The battery fire incidents reminds me of the early days of steam boats and early locomotive boilers. There has been a good deal of progress in learning what causes Li-ion battery fires, but a lot of progress is needed in preventing battery fires.
I don’t know if this is the best thread on the Joule, but I’ll use it.
As seen on Loconotes, EMD has released more details on the full Joule line and Artists renditions (I assume) of the SD70J and SD40JR
As suspected, they are in traditional reused North American bodies.
https://www.progressrail.com/en/Segments/RollingStock/Locomotives/FreightLocomotives/EMDJoule.html
I downloaded the screenshots of the artist renditions which are not on that page, but not sure how to upload them on this site.
The question I have as are these using AC traction or DC traction. the Artist rendition shows the SD40JR with standard HT-C trucks and the SD70J appears to have standard HTCR bogies.
Dave said in this thread https://cs.trains.com/trn/f/741/p/287983/3338736.aspx
That the smaller AC motors could be made to fit, but that he would be surprised if they did so.
Once again, begs the question what bogies are under these units.
Of course, the SD40JR has no fuel tank in that picture so I guess if they wanted to they could stuff HTCR trucks under it.
SD70J-BB sounds like it will be a BIG MoFo. 525K on rail. Max speed of 50 MPH may be a downer in many US use situations.
BB? is that for Brazil?
At the bottom of the SD70J-BB column where it says “gauge” it says “Standard, narrow, broad”.
Probably if a standard or broad gauge they might be on a C-C configuration.
BB means it uses the 4-axle GBB truck first used in Brazil under the SD70ACe-BB. EMD won’t ever do a DD with the 4-axle rigid truck in the future as it’s just too hard on the rails in curves and too expensive to make the huge cast truck frame now since pattern was scrapped in the late 1980’s.
Even though the brochure doesn’t show a picture of the SD70J-BB with the 4-axle trucks I’m quite sure it will use a standard gauge derivative of the GBB used in Brazil.
As far as which truck will be used on the SD70J, that must be an HTCR with the same motors as an SD70ACe given the 200kLbs. starting TE. As far as the SD40JR, I really don’t know since the 96:15 gear ratio with 50 mph max speed I don’t recognize. Perhaps it’s a new smaller AC motor that will fit in the HT-C. Since it only shows that model as for standard gauge, I suspect it will reuse the HT-C truck and perhaps DC motors with a new gear ratio.
Dave
So where does one expect to see an SD70J-BB with 50 mph limit in use in the US?
Captive service between Barstow and Bakersfield and Barstow and the Port of LA/LB, perhaps?
Lifting grain, coal and oil over Mullan Pass on the former NP, perhaps?
I was completely wrong.
Found Hi res images on Progress Rail’s Twitter feed.
That is the new cab from the T4 with the teardrop windows and the the fabricated trucks
https://twitter.com/Progress_Rail/status/1554590293135081472/photo/1
Does not answer the question on what the SD40J is really riding on.
Also, I wonder if there’s changes to the frame such that they couldn’t reuse older locos.
In the Automotive world it’s generally the case that the design is better if new from the ground up. My going in assumption was that that would not hold for locomotives, because why would it.
Maybe UP will trade in some SD60s