567 *AND* 278

I agree with you completely Engineer Spike. Many of the discussion sites including this one have gone quiet lately, with some categories sitting for days or weeks without new postings. There are already enough discussions of what is everybody's favorite "this or that".

I don't participate in this site as much as I used to. When you look at the stuff that is allowed to stay versus the stuff that they find fault with, you can see why. For example, the posts by individuals who are newly registered on RRdotNet and are "phishing" for information and drawings to allow them to build "pirate parts" should be deleted from the discussion as soon as they are posted. They are simply an effort to steal information disguised as a railfan discussion.

On the roads that had marine operations, the Marine Department was part of the railroad, and a number of major railroads ran Cleveland Diesel or Winton engines. (Lehigh Valley, Erie, New Haven, Virginian, New York Central, and Pennsy among others).

MX

Many railfans seem to be put off by the close connection between marine and locomotive use of large diesel engines, but that close connection is a fact, and in truth most diesel engines are used in as wide an array of applications as their manufacturers can arrange. That's just good business.

It is often written in railfan press that during WWII the US diesel locomotive builders were restricted in the types of locomotives that they could manufacture. What is seldom mentioned are some of the reasons for those restrictions. The "LST" is a very good case and point. Two EMD's 12-567 were required to power each "Landing Ship Tank (2)". While these ships may not get glitzty TV shows made about them on the History Channel today, at the time production of these ships was considered so crucial to the war effort that a shortfall in production of LST's ALMOST forced Allied invasion planners to delay the Normany landings. In fact a shortages of 12-567 engines (and other factors) caused the British to create a redesigned, steam powered LST mk.3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landing_Ship,_Tank

As Engineer Spike mentions the navy personell that worked diesel powered ships and submarines had experience that was readily usable on American railroads that were rapidly converting to diesel locos.

There seems to be endless discussion about the appearance of locomotives. Minute differances in sheet metal work are noted with great interest and recorded faithfully. Yet what goes on under that sheet metal is seldom discussed. That is too bad, because I for one find such discussions interesting and enlightening. (But then I work on locos, so go figure)

I want to get back on task, and away from my rant. There was a program on about the LSTs. A bunch got sold to the Greek Navy after the war. The program was about a group of Navy vets who went to Greece. They got the ship donated to them. They got it in shape to sail back to the US, and sailed back. The show had one scene where the engine shut down. The ship's engineer went to the engine, saw that the overspeed tripped, and reset it. It was amazing that this is the the same as every EMD that I have been on, up to the latest SD70M-2.
As to the parallel between the marine industry, and the railroad, I have a good example. I have a friend with whom I worked, on the D&H. He became a diesel expert in the Navy. He then went to work at Alco. They built up test 251 prime movers, testing new liners, pistons, and generally souping them up. He later worked in our mechanical department. Now he is helping a group of Navy vets restore the engines (Clevelands) on a retired ship.
This shows the relationship between the two industries, marine and rail. Both types of vehicles use exactly the same technology.

For those wondering what a 278 looks like, heres the one thats in the Lehigh Valley RAILROAD tug Cornell. She runs like a top still, fires right up every time. Cool thing about them is there direct air start, no starter of any kind. 300psi into 8 cylinders kicks it over. Kinda cool how one starts it.

Nova 55--
Thanks for the picture! It looks as if there are more VISIBLE parts than on a 567: things out in the open that would be under cover in the railroad-optimized diesel. Maybe because in the marine service there would be a trained maintenance person on hand most of the time, whereas the ideal in (U.S.) railroading was to keep things buttoned up except in the shops?
Can ylu identify some of the visible parts for us? There is a trio of thin tubes going up to each cylinder: are these fuel lines?

Now we are really going back a long ways, it has been 35 years since I worked on one of these, but if I remember them correctly the top line of the three on the side of the engine is the actuating line for the overspeed trips, the center line is fuel bleed, and the bottom line is fuel supply. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Some friends have taken excursions on the former Lehigh Valley Railroad tug CORNELL and were very impressed with the vessel and crew. In addition to the CORNELL, there are a few Cleveland Diesel 278A engines on museum ships, including submarines and the Destroyer Escort USS SLATER in Albany, New York.

MX

The USS COD, SS-224 here in Cleveland, Ohio still has all four 16-278A engines for anyone who'd like to see them. Remember though that the 224 boat is all-original and vertical climbing is required to get below and back out!

