It’s very old , it currently wears the number CP8554, I seen this machine(and touched it yesterday, I’m in Calgary). The machine has two pistons in each of it’s cylinders , the running boards are about 16 inches higher than the others. It rides on 4 axle trucks, has twin exhaust stacks and runs long hood forward. I think it hasn’t been used for many years. I thought they were all gone!! Anyone know anything about this machine?
It’s an H16-44 designed by Fairbanks Morse and built under license by Canadian Locomotive Worksin 1955. It was retired in the early 1970’s. The “two pistons in each cylinder” is the opposed piston design of engine that was used in all Fairbanks-Morse locomotives. They had a unique sound. By the way I hope you weren’t trespassing on CP property when you touched it.
Of course I wasn’t tresspassing !! I had other reasons to be there but couldn’t help to notice it at the end of the track I was looking at … like I said , I thought they were all long gone, thanks for the confirmation !!!
Randy
He didn’t “just touch it”, he hugged the thing![(-D] I suspect that because he was there with others of that peculiar pedigree, there was also probably a “group hug”.[(-D][(-D][(-D]
Wait 'till he has to explain that diesel-soot colored “lipstick” when he gets home!
photos?
For those who might not know, FM opposed piston engines powered submarines in WW II.
Dave Nelson
Sadly I didn’t take a camera , I need to replace to one I ruined in Poland… I.m still mad about that one!!!
FYI ,I was the only brave soul there in the rain and cold …
and did spectacularly well at it, too. Nothing wrong with the opposed piston design (well, some maintenance issues), but FM had some serious marketing problems.
What were you lucky guys doing in Calgary, anyway?
I already told you … gazing at an H-16-44
Calgary is a far ways off from Squapan.[swg]
No group hug then?
Does she know about “the other woman” with the initials FM ? [:-^]
WOW! And all this time I thought FM was a guy…LOL…
LC
I saw that one coming a mile away …LOL!!
[(-D]
Still do. The auxillary power in nuclear submarines is F-M. The Navy has long liked the OP design. Few in WWII were F-M however. Most were EMC Cleveland 268/278 designs. Some near the end of the war were 567s.
Another common use for FM’s were in Canadian vessels for the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway. After steam turbines stopped being favored, they were the most common engine in newbuilds from about 1965-1975.
Still a few kicking, but the end is fast approaching for the last FM’s on the lakes. I don’t expect any will see 2018 in active use.
Many were FM’s.
I count at least 23 of 77 Gato’s as having FM powerplants, which was the design that was just starting to enter service when war broke out. The majority of the rest are EMD 16-248’s or 16-278A’s, but a fair number were built with Hooven-Owens-Rentschler engines which weren’t liked at all.
62 of the 120 Balao class follow-ups also had FM’s by my count, with EMD’s accounting for the rest. And of the 29 Trench class subs built afterwards that entered service from October 1944 onward, all but one had FM’s.
I don’t believe that EMD’s 567 ever saw submarine use. In the United States Navy during WWII, they pretty much went into LST’s and tugs.
As far as I know the closest thing to a submarine engine actually made by EMD made it into submarine CHASERS, although the follow-on version of the engine (which I can’t verify as being actually built by EMD) was indeed used in subs.
This was the somewhat-amazing 16-184A. (The A variant reflected specific changes made by EMD to the GM design)
The sub engine design (which iirc was installed in the Albacore as well as a couple of more conventional classes) was the 16-338, with the generator handily on the bottom as a source of despair and woe. One of you boat nerds will know who actually built the 338s.
Thank You.
I didn’t know that FM built anything with 4 AXLE trucks, you learn something new every day. Or did you mean 4 WHEEL trucks?[;)]
Doug
NDG- Not too often you even saw CN cars on CP and vice versa. Thinking there was a bit more cooperation in the mountains and BC.
Perhaps there was no choice in some instances. Do not think it is that way so much today.