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  • *BIG* GE power for Brazil? (Vale ES58ACi)

  • Discussion of General Electric locomotive technology. Current official information can be found here: www.getransportation.com.
Discussion of General Electric locomotive technology. Current official information can be found here: www.getransportation.com.

Moderators: MEC407, AMTK84

 #676981  by Allen Hazen
 
Links have been posted to two Yahoo groups (LocoNotes and GElocos) with photos of something new on the GE test track at Erie, lettered "Vale." (This is a Brazilian operation, no?) It is said to be an ES58aci. I think that's the same model designation as the units the Chinese are getting, but this is an "Americanized" version: cab is GE's standard "North American" cab rather than the noseless design used on the Chinese units, and trucks look like domestic-style, cast-frame, "roller blades" trucks rather than the lighter-weight design used in China (and Australia: the chinese units have a truck similar to that introduced on the NR series in Oz). So it looks, in those respects, more like a standard ES44, but
--the radiator is different (in ways suggesting high cooling capacity)
--there are (at least) eight full-height doors on the long hood side (suggesting a 16-cylinder engine)
--there are two, side-by-side stacks (suggesting that GE has decided that the EVO-16, like the HDL of less-than-blessed memory, ought to have two turbochargers instead of the single turbo of an FDL or GEVO-12 engine).
----
Leading to the question: why, given that North American railroads have tended to have the worlds heaviest and most powerful freight diesels, hasn't anyone asked for some of these in the US? Couldn't BNSF, for example, use pairs of these instead of trios of ES44C4 on fast freights on the Santa Fe main? Is GE having trouble getting the cooling system up to the standard needed to meet Tier N pollution regulations?
 #676998  by FCP503
 
Alan, one reason that you are not seeing North American insterest might the "less than blessed memory" you mentioned.

Images of SD90MAC-H's getting scrapped, or maybe even more humiliating, working on short line Buffalo and Pittburgh should terrify any potential buyer. True the AC6000CW's have not been resigned to such miserable ends, but would you want to be the one to speak up in the board room and say "we need to buy some of these!!!!

The fact that most of the major American railroads have hundreds of good reliable locomotives in storage won't make the idea of trying something radical and new look like a good buy either.

As to the idea of BNSF using two of these units in place of three ES44C4's. It was believed that in order for one 6000 hp unit to replace two 3000 hp units, the new 6000 hp unit needed to have TWICE the reliability of the units whose jobs they wanted. That just wasn't possible then....Maybe, just may with a decade or so since the AC6000CW, GE thinks they can come close. I would tend to bet they can't. I am guessing that most US railroads will make the same bet. If GE is ever to have a chance at creating a successfull 6000 hp unit for the North American market they need to build some units that won't be srutinized to death. (The ES44C4 will be the poster child for "scrutinized to death")

I'm assuming that the Vale units you mention are for the (Vale owned)EF Carajas operation. This operation is already running super long and heavy iron ore trains. The catch is that I think that the Carajas runs loads from mine to port on a very gently sloping gradients. Am I wrong or would such an operatiing profile be tailor made for high HP units like this? (BHP used their AC6000CW's when the set the "longest train" record)

China is a different matter. Remember that China bought something like 440 C36-7's that were uprated to 4000hp. Without having been there to see first hand, it seems that China has little interest in operating those units MU'ed together very much. For what ever reason, that doesn't fit with their operations. One would think that on a railroad where MU operation wasn't common place large high horsepower locos would stand a much better chance.
 #677121  by MEC407
 
With these units being rated at 5800 HP, compared to the 6250 horsepower of the AC6000, perhaps GE is attempting to keep reliability at a very high level. We already know that the GEVO-series of engines received numerous upgrades to make it more reliable than its HDL-series ancestor; a conservative horsepower rating could be another way of keeping reliability high. (The GEVO-16 is probably capable of 7000 HP or more, but producing that kind of output in railroad service might not be easy, as far as reliability is concerned.)
 #677166  by FCP503
 
Excellent point. Many railroads derated their SD45's from 3600 hp down to 3400 or 3200 horsepower in order to gain reliability.

NS consistantly bought Dash 9's rated at 4000 hp with the belief that the extra 10% increase in power was not worth a decrease in reliability.

Perhaps 5800 hp is the sweet spot in terms of balancing power vs reliability.

It's amazing how trying to squeeze that little bit extra so often ends up costing so much.
 #677243  by Allen Hazen
 
Thanks for thoughtful and informative replies!

Was the AC60 rated at 6250 hp as a locomotive, or was that an engine rating before deductions for parasitic whatnot? Anyway, the 12 cylinder GEVO is used to power 4400 hp locomotives (I suspect ONE motive for choosing that rating was to be able to tell cautious customers "Yes it's a new engine design but in terms of locomotive performance its indistinguishable from the Dash-9/AC44 you already have"), which would make a locomotive with a 16-cylinder GEVO, if rated the same per cylinder, 5867 hp: so in marketing the GEVO-16 engine in "AC58" locomotives, GE is once again able to appeal to "We don't want any surprises" attitudes.

