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  • General discussion about locomotives, rolling stock, and equipment
General discussion about locomotives, rolling stock, and equipment

Moderator: John_Perkowski

 #1532161  by John_Perkowski
 
A lesson in economics:

A $1M new locomotive can be given a major overhaul for $250K. THAT, plus the lack of utility for a car body in freight service, is why ATSF rebuilt an entire fleet of locomotives from car body to hood.
 #1532189  by Pensyfan19
 
John_Perkowski wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2020 2:17 pm A lesson in economics:

A $1M new locomotive can be given a major overhaul for $250K. THAT, plus the lack of utility for a car body in freight service, is why ATSF rebuilt an entire fleet of locomotives from car body to hood.
Good point. But the designers could have came up with a somewhat better looking design for the rebuild though. But that probably wasn't a priority which makes sense since a locomotive needs to run well rather than look good.
 #1532330  by Pneudyne
 
An unusual version of the EMD G12 export model with raised cab operated by Limberg Mines, Netherlands.

from DRT 195703 p.87.jpg
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That kind of cab profile is usually associated with loading gauge constraints. In this case apparently the raised cab was required for better visibility within the plant, and the profile was chosen to allow in overhead light in what was a generally dim environment.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder; to my eye, the raised cab did not enhance the appearance.

This version was built by EMD licensee Henschel in 1956, and was that maker’s first EMD build.

Cheers,
 #1532331  by Pneudyne
 
Still in the Netherlands, the NS 2600 class of 1953, which was that road’s first mainline diesel.

from DRT 195401 p.13.jpg
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Uninspiring is probably a good description of its appearance, although perhaps no worse than the British Rail (Southern Railway design) prototypes #10201/2/3.

The really strange feature of the NS 2600 was its engine:

from DRT 195401 p.14.jpg
from DRT 195401 p.14.jpg (393.61 KiB) Viewed 2438 times

A Stork-Thomassen 10-cylinder in-line uniflow two-stroke, with obvious marine origins. I am fairly sure that it was the trunk piston type; it does not look tall enough to be of the crosshead type, and its rated speed of 600 rev/min would be very high for the latter type. But with oddities, you never know; oddness is easily underestimated……

An interesting aspect of the locomotive was that its three-axle trucks had underslung equalizing beams. It is the earliest example of such that I have found on a locomotive. It was a form that became closely associated with UK builder English Electric, although its first use was in 1955.


Cheers,
 #1532338  by Pneudyne
 
Here is a very unusual prototype diesel-hydraulic locomotive from Krupp, Germany. A standard gauge version was supplied to Algerian Railways, and a metre gauge version to Vale Rio Doce, Brasil.

from DRT 195311 p.254.gif
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from DRT 195409 p.214.jpg
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It was of the three-truck, articulated body form. That was quite rare in the diesel locomotive world, although less so with electric locomotives, FS, Italy being a major user.

Also unusual in diesel-hydraulic practice, it had individual axle drive, there being a separate hydraulic transmission for each axle. The Krupp hydraulic transmission was somewhat different, as well, in that it had its torque converter, of the three-stage type, had variable pitch stator blades. As far as I know, these were adjusted by a form of load control system.

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Unsurprisingly, there were no production orders.




Cheers,
 #1532431  by Allen Hazen
 
Pneudyne-- The Krupp critter... gets weirder the longer you look at it. Why are "intermediate" and "Cardan" shafts distinguished: isn't any shaft meant to transmit torsional force a Cardan shaft? ... Anyway. I'm not sure the individual axles are all independent: each one has a drive from one of the boxes labeled 3 in the bottom diagram, but the two axles on an end truck seem to be coupled, by a shaft connecting to the box labeled 5. Or am I misreading things?

As for the Dutch diesel... Agreed the front end is "uninspired," but it's not out and out bad: a good designer could change the proportions slightly and get something at least equal to BR's mid-1960s cabs (as on e.g. Class 47 or the AC electrics). Underslung equalizing beams in themselves don't seem odd to an American (compare the drop equalizers on the A1A trucks of passenger units from all the builders except EMD, and the "Trimount" C trucks of Alco heavy freight units. But All the American examples have two drop equalizers per side: one connecting the front and centre axles, and another the centre and rear axles. Maybe its just the poor angle of the photo, but this one looks as if it has a single drop equalizer running all the way from the front to the rear axle. ??
 #1532493  by Pneudyne
 
Re the Krupp locomotive, those intermediate shafts are definitely cardan shafts. I am not sure if there is a formal definition, but a working definition is a shaft that has a universal joint (Hooke joint) at one end at least. In this case it looks as if there was someone (author or editor) was of the viewpoint that a cardan shaft must have a universal joint at both ends, and so decided to give the single-jointed shafts a different name. It could be of course that having two universal joints was the definition in some territories and/or at some time periods.

The gearboxes marked #5 simply reversed the direction and dropped the level of the driveshafts to the 2nd and 5th axles. Although they were mounted close to the 1st and 6th axles, they were not connected to those.

The boxes marked #3 each contained a step-up splitting gearset with three outputs. Each output fed a torque converter followed by a two-speed gearbox.

I need to correct what I said about the torque converters. They had variable pitch impellers, not variable pitch stators. They were of the modified Lysholm-Smith three-stage type.

Re the Netherlands locomotives, the equalizing beams were in two parts on each side. It is somewhat clearer in this diagram.

