The 9900 is in Roseville today for some inspection or maintenance. This is a SD59MX with the extra option or test option of an exhaust scrubber.
CZ
If I am remembering correctly, that locomotive has a Tier 3.5 rating. I do not know if that is with the scrubbers running or not, but it is very close to hitting Tier 4.
I also know that Cummins has just made an engine that has the potential to hit Tier 4, so I guess we will just have to see what happens.
Ugliness to a higher level, but…
the slant of the hood, cab roof and the uh, hmmm… mega-wart are similar-----somebody tried or was it a clearance diagram limitation?
You are probably correct that it is Tier 3.5. I have read both numbers and do not know for sure what the scrubber version is rated. It probably will be a maintenance nightmare since it will have to be cleaned to remove the carbon trapped in the exhaust scubber.
CZ
One of two Tier 4 testbeds for EMD the other is a UP SD70ACe with a similar hump. They are equipped with EGR, not an catalytic converter.
Interesting. Do you know the road number of the SD70Ace that has the hump??
thanks
CZ
The Sd70Ace is 8394 and it was Retrofitted with DPF with DEF since EMD found ot they could not Meet Tier 4 without using DEF like one poster was saying months ago sorry Long time Lurker.
Is there a credible report on that happening somewhere? I haven’t heard it and I’ve been watching.
Not that I’d be surprised, but I would think that if such a thing happened it would be bigger news on this board.
I wonder who knew a year ago that EMD’s taxpayer funded (wasted) “research” on EGR only 2 cycle Tier 4 wasn’t going to fly…Oh yea, me. LOL. [:-^]
Time for CAT to get that new 4 cycle locomotive engine they have been working on ready for production, complete with the Pig Pee tanks.
You’re not kidding! Anyone who has tried to clean that built up carbon knows it is hard as rock. Hot tanking and steam cleaning doesn’t do a thing. Solvent and acids don’t do a thing. Even the wire wheel has little effect on it. About the only good solution is burning it off with a acetylene torch and even that takes hours. Better build those scrubbers out of stainless steel.
It sounds as though new scrubbers will have to be installed at a regular basis, because the old scrubbers will be out for a long time.
Andrew
I’m an environmentalist but I’m also a mechanical engineer and I am wondering what the percentage of emission improvement tier-3 to tier-4 will be? I know that full implementation of tier 4 is still a few years away, but it appears that it would be more effective to modify older engines to tier 2 or even tier 3 levels than to implement tier 4 at this stage.
Tier 4 should definitely remain in R&D but at the current state of development it is too expensive, too inefficient and it would hobble fleets and probably double or triple the maintenance budgets.
Cleaning up the environment is needed, but there is also a limit of diminishing returns and it seems that tier -4 is pushing those technical limits. The amount of emission reduction might be too small to be economically viable. The railroad industry is already quite green and it shouldn’t be hobbled with new and possibly unproven technology for only a small improvement.,
IMVHO.
Take this as you will but my Boss was in a Test Fleet for an another Industry to test roughly the same things for their Last reductions that where roughly 5 Years apart. Well the Reductions in our Emissions on a HP/Ton of Nox came to like .02 grams of Nox and less than .04 % reduction in CO2 Emissions. To give you a Starting point this is less than a 10% reduction than 5 Years ago and is adding 40K to the price of each piece of Equipment NEW and an estimated 30-60K in Maintance and DEF costs over a 4 Year Period. So to save 2K of Nox a Year for the Fleet it is costing my boss almost 500K in Purchase Costs and another 240K in Maintance and DEF costs. We are NOT Happy at the Company as this money is coming out of OUR Pockets in less Money for US.
Episette,
I can certainly understand as to why the government wants the railroads to rebuild the engines so they have fewer emissions. But I agree with you that the government may be rushing it a little (mabye more than a little) with the results costing more than they are worth (it may be the same situation with PTC, but I won’t get into that). I think that the government should handle emmision standards in baby steps, like with the proposed Teir 4 deadline be the deadline for Tier 2, for instance.
I found this link that explains some of the exhaust limits of tier 1 through tier 4.
Cleaning carbon from the internal bits of locomotives has a century of history, used little labor, was very low tech. and I concede, a procedure that would greatly challenge an attempt to adapt it.
The process required opening the combustion air intake when the engine was working hard and holding a small shovel of sand in it.
Sanding the flues…works for 844 an 3985.
It may be closer to decades away if there is a big shakeup in D.C. this November…
What you say makes perfect environmental and economic sense. Get everything up to Tier 2 or 3, and you have a fleet of locomotives that produce minimal pollution, are extremely reliable, and cost effective to maintain.
However, the current “powers that be” in Washington don’t care about the economics, reliability, or technical limits of their mandates.
Sanding the flues was an action that was pretty much limited to oil-burners, cinders and fly ash performed the same function on coal-burners.
Environmental down side of sanding the flues, all of that unburned carbon went up the stack and into the atmosphere, where we all got to inhale it.
Looks like the big hurdle from Tier 3 to 4 is NOx and particulates.
NOx is a smog creator. Smog is generally an urban problem and most RR diesel is burned outside of urban areas. This seems to me to be a solution to a non-problem (a government specialty…) Better they pursue incentives to shift traffic from road to rail through urban areas than do Tier 4 NOx.
Particulates are a problem for RR employees as well as residents of urban areas. If you want to burn diesel, you are pretty much left with having to trap the particulates mechanically from the exhaust stream which is ugly business. Switching fuel to nat’l gas or electrification would be the top alternatives.
Is biodiesel any better? I know that trucking companies are using it, and I’m wondering if that could help hit Teir 4 standards, or if it’s really more of an alternative to diesel, and not really better on the emissions.