One thing that strikes me about this theory is that if it is true there was no need to retire the SDP40F fleet. After all, the replacement F40PH units were all HEP (IINM) although I believe some older steam heated equipment was still operated using “steam tenders” mostly rebuilt from retired E units. So is it logical that converting the SDP40F fleet to HEP would have been a better response?
Was the seemingly hasty decision to dispose of these almost new locomotives a case of Bureaucratic overreaction (to appease congress)?
Probaly less overreaction and more a need to “play nice in the sandbox” and when your hosts tell you that your equipment is bad (remember, in their mind it couldn’t possibly be their track) and threaten to restrict your operation or ban it altogether, the only option is to retire the fleet.
Conversion to HEP would have been a good choice, but at the time, blame was placed on the locomotives trucks, so no conversion would have appeased the complainers.
I don’t think it was an overreaction. They had been limping along with speed restrictions on the SDP40Fs and had spent a small fortune testing to figure out what was wrong. If the testing had found something concrete, it likely that the locomotives could have been modified to improve the situation and make the long term use of the locomotives tenable.
There were just too many expensive derailments for the host RRs to ignore. The only clear path forward was to get rid of them.
A case of overreation was Conrail’s 40 mph restriction on it’s ex-EL SD45-2s and it’s refusal to take HTC trucks on it’s SD40-2s despite their success on other roads.
He has been busy recently he called me LAST NIGHT called his mother is SICK give him a break. The L/V Ratio when the trucks were hunting and the water tanks were sloshing was .82 so they were SCREWED according to him.
As a footnote I have read anything and everything on the SDP40F derailments and hopefully this will put alot of things to bed on them.
Gave him a call last night caught him at home he had the program there he figured that you would want more. He asked what I needed and I told him. Baseline was with no water in ANY tanks L/v was .1 or less even with hunting at 90 mph so the water was the key.
Look I do not have the Simulation that he did in front of me getting him on the phone is hard. 3 he is very reliable in whathe does and I tend to take his results pretty well he was going off of his simulation which he programmed. He also stated if they are not happy with my results tell them to GET OFF THEIR DUFFS AND DO ALL THSI WORK NEXT TIUME THEMSELVES. I just found out that his mother has Breast cancer is it is spread already and more than likely uncurable. My cousin went out of his way to help us try and figure out the reasons behind the one of the biggest failures in locomotive designs and you are still not happy. He told me flat out I am not running any more tests if they do not like this data Ed then they can shove it.
I’m not asking for any more work. It’s just that we are back to square one with this. A simulations of the type you describe are very difficult to construct and get a reasonable match to observed data as it appears to be the case here. I don’t think it’s worth the effort to try to resimulate. After all, the locomotives are long gone. The sloshing theory is interesting to speculate about, but that’s were it begins and ends, I’m afraid.
Atill in all the simulaations the only differant variable was the water that was consistantly causing the units to derail. You can not put over 5 tons of water above the center of gravity p[er unit and then as it gets rocking not have an issue with it causing issues. Carrying 5 tons of weight 12 feet abover the rail head per the designs was STUPID baffled or unbaffled but remember the people that designed these engines were the ones that gave us the US TAX CODE need I say more. Instead of having EMD drop the 16 cylinder 645 into the FP45 design they came up with this design. Had they done that I think there may not have been any derailments at all. Either that or use the SD40-2 cowlit and put a steam gen in it also. There was a SDP40 they could have done it the right way if they wanted to. The Goverment chose NOT TO like about everything else.
Look, the best design engineers from private industry, the affected railroads and EMD all worked to solve this issue and what is done is done. I agree. Further work is fruitless.
I for one do not believe that a game programmer can outdo these professionals with any kind of simulation or results. I agree with Oltmannd that we are back to square one and nothing has been conclusively solved.
So for the issue, and for your cousin, probably, it has been a complete waste of time and energy.
Answers, whatever they may be, won’t change anything. It is all water under the bridge.
Have your cousin submit his simulation as previously advised. We will look for it on the various web pages of the institutions mentioned. Thank him for us and good luck to him…
Railroads all over the world experience challenges with new locomotives. It is only a problem when a few original models are “all you’re gonna get” instead of “prototypes.”
It was interesting to read TRAINS NEWS WIRE Friday about transportation plans of the Presidential candidates. TRAINS does well at not getting political in their news items (Don Phillips does enough…), but obviously for Amtrak the choice is life or death.
Oh, well, maybe candidate Red would buy us new locomotives… and design them from the ground up… how about square wheels?