Wanna see one completely rebuilt, the engine replaced by a trio of gensets, computer-controlled, etc? It's short of an hour, but an interesting vid. It makes the guys look like morons, though.
It won't fit in your parking lot?
Locomotives are a very simple device to control compared to predator drone aircraft.
Is anyone working on using computers and low cost foreign labor to replace all the locomotive engineers in north America? a lot of subway systems do not have a human operator on the train.
When I saw this thread I started to wonder how he was going to put it on his trailer.
Jon
I watched the entire movie, very fascinating and close to my current interests.
i
I was really surprised when you bought a shortish building -without- a crane up top, y'know?
"Metric Horsepower"????
Forklifts do the job better in most instances
i
It's too big for you to load up and scrap?
I had to wait for two of those engines labeled "Canadian Pacific" shunted cars in their local yard this morning.
Do they carry mail for Canada Post ?
No, that would have been "Canadian National", CP was the money making line.
Yeah, they're great for so many things, plus they go outside and load/unload the trucks. But for really heavy railroadish things... ;)
And prices all stated in Euros. I'm thinking this was filmed for showing in some country _other_ than our own.
The "Union Pacif" part of the name is on brighter yellow panels than the "ific" part - and also several inches higher on the loco - so I suspect side panels from a different loco have been installed.
The sign is correctly spelled on the loco in the background. You can see this same engine (UP5720) in motion - sighns correct - at
It is a GE AC4400CW with Computerized Tractive Effort option - 4400 HP AC traction motors built between 1993 and 2004. Union Pacific alne owns 1338 of these locomotives.
AC indicates AC traction motors (with separate inverters for each motor for speed control). The 4400 is the horsepower, the C indicates
6 axle trucks (in place of the B series 4 axle trucks) and the W signifies the "americannsafety" or "wide" cab. The same basic trainwas also built with 6000 HP as the AC6000CW series.See :
Slower than molasses.
Notice the size of the fuel tanks.... holy shit.... Plus, in very cold weather, some railroads leave these diesels on 24/7. Breathe deep.... These hyooge diesels cannot navigate all track, even assuming the correck gauge.
Ed H. should note that these diesel-ELECTRICS accelerate just fine off the throttled diesel generator.... Heh, which bodes quite well for the plain ole otto-cycled AngstMobile, I"m happy to say.
These diesel electrics also run hyoooge (often) Quincy air compressors, for the train-line braking system. Also inneresting is that in at least some diesel-electric designs, the generator also acts as the starter motor for the diesel -- super cool, imo.
Personally, I think 6,000 hp in one unit might be a bit much. The torque at the wheels is so high, there isn't really enough coefficient of friction to take full advantage -- esp in the rain. Spinning steel wheels can quickly put divets in rail, rendering it useless, dangerous. Mechanically more efficienct -- esp on the couplers, rail, etc -- would be to have several smaller diesels spread throughout the freight consist. Unless the consist is SO large, so heavy, they need these 6,000 hp behemoths spread throughout the consist.
Smaller utility diesels can have a mere 350 hp.... and what they can pull is fukn amazing -- altho their capacity rapidly decreases up grades. But a mere 1,000 hp can haul well over 1 million pounds, up grade.... altho how fast is another issue. Heh, sort of like the AngstMobile, with its get-me-TF-home backup genset.... LOL
There's not much point to dynamic braking on a diesel, no matter how big. The reason is most of the freight consist cannot brake regeneratively, and instead uses "train-line" compressed air from the diesel-driven compressors for braking -- since there are no motors on any other cars for regeneration..
Or spinning out. Traction control notwithstanding.
because they're creeping. (Even with
Thank gawd. Some railroads use jet-engine snow-blowers, and you'd think you've descended into hell, being even a few blocks (few hundred yards) from these things. Holy shit....
That's ackshooly a good idear. Altho they can also just put smaller (or more) locomotives in the consist, and not drive any given diesel so hard, because most locomotives have the provision where one locomotive can be made the "master" locomotive, and the others in the consist are made "slaves" -- even tho each locomotive is independently identical. So it's not necessary to have a slug as the slave. So all locomotives in the consist are powered/revved up by the engineer's controller in the head-out (pulling) locomotive. Which would include slugs in the consist, as well. And the master/slave status of any locomotive can be switched over as necessary, usually between the two locomotives at either end of the consist.
So altho the slug is a nice and cheaper solution, it's not a necessary solution, since the provision for distributed power is already built in to each locomotive itself. Again, traction can be as much of an issue as raw power itself. Altho, the six-axle config of these high-hp locomotives certainly helps.
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