Here is today’s novice question. (I do search the community before I ask…) I have read references to “warming up the engine.” I doubt this means hitting it with a blow dryer. What, exactly, does this mean, and how important is it? Also, so that I sound more seasoned, what is the difference, if any, between an “engine” and a “locomotive?”
Model locomotives need no warm up. However, there are people involved in the hobby who can come up with some pretty wierd theorys on how to do things. If you’re talking about real locomotives, a steam engine needs to build steam before it is capable of being used and diesels also need a peroid of time after start-up to reach operating temperatures and warm up.
An engine and a locomotive are one and the same.
Warming up means running the locomotive for a short period until the motor and lubrication in power train has come to operating temperature. Engine and locomotive have been used interchangeably. However an engine can be the thing that powers the locomotive. A locomotive is what pulls a train (or is it the engine? [:)])
Joe
Watch your loco run when you give it power, particularly if it’s in a garage or cool room or if it’s been stored in cool conditions. It will get faster as it warms up due a lot to the lubrication warming up as well as the motor. If a model has an electric motor that is too worn, it may actually slow down from getting hot.
A diesel-electric locomotive has a prime mover which is a diesel engine. Many of todays genset locomotives have multiple prime movers which are mostly diesel. Prime movers for both of these categories are being evaluated to run on natural gas.
Richard
This is a LOCOMOTIVE, Then Engine is circled.
On a Diesel Electric Locomotive, the Locomotive is the whole thing, the engine is under the hood and includes all of the machinery that is in there. The Prime Mover is the block that has pistons and burns fuel.
On the LIRR a self-proplelled car is a locomotice,(it has a blue card) but has no engine. It does have motors.
On NYCT a self-propelled(subway) car is called a “motor”, it does not have a blue card and is not inspected on the same federal cycles as other locomotives.
On your model railroad you do not need to wait for the engine to warm up, but if you are running with a real clock of some sort, then you need to allow time to warm up the engine, inspect the train, etc. It takes subway train leaving the yard about 45 minutes (according to union contract) to inspect the train and move it to the station.
ROAR
If the model has not been run for some time, or is stored in a ‘cold’ environment, letting it warm up is a good idea. The lube is stiff and needs to be warmed to the point it will actually work. I have P2K models that seem to need a ‘warm up’ after being not run for a few months. I have Atlas & Kato models that seem to run super-smooth right out of the box. When doing DCC speed matching of model engines, I always let them ‘warm up’ by letting them run for 15-20 minutes. This gets the lube in the gears warm and the model is not as ‘stiff’ when starting. DCC speed matching is best done when the models have been broken in and warmed up. Your end result is better matched units. If you are running DC, this is not a real issue.
Locomotive or engine - They seem to be used interchangeably. but I suppose a ‘locomotive’ is the entire unit, and the ‘engine’ is the power plant that’s in the locomotive. Not a real issue…
Jim
Wow, so you mean all these years I’ve been calling locomotives…engines, I’ve been wrong and the full scale railroaders I’ve heard call the loco an engine have also been wrong?
Not necessarily, but there’s a difference between correct useage and common useage. [:-^]
Pictured below is a locomotive with two engines:
Verbally, I probably refer to it as an engine more times than I do as a locomotive, but in most cases modellers and real railroaders would know that to which I’m referring. [swg]
Likewise, I’d never heard a switch referred to as a turnout by real railroaders, but they would seldom have need to differentiate it from an electrical switch. [(-D]
Wayne
With two engines on each side.
----nit nit nit PICK—
one rivet, two rivets, three rivets, four
ROAR
Two engines total, Bre’r Lion. Each is a two-cylinder unit, each cylinder having separate valve motion synchronized by a common shaft, with the main rods driving a common main axle.
Then, too, my diesel hydraulics each have two engines, connected only by the control linkage. Each engine drives the axles of one four wheel truck.
Diesels warm up like any other internal combustion engines. Steam cylinders also have to warm up - hence the clouds of vapor (and condensate) blasting sideways from the petcocks when a steamer starts to roll.
I used to refer to that entire assemblage between coupler faces as a loco. Then I moved to an area where Spanish is ubiquitous…
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with sane motive power)
Absolutely nothing…A unit and motor is another name for a diesel.
To railroad men there is no “lash up” its locomotive,engine,motor or unit consist.Lash up is a pure railfan/modeling term…To the operation crew its a switch…To the engineering department its a turnout.
Your train is a train consist with a number or symbol.
Railroad speak is easy and not filled with cutesy pie railfan/modeler terms.
BTW.When I was railroading and somebody called a engineer a “hogger” they just might be picking their self up off the ground.You see locally a Hogger was a nick name for a hog farmer!
Wayne,Then you would need two crews since there is two “engines” in order to fulfill union work and job definitions*…However,that is a locomotive in railroad management terms since there is one boiler…
*That was a mess with diesel consist when 2 or more units had cabs…This was hammered out between railroad management and the BLE and BLF&E.In the end Engineers and firemen got extra pay.Then the railroads started to eliminate fireman jobs.
I have often heard dispatchers and crews, on the scanner, referring to locomotives as “power”. Such as tie your power up on track 5.
Your right, Wayne, technically speaking! However, does every conversation here have to be technically beaten to death? Many times here on the MRForum, it seems to me that the original posters intent is missed by the responders, by their need to “One-Up” the previous post and this gets sorta boring![zzz]
My family has been working in railroading for a couple generations now. And there is a lot of usage variance. Engine and locomotive have been used interchangeably for as long as I know when referring to the power. Although I knew that a Challenger had 2 engines( at least that’s what I’ve always been told) and that a SD40-2 had one prime mover. The people I’ve worked with understood that when we say prime mover we’re being more specific about the diesel inside, not just the entire loco. BTW, a lot of times we just call it the diesel or her. Such as, “we can’t get her/the diesel to roll over”–lol,
Richard
To our original asker, and as answered by Jim above, when the model train guy talks about warming up his engine, or locomotive, whatever, it is usually in reference to getting the most consistent performance out of it. Most, if not all, models improve their running characterists with both wear/break-in and with a warm-up prior to starting 'operation’s for those who do that on their layouts. But, as Jim alluded, if you want to make DCC controlled locomotives perform well with minimal voltage, such as when lifting a long train of coal-filled hoppers at a realistic acceleration, the decoder settings to get that nice smooth acceleration should be done when the engine is warmed up…after it has been run for about five minutes or so under load.
What this means is that when you first apply voltage to a cold locomotive, even one whose CV’s for smooth acceleration you have previously set, it will probably be a bit hesitant and jerky. Only when it has been warmed for a few minutes by running it will you regain that smooth slow motor control that you had set into the configuration variables (CV’s) that control the motor.
Crandell
I have replaced all the factory grease in all my locos with LaBelles Teflon Grease and my locos don’t seem to need any warming up.