most of your fuel supply. Been here done that wore out the t shirt they gave me lol.
Green goats wooo hooo I will lay off you give me some convoluted piece of junk ( my opinion I dont like them)I like what I like and what I can get to start by cussing and pushing a button watching the primer dump go old dinosaur bones into the pump!
One thing to keep in mind when l.ooking at an idling diesel. This power level is maintained because there is a minimal amount of fuel being burned that keeps the the engine running. A gasoline engine, on the the other hand, has to close a throttle plate to restrict the airflow into the engine. This induces high pumping losses that half to be overcome by the idling engine which still has to operate with close to same air fuel ratio as the engine uses when it is producing power. This range is betweeen 12 to 18 lbs of air to fuel ratio throughout the entire power spectrum. A diesel engine, on the other hand, may use the same fuel ratio at full power, but can go up to 150 lbs of air to fuel at idle since the engine never has to overcome pumping losses induced by a closed throttle.
Like route-rock said, diesel fuel will gel at low temperatures, making it nearly impossible to start a cold engine.
The other thing to remember is that most diesels are cooled with straight water. If the engine isn’t kept running (or provisions made to keep the coolent warm), the water will freeze and destroy the engine. Been there. Done that. Have the T-shirt.
