I’ve always been interested in the switch engines that you can see toiling away their days in the rail yards or on industrial properties. To me, they seem to have an atmosphere about them as the overlooked but steadily hard working underdogs of the motive power world. While you can stand track side at places like Rochelle, IL and see the big new road power, the switch engines are usually buried out of sight in some unaccessible yard.
Out of all the switch engine models, I have always liked the EMD MP1500 series. It just has good, clean lines and looks like a switch engine should. Another one is the MPIGP20D’s. Again, it just seems to have a style about it. How they stack up with the operating crews is something I don’t know but would be interested in hearing about from any of our railroader’s out there.
So…on to the topic of the truck assemblies. I’ve noticed that the EMD SW1500 seems to come with two types of truck assemblies. I’ve (hopefully) included some photos of what I think are SW1500’s with the two different trucks.
The first photo shows a Alton and Southern SW1500. I’m not sure what type of truck this is. If anyone does, please reply.
The second photo shows a NS SW1500 with a different type of truck assembly than the A&S switcher. What are the differences in these trucks? Is the NS truck set up for road use maybe and the type on the A&S for yard and slow speed work?
Your photos show 3 different trucks. Initially, EMD offered either an AAR switcher truck, or the EMD ‘Fexicoil’ truck. Later the engine was lengthened so that standard EMD ‘Bloomberg’ trucks could be fitted.
That A&S 1510 is a standard SW1500 with AAR switcher trucks.
The NS 2307 is a standard SW1500 with EMD ‘Flexicoil’ trucks.
SOU 2384 is a MP15DC with the standard EMD ‘Blomberg’ road trucks.
UPY 1439 is a MP15AC with the standard EMD’ Blomberg’ road trucks.
The MPI GP20D was built off of a used EMD GP9 frame and uses the ‘Blomberg’ road trucks.
What you do not have a picture of is the ‘transition’ SW1504 engines that were built for NdeM. These have ‘Blomberg’ road trucks as well. These units were the ‘link’ between the SW1500 and MP15xx series engines. AFAIK, all of the MP15xx series engines have only the EMD ‘Blomberg’ trucks.
The ‘Flexicoil’ and ‘Blomberg’ trucks ride and track much better that the AAR switcher truck, and allow a higher speed without excessive rail/crew pounding. The ‘Flexicoil’ was always an ‘extra cost option’ in the switcher line. The MP15xx models standardized on the ‘Blomberg’ road truck. I am not aware of any ‘special order’ MP15xx engines with trucks other than the ‘Blomberg’.
I would add that the Blomberg truck was first applied to the MP-1500 because it was marketed as a fill-in roadswitcher, and is the only “switch engine” fitted with a toilet. The higher speeds that this model was projected to operate at made this truck neccessary.
The Flexicoil truck was good for up to 65mph (although the Rock Island SW1500’s were geared at 61:16 ratio for up to 70mph.I doubt they ever obtained that speed in any service.)
The Blomberg trucks were good for 65mph+ and have better suspension and lateral movement capabilities than the flexicoil design.
Did the Rock Island ever run their switch engines at these high speeds? I’ve seen switch engines mixed in with road power before, so it would stand to reason that they could do it. Which brings up another question. When they transport a switch engine from a outlying yard to the shops for maintenance, do they add it to the power on the train or run it dead-in-consist? How would a SW1500 with the AAR trucks be transported? Does it restrict the trains speed?
Gregory
P.S. I forgot to mention in my original post that the photos are NOT mine, they were shot by someone else and I used them for illustration purposes only.
Your question is yes and yes; and no and no. ??? you say?
To be cut into the road power either DIC or for power, the need two things – alignment control couplers and MU capability.
MU connections answer is obvious.
Alignment control couplers limit the coupler side to side swing. In yard work you often need as much swing as you can get, but this also limits what you can push if the “doors” are open. With the “doors” closed, the coupler has only the swing that a road unit would have and then can push to its tonnage rating. With “excessive coupler swing” you can easily push the switch engine and the car next to it off the tracks sideways. This event is usually frowned upon by management.
The “doors” are just that - a cast steel bar hinged on one end that, when open is aligned for and aft with the frame permitting maximum coupler swing, but when closed are turned into the coupler pocket across the frame to limit the coupler swing left and right.
Becasuse of the ability to shove anything sideways with the “doors” open, the Special Instructions to the Employee TimeTable will usually contain very explicit instructions of where and how (sometimes even when!) each class of switch engine can be moved.
Okay. The M.U. cables make sense, I hadn’t thought of that. The info about the “doors” and the amount of drawbar swing they allow is something completely new to me. I can understand how that would be a consideration though. Once again, I learn something.
MP15ACs have toilets. They are behind the first door ahead of the cab on the fireman’s side.
There are many restrictions on engines without alignment control couplers. On the CP, they usually cut a switcher in between the bigger power. The bigger power couplers won’t swing as far, so they won’t jackknife. If something happens, and the train runs in severly, things can go all kitty-wompus, and I have heard of switch engines on the head end laying over on their sides.
