Ed Blysard’s post with a picture of a Caterpillar-powered locomotive started me thinking (usually dangerous). For a while a lot of railroads were doing this as an experiment, and then stopped. SP even had some 5000-HP monsters built. Apparently these experiments were not successful enough that large numbers of locomotives were done. What were the problems encountered, and were acceptable remedies not available? Thanks.
From what I gather Cat hasn’t been able to crack the market because any improvements in performance, cost, ect. are not worth the extra effort to maintain an oddball (or oddball fleet). A problem common to other engine manufacturers that have tried to crack the market.
The railroad industry has been ‘leary’ of higher RPM prime movers. The ‘old line’ thought has been that more RPM’s means more wear and faster replacement cost. As far as the MK5000 engines, they just did not catch on and MK had enough problems to wrestle with at the time that the program got shelved.
The Generation 2000 engines that BN and SOO bought worked OK after the bugs were worked out, but really did not provide the cost savings to justify their developement. They did have the ‘cold shutdown/restart’ feature that SOO was looking for, but eventually were sold off to a regional shortline as they were considered ‘different’. C&NW and N&W also tried a few CAT repowers of existing locomotives, but failed to roll out the program to the fleet. The Peoria & Pekin did repower their EMD switcher fleet with CAT engines, but then they switch the CAT plant!
Jim Bernier
Part of the problem with Fairbanks-Morse, American (ALCO) and Baldwin were their “different” or “odd-ball” engines. ALCO had an advantage with a larger number of locomotives on the road so they were not “quite so odd-ball”.
GE’s advantage in this area is that their FDL engines are off-shoots of the ALCO prime-movers, so again, “not so odd-ball” as they might otherwise be.
GE’s FDL engine isn’t anything like Alco’s except for being a four stroke-cycle engine. The GE FDL engine was developed by Coopers-Bessemer in the 1950’s as an improvement to their FWL engine design. The FDL engine was sold by C-B to GE who continued the development.
Another was Cat’s reliance on private regional distributors. Large RRs did not want to have to deal with multiple outlets for maintenance and service support.
There seems to be 2 threads here.
-
The Cat big diesels are more suited to big mining trucks than locomotives. Cat’s best diesels may be smaller motors, better suited for construction equipment, dozers & stuff.
-
CAT services the equipment thru the dealer network. They may not be qualified to work on locomotives. Service becomes a problem at too high a cost.
-
It may be cheaper to rebuild an old 567 than to build a new switcher with Cat power. The market is too small for CAt to be an industrial wsitcher maker. How many co’s use a big wheel loader to move a freight car or use the tools to unload & store the product?
One thing that the Alco 244 and 251 had in common with the FDL was that they both had the same nominal bore and stroke, and both had similar maximum RPM. They both were designed to bolt up to a GE generator. The FWL (used in the 70 ton) was only an in-line six cylinder, but it used the same crankshaft as the V-12 FVL which was not used in domestic US locomotives, but was used in export units to Argentina and Australia in 1949 to 1951.
Part of GE’s contribution to the FDL was to increase the power, the FVL-12 was only 1200 HP compared to 1500 to 1600 HP for the 12-244, but GE had worked on the turbochargers for the 244 and learnt (partly from their mistakes) and the FDL soon was more powerful than the 251. The actual FDL detail design was quite different, with articulated rods compared to side by side rods on both Alco designs and with a cast crankcase compared to a welded assembly on the 251. The GE also had heads rigidly attached to the cylinder liners.
M636C