As for what these engines are capable of... Back in 2004, when the pre-production GEVO units were being tested (to provide "50 locomotive-years" of experience before the commercial launch!), it was reported that GE was running one (I think one of the ones they kept in GE colors) at 120% the normal rating: by my arithmetic, 5280 hp.
 #677250  by D.Carleton
 
Let's put it this way, Canadian Pacific bought four SD90MACs in 1998; all since retired and put up for sale. They have not bought an EMD product since. Railroad mechanical forces have a long memory.

When will the horsepower race heat up again in the USA? Try this as a reference: the SD45 was introduced in 1965. It took about twenty years for EMD to overcome the reputation and produce a reliable high horsepower product out of the gate, the SD60. The AC6000 was introduced in 1993. All things being equal, look for a serious contender to arrive in about four years.
 #677273  by Allen Hazen
 
D.Carleton--
Sounds plausible. Railroad motive power "fashions" play out over a scale of decades, not mere years. 3000 hp became standard for mainline power in the mid 1960s, 4000 hp in the late 1980s: so it may still be a bit early for the next motive power "revolution."

The Chinese units are comparative lightweights (just as the Chinese C36-7 were lighter -- and a few feet shorter in over-all length -- than the domestic model), for a railroad with very different operating practices from North American railroads. The ES58aci for VALE, on the other hand, looks like a unit designed for something not too different from North American conditions. (Air pollution standards a possible exception: Brazilian rules are different, and given the amount of roof area given over to multiple cooling systems on domestic ES44 to enable them to meet U.S. standards, it may be that there's a fair bit of work still to do before an ES58 is E.P.A.-compliant.) It looks (to me) as if GE is readying a 6000 hp (more or less) locomotive for when American railroads come around in their thinking.
 #677288  by FCP503
 
I imagine that GE and EMD would be very reluctant to release such unproven products like the SD90MAC and AC6000CW on their North American customer base anytime soon. At least not in any quantity.

Looking back it's stunning to see how much money was spent on "convertable" locomotives. There was a truly frenzied race to be the first one to corner the market. The only problem was niether EMD or GE could deliver the goods. (and how destablizing would it have been it one or the other had?) Even at the time the whole 6000 HP race seemed like a runaway train. It's hard to understand why a more reasoned evaluation process wasn't undertaken.

I doubt that today's EMD could survive another debacle like the SD90MAC- H.

I think that EMD was actually incredibly lucky to be able to fall back and keep the 710 engine meeting emissions requirements. If they hadn't been able to do that I imagine that EMD would not have survived as a locomotive builder of North American locomotives.

Has EMD done anything with the H engine since???
 #677662  by Allen Hazen
 
"Has EMD done anything with the H engine since???"

I believe that the 300 locomotives EMD is providing for China (deal similar to the one with GE for ES58aci: most units to be assembled in China) have the H engine.
 #732913  by GulfRail
 
It's been almost 15 years since the last horsepower race, and that's the interval that horsepower races begin. Just look at the data:

1967:SD45, U36C (not counting the C855, U50C, DD35, DDA40X or SD45X)
1980:SD50, C36-7
1995:SD80/90MAC, AC6000CW

Perhaps, with traffic on American Railroads increasing, we will witness a battle between GE's ES58AC and EMD's SD89ACe. Who knows. I could be wrong, we all could be wrong. It's just wishful thinking for now, anyways. Besides, what railfan doesn't love the biggest and the "best"(in theory)? Why do you think the DDA40X's and SD80/90MAC's have such a cult following? :wink:
 #736024  by v8interceptor
 
GulfRail wrote:It's been almost 15 years since the last horsepower race, and that's the interval that horsepower races begin. Just look at the data:

1967:SD45, U36C (not counting the C855, U50C, DD35, DDA40X or SD45X)
1980:SD50, C36-7
1995:SD80/90MAC, AC6000CW

Perhaps, with traffic on American Railroads increasing, we will witness a battle between GE's ES58AC and EMD's SD89ACe. Who knows. I could be wrong, we all could be wrong. It's just wishful thinking for now, anyways. Besides, what railfan doesn't love the biggest and the "best"(in theory)? Why do you think the DDA40X's and SD80/90MAC's have such a cult following? :wink:
The SD89ACe is a 4500 HP locomotive powered by a 12 cylinder version of the 265-H engine so it wouldn't be a direct competitor to a 5800-6000 HP GEVO locomotive. the 89 series was designed to supplant the 70 series in EMD's catalog, but with the RR's general dissatisfaction with the H engined SD90MAC's Electromotive instead redesigned and upgraded the SD70 line...
 #917077  by Allen Hazen
 
Meph--
Thanks for posting a link to your (magnificent!) blog post about the CVRD iron ore operation. (And wouldn't it be a P.R. coup for General Electric if some of this iron ore got hauled by GE locomotives at BOTH ends of its ocean voyage?)
--
I think the Irish gauge (also used in Victoriua and South Australia in Oz) has long been standard for non-narrow-guage railways in Brazil. I don't know if the new CVRD line you describe has any rail connections to other Brazilian lines, but even if not, building it to 5'3" gauge would make sense from the point of view of long-term planning of the Brazilian rail network.
 #926516  by Warship810
 
There are 10 new VALE locomotives sitting on Flat Cars in Norfolk Southern's Rockport Yard near Cleveland this evening. Does anyone know what their identities are?