EMD Field Loop Dynamic Brake Control

Baldwin’s introduction of an optional compatible control system, including field loop dynamic brake control, was mentioned in a Railway Locomotives and Cars 1954 October article, attached below. The option was said to have been introduced within the last year. It was said that Baldwin units fitted with this control system would MU with EMD units in motoring and braking, and with Alco units in motoring only. That tends to confirm that only field loop dynamic braking was available, not – at that time anyway – the potential wire type.

Presumably the Wemco system used by Baldwin was essentially the same as had been used by Fairbanks Morse in its Consolidation line. As far as I know, in that case, the exciter battery fields were connected in the loop, each being shunted by a lowish value resistor that diverted most of the loop current. But from the viewpoint of the loop, as it were, the shunted exciter field looked like a similar impedance as an EMD main generator battery field.



Cheers,

Also from RLC 1954 October, an article on Fairbanks Morse locomotive improvements mentioned the availability of what it called the “dual-circuit dynamic brake control”, which allowed leading F-M units to control trailing units with either field loop or potential wire DB control.

That would appear to put a date on the advent of the dual DB control case.

Presumably this was done with the WEMCO electrical and control equipment, although that is not explicit. One may also assume that GE, as the incoming supplier soon thereafter, would have been required to match this capability. And that having done this, it was then able to offer the same facility for Alco locomotives.



Cheers,

Pneudyne wrote: ↑Mon Feb 06, 2023 1:33 am Baldwin’s introduction of an optional compatible control system, including field loop dynamic brake control, was mentioned in a Railway Locomotives and Cars 1954 October article, attached below. The option was said to have been introduced within the last year. It was said that Baldwin units fitted with this control system would MU with EMD units in motoring and braking, and with Alco units in motoring only. That tends to confirm that only field loop dynamic braking was available, not – at that time anyway – the potential wire type.

Presumably the Wemco system used by Baldwin was essentially the same as had been used by Fairbanks Morse in its Consolidation line. As far as I know, in that case, the exciter battery fields were connected in the loop, each being shunted by a lowish value resistor that diverted most of the loop current. But from the viewpoint of the loop, as it were, the shunted exciter field looked like a similar impedance as an EMD main generator battery field.


RLC 195410 p.75 BLH MU.png



Cheers,

I think BLH at that time is just reinforcing its position; Erie had all of its Baldwin road switchers built to allow multiple unit control with both EMD and ALCO units (dynamic brake was field loop only, and worked with EMD only) and this began right at the end of 1949 with the 1100 class DRS-4-4-1500 units. The word on the street was often that Baldwins would not MU with other makes and BLH was probably just reminding everyone at that date that this wasn't the case.

See this handy chart at Fallen Flags for MU compatibility of Erie / EL first generation diesels.

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/el/loco/el-mu-comp.html

Pneudyne wrote: ↑Mon Feb 06, 2023 10:14 pm Also from RLC 1954 October, an article on Fairbanks Morse locomotive improvements mentioned the availability of what it called the “dual-circuit dynamic brake control”, which allowed leading F-M units to control trailing units with either field loop or potential wire DB control.

That would appear to put a date on the advent of the dual DB control case.

Presumably this was done with the WEMCO electrical and control equipment, although that is not explicit. One may also assume that GE, as the incoming supplier soon thereafter, would have been required to match this capability. And that having done this, it was then able to offer the same facility for Alco locomotives.


RLC 195410 p.77.jpg RLC 195410 p.78 F-M Dual-Circuit Dynamic Brake Control.png



Cheers,

It is my understanding (from reading an interview of an F-M employee years back) that the Universal Dynamic Brake (the official name for this option, and that's what you'll see it called in operating manuals and wiring diagrams) didn't happen until GE equipment was being used. So far, I have only one operator's manual in my collection for units that had this option; this is for the very late Baltimore & Ohio H16-44's 6705-6709. I have also recently seen a wiring diagram for Reading 807-808 stating clearly that these two units had Universal Dynamic Brake. I am sure there are others, but have no idea which.

Baldwin offered field loop dynamic brake on units with electric throttle; it was not compatible with ALCO-GE units and I have no evidence anywhere that BLW / BLH ever offered a comparable Universal Dynamic Brake to Fairbanks-Morse's setup. The setup was cooked up by Fairbanks-Morse, not by either of its electrical contractors.

Thanks for that, Will.

It could have been that the change from Westinghouse to GE electrical equipment presented F-M with something of a problem, given that GE used the potential wire dynamic braking systems whereas Westinghouse used the field loop type. Preferably, future GE-equipped units should be fully backward compatible with those that were Westinghouse-equipped. Thus F-M more-or-less had to develop its Universal Dynamic braking system.