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The EMD A1A truck equalizers were close to being of the overhead type, but they did have a slight drop to accommodate the springs. An example of fully overhead equalizers was found in the British LMS/BR prototypes 10000/1; in that case the springs were stirrup-mounted under the equalizing beams. As with the swan-neck or “drop” type, these loaded, or “pushed” on the top of the axleboxes. The underslung type “pulled” on the bottom of the axleboxes. Advantages claimed were lower weight, and better alignment of the axleboxes in their pedestals.


Cheers,
 #1532567  by Allen Hazen
 
Pneudyne--
Thanks for the clarifications!
The equalizers are a lot easier to see/understand in the diagram of the Dutch locomotive. (And I was not thinking of the distinction between the sort of underslung equalizers here and the ... underslung but pushing from above equalizers on the American truck designs I mentioned.

As for the EMD A1A truck (as used on E units)... the equalizing beams on that truck are hidden from view, inside the frames. An interesting design, which I have called an "inside out E unit truck" was used on some of the Fairbanks-Morse GE "Erie built" units: it was a welded construction design from GE, offered as an alternative to the cast-frame trucks (similar to the Alco PA truck). It has high-mounted equalizing beams outside the flat-sided truck frame, in full view.

(Not an ideal photo, but the first I could find (on George Elwood's site):
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/nyc/nyc5000s.jpg )
 #1533606  by Pneudyne
 
Here is another picture of those Fairbanks Morse GE trucks with “overhead” equalizing beams:

from TSC 64 p.531.jpg
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A similar style of equalizing beam was used by English Electric (EE) on a DC electric locomotive built for the EFSJ, Brasil c.1949. It was also used on subsequent electric locomotives built by EE for service in Spain and in India. In this case the truck had a relatively thick bar frame.

from EE TD126 p.72.jpg
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Underslung equalizers (“pulling” on the axleboxes) seem to have been rare in American locomotive practice, both domestic and export. Perhaps with the very high (by world standards) axle loadings of domestic locomotives, it was thought better to push on the axleboxes. Also, weight reduction would seldom have been an issue, in contrast to the case on many systems elsewhere.

In the export realm, a couple of Henschel-EMD licence-built types come to mind, namely the TT12 for Ghana and the AA12 for Egypt. But I think that these were largely Henschel mechanical designs fitted around EMD powertrains.


Cheers,
 #1533612  by Pneudyne
 
Locomotives with asymmetrical wheel arrangements in general were not unknown, and examples that come to mind are C-B (diesel and electric), B-A1A (diesel), 2-D-1 (diesel and electric), 2-C-1 (electric) and 2-C+C-1 (electric). Some of these have already been mentioned here on the basis that as well as asymmetry, they have another or other very unusual features.

All of the above may be characterized by the fact that they have one fewer axle at one end as compared with the other.

Against that, the following candidate for inclusion here stands out because it has two axles at one end and four at the other end. This I think represents a higher degree of asymmetry than was customary for asymmetrical locomotives. The wheel arrangement could be described as B-B-B, but B-(B-B) might be more accurate. At one end it had a “conventional” B truck. But at the other end it had a pair of similar B trucks, independent of each other, upon which rested a span bolster, with the locomotive body on top of that. Here is a not-very-good picture:

CEM B-BB.jpg
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Pictures of this locomotive are scarce, let alone detailed information. However, a line diagram may be found on-line here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/alcoalbe/ ... 310999745/.

Apparently 22 were built for RAN (Régie des chemins de fer Abidjan-Niger) Ivory Coast, during 1971-76. The original design and early builds were attributable to French manufacturer CEM, but later builds were done by French manufacturer MTE.

This very odd locomotive is explained by its origins. It was derived from a larger eight-axle B-B-B-B model developed by CEM in 1969 for the French African metre/Cape gauge roads at the specific request of Oferom, the bureau for French overseas (Outre-Mer) railway systems. Oferom wanted 3600 hp with an axle loading no greater than 16 tonnes (roundly 35 000 lb), which meant at least 8 axles. It also wanted short wheelbase B trucks able to negotiate 50-metre radius curves (I make that about 35 degrees in the American system). Thus CEM chose a four-truck B-B-B-B wheel arrangement with two trucks at each end bridged by a span-bolster. It was referred to as both a BB-BB and as a 4B type.

With the BB-BB type in place, CEM went on to derive smaller versions using respectively three and two of the B trucks. In the three-truck case, evidently using a single truck at one end and a pair with span-bolster at the other end was better from a component standardization viewpoint than would have been a conventional B-B-B arrangement in which the centre truck would have required provision for significant lateral movement. In keeping with French practice of the time, the trucks were of the monomoteur type, that is one large traction motor driving both axles. An interesting aspect is that whilst the single-truck installation had its own set of swing links to provide and control lateral motion, when paired under a span bolster they did not have individual swing links, but rather the span bolster itself was connected to the frame by swing links. In contrast, American practice, as in the GE GTEL4500 and U50, was for each truck to have its own lateral motion mechanism, with the span-bolster connected to the frame by a simple pivot.

Information of this locomotive series as a whole, from a later OEM brochure, may be found at the same site as noted above. Go to: https://www.flickr.com/photos/alcoalbe/ ... 310999745/ for the front cover and then scroll leftwards.


Cheers,
 #1555797  by Pensyfan19
 
Since the "Vote for the World's Ugliest Train" topic locked, I decided to bring this topic back for a video submission on the Holman Horror! These two locomotives have three layers of driver wheels and are considered the one of the strangest locomotives ever built. I just uploaded my episode of Remarkable Engines on these remarkably infamous locomotives. Happy Halloween! :P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APJUNs6MCZs