Results of a sold EMD

EMD offered a new line of "switchers" maybe two or three years ago, the GP-15D and the GP-20D (or something similar-). I believe they were actually built by M/K or Boise, and had Cat. engines in them. I haven't heard of too many being sold, though. Too expensive?

Based on the recent orders reported in Railway Age, the Green Goat and Green Kid seem the be the switchers of the future.

[quote]UP MADE EMD strip out all the technology from the SD70s when they placed that big order, because EMD's electronic stuff was crap. Notice no "stripper" GE models were received by UP?

Do you want fancy electronic gizmos, or do you want locomotives that engine crews love and lead your railroad in availibility and time between major overhauls?

I don't want to start (or get involved in) a massive debate, but I would like to put in my 2 cents' worth:

GE, not EMD, makes the best locomotives now; has for the better part of 2 decades. Get over it.

I'm not against expressing opinions or facts, and it's quite possible GE's may be superior in some aspects. But I find the way you've expressed it to be a tad contemptuous.

UP MADE EMD strip out all the technology from the SD70s when they placed that big order, because EMD's electronic stuff was crap. Notice no "stripper" GE models were received by UP?

UP's recent GE models have been AC4400CW's and ES44AC's--AC units designed for heavy-haul service. In such service, computer controls are useful. The SD70M's were designed (and purchased) as general-service units, direct replacements for SD40-2's. As such, the computer control systems were neither necessary nor wanted, and the units have excelled in the service for which they were designed. Furthermore, BNSF's large number of SD70MAC's (many of which were purchased long after the AC4400CW had proven itself) don't seem to be suffering.

Oh, and UP got a good "financing deal" from EMD to induce that big order too

But it seems to me that favourable financing is precisely one of the reasons for GE's strong sales.

The best locomotive by that standard today is not made by EMD folks, it's made by GE. Case in point: BNSF yanked its SD75Ms from its hot intermodal trains due to reliability problems, while those assignments are held without issue by their massive fleet of C44-9Ws.

That's a misleading statement, because the SD75 was neither EMD's main offering prior to 2005, nor their most reliable modern unit. Any research regarding locomotive reliability will invariably turn up the SD70M as among the best (or sometimes the best) when it comes to reliability.

I don't think the SD75's reliability problems could have been permanent if CN bought them in similar numbers to Dash-9's and has continued with the SD70M-2. Nor do I believe that the C44-9W has a spotless reliability record. I've heard good things about it, but I also came across a couple of discussions in which their performance was found to be poor:

http://railroadforum.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4736
http://railroadforum.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3593

As for the hoghead contingent who talk about their "preferences" as being some indicator of "quality" let's get serious...engineers are resistant to change, and engineers trained to run on mostly EMD products who are used to their handling characteristics are of course going to frown upon learning how to handle locomotives that respond differently.

I'm going to trust the engineers on this one simply because they're the only ones actually running the locomotives. Some prefer GE, others prefer EMD--but given the fact that GE started leading in sales in 1983, I really don't think there are many engineers out there who are totally new to GE's.

<i>Do you want fancy electronic gizmos, or do you want locomotives that engine crews love and lead your railroad in availibility and time between major overhauls?</i>

I want the most for the money. And, it seems that GE's offering that today. Hey, yeah it's nice if the crew likes it, but <i>they're paid to drive the thing!</i> It's a free country - can't stand driving a GE, go work somewhere else. Fancy gizmos? Hey , if it means more moved for less, you bet.

The reality is RRs don't care if its 1,000 hamsters running on wheels or a supercooled superconducting thingamajig. What's cheaper over the lifecycle. That's where it's at. They'll buy it from GE, BBD, GM, MK, Siemens, ABB, SLM, whomever.