Possibly this was done by more-or-less overlaying a field loop system on the potential wire system. This would have required that GE-equipped units could both provide and respond to field loop control. The first part was probably easier, for example requiring a heavier duty braking control rheostat that could pass up to 15 amps. The second part looks as if it might have been more difficult. Possibly it could have been done by using a current measuring reactor to detect field loop current and convert this to a control voltage signal for the amplidyne or amplistat. Alternatively, a voltage measuring reactor might have been used to detect the voltage across a “dummy” resistor (say 1.2 ohms) in the field loop trainline.

This was somewhat different to the Western Maryland case mentioned upthread. There the modified Alco units could provide a field loop output, could act as a “dummy” field loop unit by means of a 1.2 ohm pass-through resistor, but could not respond to a field loop control input.

I can’t trace that F-M ever patented its “Universal Dynamic Brake”, although patent searching is not an exact science. But it did have some patents in the locomotive control field, for example its MU hump control, US2908852.


Cheers,

I have locomotive manuals with wiring diagrams for Universal Dynamic Brake and I will take a look to see if I can figure out what they did. I'm trained as a nuclear electronics technician / reactor operator but it's been a LONG time since I traced wiring diagrams.

Off topic for an EMD thread here but F-M also adapted GE control equipment to use an air throttle. That's actually pretty straight forward except in the case of amplidyne excitation they had to add an air operated step controller to set current (excitation) limits progressively as the throttle pipe pressure increased since they couldn't get that signal another way.

I have started a new thread for further discussion of Fairbanks-Morse control systems, see: https://www.railroad.net/fairbanks-mors ... 75123.html.

F-M appears to have been quite “inventive” in this area, evidently working out how to derive Amplidyne control voltage inputs from unexpected sources, i.e. the field loop dynamic brake current level in one case and air throttle pressure in the other.


Cheers,

Given what F-M did in respect of dynamic braking control when it made the transition from Westinghouse to GE electrical equipment, a concomitant question is what did Baldwin choose to do in similar circumstances, given that it is known to have done the engineering design work for the substitution of GE electrical equipment case, even though in the event it made very little use of such.

I have found but one reference, at this web page: https://www.geocities.ws/newjack56/as416.html.

It is probably unwise to place too much stock in a single source, although the fact that it quotes from a Baldwin operating manual adds some weight. From that one may infer that for Baldwin developed both pneumatic and electrical control systems around the GE equipment, but that only the former was offered with a dynamic brake option, presumably broadly following the precedent of Baldwin’s established pneumatic system.

For the purposes of this thread, it looks as if Baldwin had initially not offered electrical control with a field loop dynamic brake option with the GE equipment, even though it had done so with the Wemco equipment. Or maybe that would have been a subsequent development to meet likely customer demand. More general discussion of the Baldwin/GE combination would, I think, belong in the Baldwin forum.



Cheers.

Pneudyne wrote: ↑Thu Feb 16, 2023 8:43 pm
It could have been that the change from Westinghouse to GE electrical equipment presented F-M with something of a problem, given that GE used the potential wire dynamic braking systems whereas Westinghouse used the field loop type. Preferably, future GE-equipped units should be fully backward compatible with those that were Westinghouse-equipped. Thus F-M more-or-less had to develop its Universal Dynamic braking system.

Possibly this was done by more-or-less overlaying a field loop system on the potential wire system. This would have required that GE-equipped units could both provide and respond to field loop control.

That the F-M Universal Dynamic Brake system allowed GE-equipped units to respond to a field loop input may have been an unwarranted assumption.

A look across the various dual DB control systems mentioned in this thread suggests that the customary approach was to equip units so that when they were in the lead, they could provide both potential wire (PW) and field loop (FL) DB control outputs to trailing units.

FL-only trailing units would respond to, and pass on if appropriate, the FL signals. They would also pass through PW signals via trainwire #24 of the MU bundle. So, as long as the MU bundle followed standard practice, they would not require modification to operate in a mixed DB consist.

PW-only trailing units would block further passage of the FL signals, but of course would respond to and pass on the PW signals.

Dual DB trailing units would generally respond and pass on to the PW signals, and would also pass through the FL signals. In some cases they were fitted with a series resistor (usually 1.2 ohms), so that they could act as a dummy FL unit, and so be included in the FL unit count. But it would appear that this was not always done. In some cases, only actual FL trailing units were included in the FL count.

The above commentary derives largely from a rereading of Typewriters’ early posts in this series, namely https://www.railroad.net/emd-field-loop ... l#p1208783, and https://www.railroad.net/post1210700.html#p1210700.

Possibly then the F-M Universal DB system was not so different from the later individual railroad, Alco and GE developments.


Cheers,