I believe the first photo depicts a switcher with GSC trucks. AAR never named trucks according to my research on truck types. Most people (railroaders) refer to them as AAR ¨A¨ or AAR ¨B¨ trucks, neither of which is correct. This is just accepted in railroad terminology. I have included an excerpt of a post I found on UtahRails.net:
¨That the term AAR Truck did not originate with the AAR has been confirmed by a member of the AAR committee that voted to adopt the GSC truck as a Recommended Practice in 1949. Drawings for the GSC design switcher truck that appear in Section F of the AAR Manual of Standards and Recommended Practice are devoid of references to it as an AAR Truck, let alone as a type A or B. This would appear to leave the origin of this terminology to the devotees of railfan slang, whose fertile minds have generated such descriptive gems as Alligator, Baby Face, Centipede, Covered Wagon, Flying Box Car, and Shark to identify locomotive types.¨
My AHM SW-1 has these type of trucks (switcher or GSC type ¨A¨), while my Athearn SW-7 and SW-1500 have the Flexicoil type trucks. There are many different types of trucks which include ASF, Batz, Blomberg, Blunt, Dofasco, Flexicoil, Standard, Scullin and Symington, to name just a few. My AHM RS-2´s have the switcher or GSC type ¨B¨ trucks on them.
The Commonwealthe Steel Company was purchased by Alco and Baldwin in 1929 and renamed to the General Steel Castings Corporation which produced the switcher type ¨A¨ and ¨B¨ trucks or the GSC type trucks.
I, too, admire the different switcher engines and model the Central of Georgia which had quite a few different switchers including the Baldwin VO 660 and VO 1000, as well as Fairbanks Morse, Alco, and EMD. I really find the Fairbanks Morse switchers (H12-44) fascinating because of the horizontally opposed (think VW) diesel engines that were 2 cycle instead of the 12 and16 cylinder 4
It is hard to get so many things wrong in as few words as this! [:)]
The engines are VERTICALLY oriented, and they are opposed-piston, just the opposite of a VW ‘boxer’ engine … one cylinder with strategic ports in it, pistons facing in, two crankshafts out. They incidentally have no valves, and the two crankshafts don’t run so that the opposed pistons in a given bore reach TDC simultaneously (they are phased about 15 degrees different).
No question, though, that they’re cool.
Funny, we had a post days ago where somebody called a horizontally-opposed VW-style engine ‘opposed piston’, just the opposite of what we have here.
Incidentally, the reasons a ‘modernized’ version of the FM OP is not marketed for locomotive use (I have been told it can produce upward of 8000hp reliably) are interesting. And more than a little sad…
Thanks for the information. I stand corrected. I had heard (or read) that the engines were opposed piston diesels, I just thought of the old VW I once had with horizontally opposed pistons. I thought maybe the Fairbanks Morse were made in the same way. Did not know they were vertical. Thanks for the explanation of the vertical opposed pistons. Also did not know they were without valves. So the cranks are outboard in relation to the pistons. Just wonder what the top RPM is on these types of engines.
RPM’s on the FM railroad diesel electrics were in the same range as other manufacturers diesels - 800-1000 RPM max.
In FM’s the opposing pistions, when the pistons came together at the top of their strokes became the combustion chamber.
When I became a Trainmaster on the B&O in Baltimore Terminal in the early 70’s FM’s were the standard yard power. My most vivid memory of them was that the blew oil all over the place. My understanding was that the Opposed Piston design was done for a marine installation in submarines - in that service, they would operate at sustained load level over an extended period of time. In railroad yard service, in addition to the impacts of coupling to and kicking cars, their operation was a series of short accelerations immediately followed by dropping back to idle. The FM’s diesel engines really didn’t like such operation.
Fairly slow, with all that geared mass, but there is no inherent reason one couldn’t be balanced for higher running speed; that’s one way they get the ‘modern’ horsepower level out of the configuration.
The infamous British Deltic engine is three OP engines sharing crankshafts in the vertices of an equilateral triangle; I do not remember which crankshafts are not used for output-shaft power (the FM engine uses the upper crank output drive just for the mechanical scavenge blower and auxiliaries, although I think there is some torque transfer via the gear drive).
There is a Deltic in this country, in the Super Pumper. (That is not a railroad subject, but it is worth reading about!)
Yeah, I learn someting new every day it seems. The Fairbanks Morse engine is very intriguing to learn about. I bet they have a very distintive sound with the 2 cycle diesel engine.
My husband’s late grandfather a WW2 vet from the Pacific served on an LST that was equipped with FM engines they got them in a refitting he always said to replace an EMD one they said that had well scattered herself after the black gang removed the governors on them to make what they called a suicide run into and out of Guadacanal in September of 42 to deliver reinforcements and take out wounded. At the time the Japanese navy pretty much controlled the seas around the island we had them matched in the air. He said the engines that blew did not like 30 hours at 1200 RPM with no breaks to get in and out and they lost 2 out of the 3 onboard. They made it out with the wounded. Well they patched up one of the engines using parts from the other one made it back to Pearl for repairs as Austrailla had zero to fix them up.
They got back to Pearl and where given a set of 3 FM rock crushers that were supposed to have gone into a Submarine but the sub had been sunk on the patrol it was on. So his ship got them instead. As he said to my husband we never worried about blowing another one those things would scream all day long and still say more sir.
Russian locomotives made extensive use of FM opposed piston diesels. There are many videos of them, usually smoking with a vengeance. At one time, I wondered if the black smoke was due to plugged air filters or other maintenance issues. But I now suspect that this is normal, or maybe they just get this way with normal wear. What exactly is causing this excessive smoke?
Black smoke is a indicator of an excessive amount of fuel in the combustion chamber at the time of ignition. Gray smoke is indicitative of lubrication oil working it’s way into the combustion chamber.
Have no ideal what the Russians are using for the method of fuel injection in these engines, obviously they aren’t concerned with any Tier’s that US manufacturers are. In the operation of the vertical opposed piston, gravity has a way of working excess lube oil int