As for the AC/DC debate? Guess what - in 5 years, there won't be one. The costs for inverter technology are falling and the capability's growing. Today's 'high horsepower' US freight diesel is at the bottom end of what rail based inverter tech offers on the HP scale (state of the art for 4 axle overseas is at the 10,000 HP mark and going to go higher), low compared to the rest of the industrial world (where variable frequency drives at the 1,000 HP level are catalog items, medium voltage is getting more and more common, and a few companies offer 10,000HP drives, refrigerator sized 7,000+ HP drives are poised to escape from the lab soon), and limited by prime mover tech, which may / may not grow in the future (it seems that 6,000 HP or so is about as much as anyone's gonna cram into a loco these days until something evolves a bit more). GTO is a gonner, IGBT may soon be surpassed by IGFET, and the HEAVY competition is bringing the prices down at all power levels - everyone and their brother makes an AC drive now. Get used to those pesky computer gizmos - they're gonna be standard in about 5 years. The basic component of an inverter - the six pack of semiconductors - is subject to the same economy of scale that ICs and everything else electronics is, and the few hundred AC locos a RR would order are a drop in the bucket in the inverter world. It's amazing GE or GM even offer DC anymore - there's no point to it today at all, other than the initial cost is a bit cheaper. That'll change in 5 years...

[quote="Nasadowsk"]
"I want the most for the money. And, it seems that GE's offering that today. Hey, yeah it's nice if the crew likes it, but <i>they're paid to drive the thing!</i> It's a free country - can't stand driving a GE, go work somewhere else. Fancy gizmos? Hey , if it means more moved for less, you bet."

I think UP would tell you that for a large segment of their business, those gizmos do not move more freight and sure as hell don't do it for less.

"The reality is RRs don't care if its 1,000 hamsters running on wheels or a supercooled superconducting thingamajig. What's cheaper over the lifecycle. That's where it's at. They'll buy it from GE, BBD, GM, MK, Siemens, ABB, SLM, whomever."

My point exactly. Why pay for technology you don't really need?

"As for the AC/DC debate? Guess what - in 5 years, there won't be one. The costs for inverter technology are falling and the capability's growing. Today's 'high horsepower' US freight diesel is at the bottom end of what rail based inverter tech offers on the HP scale (state of the art for 4 axle overseas is at the 10,000 HP mark and going to go higher), low compared to the rest of the industrial world (where variable frequency drives at the 1,000 HP level are catalog items, medium voltage is getting more and more common, and a few companies offer 10,000HP drives, refrigerator sized 7,000+ HP drives are poised to escape from the lab soon), and limited by prime mover tech, which may / may not grow in the future (it seems that 6,000 HP or so is about as much as anyone's gonna cram into a loco these days until something evolves a bit more".

What the hell good would 10,000 HP on four axles do us in the US? Even with sophisticated wheel slip systems, 4000 HP was hardly practical for anything but passenger trains and light intermodals. At some point, no matter how great the technology, traction still boils down to the weight of the unit and structural limit of how many pounds you can put on one axle. It's still very hard to get past the fact that ultra high horsepower units lack versatility, and the things that cause this aren't likely to change soon, if at all.


"GTO is a gonner, IGBT may soon be surpassed by IGFET, and the HEAVY competition is bringing the prices down at all power levels - everyone and their brother makes an AC drive now. Get used to those pesky computer gizmos - they're gonna be standard in about 5 years. The basic component of an inverter - the six pack of semiconductors - is subject to the same economy of scale that ICs and everything else electronics is, and the few hundred AC locos a RR would order are a drop in the bucket in the inverter world."

No matter how cheap this stuff gets to buy, it still costs money to repair it. Years and years ago some bright person at GM stated that "parts not used can't break." That was a great philosophy, but today we can't roll up the car windows without using a computer. That's fine until the damn thing breaks and it takes a a technician half a day at $70.00 an hour just to FIND the problem, let alone fix it.

" It's amazing GE or GM even offer DC anymore - there's no point to it today at all, other than the initial cost is a bit cheaper. That'll change in 5 years..."



Do you think it's ANY coincedence that perhaps the two most successful railroads in North America, NS and CN have NO interest in AC technology? There IS a point to DC traction. It's FAR cheaper to buy, has fewer parts to fail, and in merchandise service and on mostly flat railroads, performs just about as well.

<i>What the hell good would 10,000 HP on four axles do us in the US? </i>

Same thing it does in .eu - pull an 8 car passenger train at 100mph. Up a 4% grade. Or freight at 70. Correction - I was wrong, the 10,000 HP unit was a 6 axle unit (3 trucks, Europe tends to shy away from C trucks for some reason). A quick scan of SBB and DB's stock shows 6.4 MW in 4 axle, though. That's 8500+ HP. Still not shabby.

