In recent times, one of my favorite things to think about regarding railroads has been proposed locomotives that were, for any number of reasons, never built. So what are some proposed but unbuilt locomotives you all have read or heard about?
So far, I can personally think of:
N&W Y7 2-8-8-2
ATSF Cab Forward 6-4-4-4
Erie 2-10-4/2-6-6-4
Monon 4-10-4
Lehigh Valley 4-4-6-4; NYC C1a 4-4-4-4
Baltimore & Ohio W-1 motor locomotive
PRR V1 turbine (several variants)
Anything with Franklin System type C poppet-valve gear, or double Belpaire…
We have a couple of very extensive threads on diesels catalogued but not built; it turns out there is technical data on the Ingalls Shipbuilding 2000hp single-unit passenger locomotive.
I don’t believe that this Raymond Loewy design ever made it into production.
http://www.art.net/Lile/loewy/images/bureuloc.gif
I believe those are cylinders and driver rods along the side
That loco in the link you posted almost looks like an early prototype of C&O’s M-1 Class Steam Turbine
How about an EMD DDR, 6700 HP electric? I have an EMD spec/proposal to the PRR dated December 1966 with the details…
Gen’l arrangment…
You would dare cite such a thing and not provide details? I protest!
Can you at least scan it and let us beg via PM for a copy?
Requires me to have a Google account (more specifically, access to the Google Drive service), and then requires me to ‘request access’ once I’m signed in. I asked ‘whoever reads the messages’ on a request for access to contact you directly if you meant to give blanket permissions to forum folks.
This is particularly fun as my registered email for signin is different from that used for the Google Account … don’t ask, it’s a history thing. Remains to be seen what form ‘approval’ to the resource is granted … and on what e-mail address it will appear.
Thanks already for the thoughtfulness in providing the material for access – many more thanks when I get to read it!
EDIT: Got the permission link. Oddly the file, although I can read it perfectly well on a phone, will not load into iBooks.
Before my time at EMD, but I immediately recognized the handwriting of Frank Lapka, a terrific designer who retired about 1978 after 40 years at EMD. While working on a design project with him, he gave me a Pratt & Whitney pocket book on aircraft engine design (that I can’t find at the moment) that he was given by Gene Kettering to aid him in a radial engine design he was doing as a “government job” in the 50’s. The layouts exist in EMD’s files so make that an “engine proposed but never built”.
Dave
Dave,
I have the same P&W pocketbook I got from my Stepfather years ago. Amazing reference.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge!
Robert
Have seen it, and it’s fascinating. If anyone wondered what an electric DD40 with double cabs might look like, nearly 90’ long … here it is.
Still more interesting is that it’s rated only 100 more hp. than a diesel with the same trucks. Is this traction-motor limited somehow?
Perhaps. The GP40 from that time period handled only 750 HP/motor. The GM6C and GF6C were rated at 1,000HP per motor but they were 10+ year later designs with E88 traction motors with the same stator size as the D77 but better insulation and cooling.
I wonder if this had anything to do with the “pancake engine” used on some of the ca 1950 USN submarines. An example was the Albacore.
For those that do not have access to Goggle can you give some ideal what the DDR looked like. Gary
There are side and end elevation drawings in the last pages of Don’s PDF that show the arrangement very well. I’d have to leave it to Don to scan the pages (and stitch the drawing together!) and host it to be seen here.
The locomotive does not have the UP DD full-width cabs, as I had first thought; there are standard cabs with short hoods, but the cabs appear abbreviated compared to contemporary SD45. There are ‘road pilots’ without footboards. Interestingly the horns are located between the upper number boards, with provision ‘to change diaphragms from inside the cab’ – I doubt this would have been tolerable too long in service! Headlights are where they probably should be, in the low short hood where there would be little glare.
Structure between the cabs is narrow hood, probably using typical EMD long-hood components where practical. Pans are Faiveley, in recesses just behind the cab. As noted this is a very long locomotive, over 88’ over pulling faces; if you were modeling one you might start with a DD40 frame and trucks and use a couple of SD45 shells for most of the superstructure.
These were built almost like two separate four-axle electric locomotives on a common frame; only the primaries of the HV transformers are intertied to permit one pantograph to supply both main transformers. Interestingly all the specs mention a peak design value of 11kV rather than 12.5. All four motors in each truck were permanently connected in parallel, as expected. Interestingly there is no attempt at regenerative braking at all; the dynamic is dissipated in centrally-located resistance grids.
I am assuming that this proposal was for a rectifier locomotive which precluded regenerative braking since the electronics of the time could not convert DC back into AC.
The locomotive was designed, as so many proposed at the time were, to use AC to supply DC motors common to those used in diesel-electrics. You are correct that there was no provision to connect the DC motors to anything that could transvert the DC back to AC at correct frequency and synchronization to be used for regenerative braking. Interestingly, EMD not only specifically mentions that the TMs are compatible with existing GP and SD locomotives, but that an 8-notch control is effectively synthesized to regulate the various taps and thyristor firing – to afford true MU compatibility with contemporary diesel-electrics. EMD offered an extra-cost option to give compatibility with the 29-notch system on the E44s; it might be interesting to see if this were an optional control in parallel with the 8-notch equipment or a full replacement … could a DDR have been designed to ‘bridge’ between MUed diesels and E44s?
If the locomotive would have had thyristor control, it would not have been completely out of the question to incorporate regeneraive braking. This would have been a matter of setting up an additional set of thyristors oriented in the opposite direction from the propulsive thyristors and coming up with a control system for firing the additional thyristors. In both the propulsion and braking cases, commutation of the thyristors would have been handled by the AC from the catenary.
One reason for not doing this is that the regenerated current waveform would have been more or less a square wave which could lead to a distorted voltage waveform. I’ve seen block diagrams for some European electric locomotives with a single phase converter between the catenary nad the locomotives DC rails that allow power transfer both ways.
I see several notes about a boiler and water & fuel tanks on those DDR drawings, so it seems the design was intended to be capable of operating in passenger service.
Batteries too, would they have just been for operating auxiliaries or was the thing to have been capable of moving itself for short distances on non-electrified track?
This was the heyday of the SDP replacements for E units, so it is little surprise that EMD might pitch the DDR as a replacement for at least the older of the passenger electrics. As I recall the Centennials were allowed 80mph on Union Pacific, which was until 1967 (a year later than this proposal) the maximum allowed speed of the GG1s – so yes, this might have been attractive as an option for some PRR passenger services or even the heavier commuter trains.
The battery is 64V 168ah, and even though the specification says the battery is for ‘control and lighting’ (there is a 74V rectified tap from #1 transformer for running power for these that may or may not go ‘through’ the cells) a battery that size would not move a locomotive with 600V traction motors very far. That is not to say it was impossible; the Amtrak P42 has explicit connections to allow it to be hostled on battery power.