=Will Davis

The USS SLATER engine rooms originally were vertical ladder access only, but they have added watertight doors to allow same deck access to the #2 engine and motor rooms from the aft crew berthing compartment. Makes it a lot nicer for visitors. The SLATER has 278A Cleveland Diesels for main propulsion and 268A diesels for ships electrical service and emergency generator. The Chief Engineer used to work as Assistant CMO of the Delaware & Hudson Railroad.

MX

Allen/MX,

I was deckhand on all of those trips (and organized some) along with the rest of the crew. All went off great, met alot of great people.

Yes, the 3 lines are the Overspeed, Fuel Bleed and Fuel Supply. Top is overspeed. If you notice, all the lines are painted, Yellow is fuel oil, orange is air, green salt water, blue fresh water, red fire, brown oil..and I think thats them all. But since that photo was taken, I painted the supply lines yellow on the engine when we were in the shipyard one night, I have yet to do the top one though for the overspeed (brown).

Theres not to much difference between these and an EMD in terms of whats exposed, its just done differently. Like an EMD, all of the power assembly's are housed under the one deck, on the 278 they are all individual. The exhaust jumpers are routed a bit different as well.

Slaters website (I really need to get over there one day to check them out!, we had a few crew guys on the boat in Waterford this year) has a great page on the 278: http://www.ussslater.org/decks/platfrm2/engine.html

We have Detroit's for ship power, a pair of 3-71s and a shaft generator. The firboat Firefighter in NYC has a similar setup to, but she has Winton 498s (pre Cleveland, although they look damn near the same) and an electric drive...still works good..

Heres another good read, a USN report comparing Fairbanks Oppies to the Clevelands: http://www.hnsa.org/doc/fleetsub/diesel/chap6.htm

Paul

This article on the Winton 201A engine also mentions the Cleveland Diesel 278A and the USS SLATER.:

http://www.rypn.org/RyPN/articles/viewa ... 231209.txt

MX

I think it is very interesting that the enclosed power assemblies of the 567 would be seen by the designers as less suited to marine use. An E or F unit interior is pretty cramped and confined, so having to work in a confined workspace would not seem to be the major force in having two such very different engine designs. (well at least such divergant top end designs)

Does anyone know why the individual (unenclosed) heads were retained on the Cleveland engine?

How does the overspeed system work on the Cleveland engine?

As the link to the article about the Winton 201 and 201A engines mentions very little information about these engines seems to be around these days.

Nelson Bay wrote:We're upsetting GA guys with all this "tugs, marine , subs, minesweepers, Navy, French Navy, vessels etc. chatter. Lets railroad.

Let's petition (beg) the Admins, to create a "Railroad Marine Operations" forum, and then it's all good......... I see nothing wrong with discussing LV tugs, although it might be nice to see it in the LV forum.

GOLDEN-ARM wrote:

Nelson Bay wrote:We're upsetting GA guys with all this "tugs, marine , subs, minesweepers, Navy, French Navy, vessels etc. chatter. Lets railroad.

Let's petition (beg) the Admins, to create a "Railroad Marine Operations" forum, and then it's all good......... I see nothing wrong with discussing LV tugs, although it might be nice to see it in the LV forum.

Hey Id be all for that one!! Oh Otto!

We can add "and Marine Operations" the the "Shortlines and Industrials" Forum...

-otto-

If you have questions or comments about the operation of this forum, PM or email them to me. Don't wait for someone to point them out to me in a link. If you want answers, contact me directly. If you don't contact me, I can't answer you as quickly.

mxdata wrote:There are already enough discussions of what is everybody's favorite "this or that."

I think "favorite" ("What's your favorite color?" "What's your favorite color EMD?") discussions are redundant and discourage them when I see them.

When you look at the stuff that is allowed to stay versus the stuff that they find fault with, you can see why.

Exmaples? What happened? Who is they?

For example, the posts by individuals who are newly registered on RRdotNet and are "phishing" for information and drawings to allow them to build "pirate parts" should be deleted from the discussion as soon as they are posted. They are simply an effort to steal information disguised as a railfan discussion.

Examples? What happened?

Again, I'll repeat, contact me directly if you have questions or comments about the operation of this site. If you don't contact me direct, I assume you're only posting to air your dirty laundry and you're not really looking for a resolution. If you have contacted the moderator with your grievance and get no response, then let me know about it and we'll work it out together.

-otto-