<i>Even with sophisticated wheel slip systems, 4000 HP was hardly practical for anything but passenger trains and light intermodals.</i>

Sure, if you're moving coal around at 20mph. If you want to move FAST, you need much more than that. Only reason US freights have topped out at '6000' HP (actually, it's a lot less at the wheels), is because prime movers haven't advanced beyond that. 4500 HP (at the rail) was achived in the US in the 30's in electrics, and today's HHP-8s and ALP-46s are 8000 HP. At the rail. In a 100 ton box. Even an AEM-7 (obsolete by today's standards) packs more HP than ay diesel GM or GE sells. But they're light, because that's what you need pulling passenger stuff. Even the 'too light and slippery' AEM-7s could do the work of 2 F-40s, and did it regularly on the NEC north of NYC.

<i>It's still very hard to get past the fact that ultra high horsepower units lack versatility, and the things that cause this aren't likely to change soon, if at all.</i>

Maintaining full TE out to 50mph? For passenger service, that's a great thing. The fact is, HP is going up right now on electrics. If diesels weren't limited by their prime movers, it'd go up there, too. The point isn't getting more TE than you have now, it's maintaining it up to a much higher speed. That's what HP gets you.

<i>No matter how cheap this stuff gets to buy, it still costs money to repair it.</i>

Let's see, the 500,000 mile overhaul on an AC motor is change the bearings, megger the windings, dust it off. No commutator, no brush checks, no big cleaning up carbon dust, etc etc etc.

Oh yeah, AC motors are a boatload more reliable. There's practically. nothing to break on them.

<i> That's fine until the damn thing breaks and it takes a a technician half a day at $70.00 an hour just to FIND the problem, let alone fix it. </i>

Walk up to control panel, punch up the diagnostic screen, computer says what's wrong. Oh wow, the inverter blew a six pack. Pull it out, throw it in box, write a note that says 'It broke" on it, mail it to GE or whomever.

Then gain, 'out of the box' reliability on any competently designed inverter system is so good, by the time it breaks, you're due for a refurb anyway...

Or, you could be tearing down that DC motor, sorting out what is/isn't salvageable, rewinding the armature, rebanding the commutator, turning it, cutting the mica, putting it back together, checking the brushes, setting brush tension, run testing it, etc etc etc.

All of industry is desperately dumping DC motors - US freight locomotves are quyite litteraly the last big holdout for DC anywhere. There's virtually no other market for DC motors in anything else.

<i>New GE's have better uptime and lower maintenance than the crap EMD now makes.</i>

Well, GE stunk royally when they first appeared. But through slow constant improvements, they got to where they are now. GM threw in the towel on EMD because it was gonna be a HUGE investment to win back customers. Given where GM is now, it's pretty obvious they ddn't have the money.

What the hell good would 10,000 HP on four axles do us in the US?

Same thing it does in .eu - pull an 8 car passenger train at 100mph. Up a 4% grade. Or freight at 70.

...Maintaining full TE out to 50mph? For passenger service, that's a great thing. The fact is, HP is going up right now on electrics. If diesels weren't limited by their prime movers, it'd go up there, too. The point isn't getting more TE than you have now, it's maintaining it up to a much higher speed. That's what HP gets you.

...All of industry is desperately dumping DC motors - US freight locomotves are quyite litteraly the last big holdout for DC anywhere. There's virtually no other market for DC motors in anything else.

The railroads in North America and those in Europe simply aren't the same.

Even if North America is the last major holdout for diesel DC units, their fleets of such units by far eclipse in size those of the rest of the world. Not many trains running in the US are passenger trains running at 100 mph up 4% grades. Few lines even have 3% grades, let alone 4%, and passenger trains are in the tiny minority.

The US tried 6000 hp for freight units, and even with many of the bugs worked out, they didn't catch on. A high-powered unit will simply not replace two units of half the horsepower--it may do so at high speed, but not on grades or while starting a heavy train. With long stretches of track with varying terrain, the limitations of very powerful single locomotives--when placed in North American freight service--have been realized. In fact, some roads (including the railroad next to where I live, the St. Lawrence & Atlantic) have gone to the opposite extreme by rebuilding 3000-hp GP40's into road slug sets, making essentially two 1500-hp locomotives. This provides the power of a single GP40 at higher speed while doubling pulling capacity at low speeds.

Walk up to control panel, punch up the diagnostic screen, computer says what's wrong. Oh wow, the inverter blew a six pack. Pull it out, throw it in box, write a note that says 'It broke" on it, mail it to GE or whomever.

Computers say what goes wrong, but they sometimes go wrong themselves. They will sometimes bring a locomotive to a halt for very minor problems that would otherwise not interrupt the trip.

"The reality is RRs don't care if its 1,000 hamsters running on wheels or a supercooled superconducting thingamajig. What's cheaper over the lifecycle. That's where it's at. They'll buy it from GE, BBD, GM, MK, Siemens, ABB, SLM, whomever."

That's the reason UP bought over 1,300 stripped-down DC SD70M's that are pretty much setting the standard for reliability. BNSF has a huge fleet of C44-9W's that performs perfectly adequately in place of AC4400CW's, and CN has an industry-leading operating ratio without having purchased a single AC-powered unit, or any over 4400 horsepower.

Well, where do I start? Why in the hell would you want to run a freight train at 80, 90 or 100 mph? 99% of all rail infrastruture is NEVER going to be good enough to exceed 60 mph. The US is a heavy haul market. US railroads LOVE 10-15000 ton trains. Even if your 10,000 HP locomotive could pull this train, it could never get it moving in the first place. Single unit trains are just asking to be stranded out in BFE because of some malfunction or another. At least with multiple units, you might be able to limp her home, or into the nearest siding. If you want to believe that all these computers just magically diagnose themselves, you are dreaming. My experience is that most give just enough information to make a semi- educated guess, but that's about all. The newer systems on automobiles, (OBD II) takes millions of diagnostic readings every minute, yet CANNOT diagnose itself. It can tell you that some sensor is getting suspect information, but cannot tell you why. Is the sensor bad, or is something actually wrong? Semi trucks now have VERY sophisticated computers that run and monitor just about everything, but I have seen top-flight technicians chase ghosts for days. Many times it is the computer itself or the wiring that fails. Every time you use a computer to do something that used to be done mechanically, you just added to the list of parts that can and WILL fail about tenfold. I don't hate computers, or electronics, but I have no illusion about their short commings. I remember Don Phillips writing about being stranded on an Amtrak train in the middle of the desert because the P42's computer wouldn't reboot. Well, that's one failure an E8 or an F40 never had! As for AC traction, I don't have any arguments that AC traction motors are better, or that AC traction can work great, but at what cost? I don't believe for one second that the huge price premium EMD and GE charge for AC's is just going to disappear overnight. No matter how cheap the parts get, there is still parts a DC loco doesn't have. And even if EMD and GE stop producing DC's tomorrow, it's still gonna take 20-50 years to weed them all out. DC's are not like steam engines. They are not going to disappear in a 7-10 year period. As for who makes the better loco, I don't know any more than most of you know, but UP is getting it's highest availibility rates out of SD70M's and SD9043MAC's, and the 710 is going 250,000 miles longer between overhauls than the FDL. Also, it has yet to be proven that GE can build a locomotive that can excel past 15 or 20 years. Maybe the Dash-9 is that loco, but nothing they have built up to that point has had any staying power. Even some Dash-8's have been cut up. Meanwhile, given proper care, an SD9 could probably go 75 years at least.

The SD9 is also one of the few locomotives left out there that would be likely to still run after a nuclear attack, provided the EMP hasn't welded it to the rails.

Just as the market moved toward consolidation, I see the diesel market now moving away from the "few large producers" model. If EMD really wants to succeed fast, they will target some new niches such as switching or coal-drag specific power. Meeting GE head on like they are doing will take 30 years to bring back their lead, just as it took GE 30 years to conquer EMD.

I once spoke to some BNSF crews that said GE's were fine, but for true pulling guts on a unit coal train, use a 70MAC and nothing else.

Chill out!!!

All he's saying is that they're pretty rugged units. Don't be so literal!

Ok here's my two cent's,

From some of your attitudes you may not care what I have to say, but from my experience in the running trades all the RR's seem to be concerned about is fuel savings. Stickers, posters and bullitens about fuel conservation are all you see at work. In fact CP limits all trains, except certain hot shots to 45mph in throttle 3 through 8 for the purpose of fuel conservation. Do you really think 10000 horsepower is high on their shopping list. When power is assingned to a train they calculate how much tonnage the consist can pull up the ruling grade and they fiil the train out to the maximum tonnage, if it makes it over the road at 12mph with out stalling they are happy. In their eyes the faster that train goes the more fuel it is using. I am sure that the other Class 1's have some sort of similar plan because one of the AAR's goals is to lower fuel consumption. As for the difference between 6000HP and 4400HP, the companies only concern is how much they can pull. CP rates the 6000HP SD90's, the 4300 version and the AC4400 GE's the same. In their eyes there is no advantage to the extra horsepower. Form my personal experience, when having one in your train climbing a hill, there is no difference in the speed, your still down to 12mph.

As for the so called benefits of the computers, last winter CP had well over 100 GE's tied up with frozen rad's because some software glitch caused the radiators not to drain like they were supposed to. Never would have happened with the GM's. For CP, a company that runs lots of one unit wonders, loosing 100+ units is huge. There have been many times when lifting a unit enroute that we could not use it because the monitor was fried or computer crashed. With out the monitor or computer you cannot set up the unit up for trailing mode, and you can't use it as a leader because the spedometer is on the monitor display. This stuff would have never happened with an SD40 or with the SD9 mxdata was talking about. Another time a unit (wasn't on my train) died because a lightning strike hit the radio antenna and somehow fried the computer. I don't know about you but this new technology don't seem that great to me. All most all of CP's yard engines are 50+ year old GP9's that are starting to show their age but after all these years they still do what they were designed to do. All the electronics in these things are wire's and relays that after 50 years still work, lets see how well the new garbage with the computers works in 50 years.

As for AC and DC motors, I ain't an expert on it, but it seems that DC motors pull better at higher speeds, but the AC motors pull way better at slow speeds.

For those who think that the railroads don't listen to the hogheads, why do you think that most new orders are going back to the veritcal control stand instead of a desktop one, because the hoghead had a problem with them. When CP was testing the Green Goat, one hogger I was working with asked a CP and Railpower official riding with us what the big computer screen blocking his view of his blind side was for, the Railpower guy said it was for the technical displays and the battery power, he replied and told them that seeing out the other side of his engine, seeing if he was going to sideswipe anything or not was more important than seeing if his batteries were dead or not. Right away both officals started taking notes and looking for other places to put the screen. You better beleive that the company listens to the engineers after all they are eyes and ears that report any issues with the power.

I am in no way trying to say who builds the better engine, but from my personal experience the GE's seem to show the wear and tear faster. The oldest GE's we run are 10 years old and they shake and rattle more than the 50 year old yard enginese or 30 year old SD40's. Some engineers question how they are going to be in at 20 years, from the shape they are in after 10 I don't know. The SD90's seem to show less signs of wear and the Isolated cab is way better than anything GE offers. You also seem to see more turbo failures with the GE's than the SD90's. I have also had more GE's fail on me than GM's. Also there have been issues with excessive wear on the GE self steering trucks, when going over switches they sould like the are going to fall apart. One thing to take into consideration when bickering about who builds better garbage(as far as I am concerned that is what it is), the railroads don't always purchase the new power, CP doesn't own any of the new crap, it is all on long term lease and maybe GE offers a better price and better waranty than EMD seeing how there are more GE than GM's. GM and GE maintain it all through the lease agreement, so I really don't think they care who builds a better engine when leasing it, because when it fails it aint gonna cost them a cent to repair it. All they care is what the initial cost is.

End of Rant

I can't speak for mxdata, but that's certainly a logical explanation to me.

Just remember to "duck and cover" when somebody reaches critical mass!