MBTA's MPI HSP-46 Locomotives

Backshophoss wrote:Believe the GE EVO prime mover was a from the ground up new design,different from the FDL design,
but using lessons learned from the FDL's,and learned from the early EVO's that are in service now.

I seem to recall seeing somewhere around the time that the GEVO first came out that it was speculated to have a lot of HDL DNA in it (much more than FDL DNA), but that GE chose to outright avoid any mention of the HDL because it had been such a disaster.

Does anyone know how the 265's in those Chinese locomotives turned out? I have this nagging sense that the 265 had just as much potential to become another GEVO-tier prime mover in terms of reliability, but that it never happened because neither EMD nor the railroads had the patience to sort out its various kinks.

Who knows though, part of me thinks that MPI could make a killing with a 12-1010 w/ static inverter HEP repower for the -2C's, or even for the MP36's.

any locomotive when being overhauled, can be overhauled without upgrading to tier IV.
rebuild a F40 and plop overhauled 645 in it , no problem its called being grandfathered.
it only has to comply to standard it was when build, in most cases it would be tier 0.

I was thinking more in terms of fuel economy, isn't the 15-20% improvement seen one of the major reasons for the prime mover swap in the -ECO rebuilds?

Though lately the Gulf States seem to be doing their part (and then some) to make fuel economy seem totally unimportant, it still matters to operators. Otherwise, what incentive would there be for GE to push for a GEVO repower kit for the Gennies?

Fuel saving yes, but the tier 3 and 4 also make engines slower than sh*t due to all enviro gadgets.

Bramdeisroberts wrote:I was thinking more in terms of fuel economy, isn't the 15-20% improvement seen one of the major reasons for the prime mover swap in the -ECO rebuilds?

Though lately the Gulf States seem to be doing their part (and then some) to make fuel economy seem totally unimportant, it still matters to operators. Otherwise, what incentive would there be for GE to push for a GEVO repower kit for the Gennies?

These "re-kitting" schemes change a whole lot more than just the prime mover. There's additional incentive among commuter rail operators to purge DC traction motors in favor of AC's, since maintenance scale starts getting long-term awkward once passenger DC rosters start shrinking into a slow oblivion. It'll eventually hit a tipping point where the DC motors have to go even in cases when the old locomotives as a package still have life left in them. The HSP-46 shares the exact same AC traction motors as the Genesis P32AC-DM, so the re-kitting becomes an especially attractive prospect for giving a cheap Amtrak-dispersal P42 its maximum possible lifespan on the commuter rail aftermarket. That's going to matter more to commuter rail agencies that are approaching or past that DC vs. AC tipping point on their rosters. Somebody like Metra would have no incentive to re-kit because they just rebuilt their whole F40PH roster to F40PH-3C's, and have committed to another 15 years of majority DC-motor rosters and stockpiling parts therein. GO Transit, on the other hand, went for a 20-years-and-out retirement of its F59PH's rather than go forward balancing a roster of some midlife-overhauled EMD's with DC motors and some new MPXpresses with AC motors (and in the process pumped the aftermarket full of relatively fresh F59's such that the combined North American F59PH/PHI pool becomes the second-most attractive aftermarket "re-kitting" prospect out there after Amtrak releases the P42's).

Getting on a common technology baseline to manage the total cost of ownership over lifetime also plays a role. And in the case of the DC-to-AC shift, the time for cleaning house is coming up soon or right now for a lot of passenger rosters. If that weren't the case you probably would be seeing a lot higher % of the remaining 1990's-era power getting greenlit for regular old midlife overhaul instead of being mass-replaced so many years sooner than any previous decade's mainstay power was replaced. Hell...you'd probably see commuter railroads avoiding new orders like the plague and midlife overhauling anything that moved if that let them sidestep being guinea pigs for these brand- brand- new emissions tiers. The railroads would be happy to pat themselves on the back getting an F40PH-3C that *just works* back from the overhaul factory with a Tier 1 exhaust retrofit to the same tried-and-true prime mover rather than put up with the pain and suffering of debugging an F125, Charger, or HSP-46. But going through that trial now makes their lives easier in 20 years to not have to maintain obsolete parts. That wasn't true of the aftermarket 12 years ago...but it is now with the DC-to-AC shift hitting tipping point. If it weren't for things like that and a whole confluence of events in addition to the emissions hullabaloo, there'd be no growth market in passenger for re-kittings and no growth market in passenger for the "hermit crab" gut-and-rebuilds. But we do have that confluence of events, so the market prospects are cresting in potentially big way as we head towards 2020.

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:Getting on a common technology baseline to manage the total cost of ownership over lifetime also plays a role. And in the case of the DC-to-AC shift, the time for cleaning house is coming up soon or right now for a lot of passenger rosters. If that weren't the case you probably would be seeing a lot higher % of the remaining 1990's-era power getting greenlit for regular old midlife overhaul instead of being mass-replaced so many years sooner than any previous decade's mainstay power was replaced. Hell...you'd probably see commuter railroads avoiding new orders like the plague and midlife overhauling anything that moved if that let them sidestep being guinea pigs for these brand- brand- new emissions tiers. The railroads would be happy to pat themselves on the back getting an F40PH-3C that *just works* back from the overhaul factory with a Tier 1 exhaust retrofit to the same tried-and-true prime mover rather than put up with the pain and suffering of debugging an F125, Charger, or HSP-46. But going through that trial now makes their lives easier in 20 years to not have to maintain obsolete parts. That wasn't true of the aftermarket 12 years ago...but it is now with the DC-to-AC shift hitting tipping point. If it weren't for things like that and a whole confluence of events in addition to the emissions hullabaloo, there'd be no growth market in passenger for re-kittings and no growth market in passenger for the "hermit crab" gut-and-rebuilds. But we do have that confluence of events, so the market prospects are cresting in potentially big way as we head towards 2020.

That was my thought as well, the various pieces of old EMD hardware still have decades of life left in their frames, and whereas there used to be more of an incentive to buy new, back when buying new meant buying F59's or MP36's, which were both basically F40ph upgrades, tier IV has completely flipped that equation on it's head. Nowadays, the only new-build options are expensive maintenance nightmares that crews will still hate because they load up so slowly.

Which is why possibly the most interesting aspect of the MP54AC genset rebuilds is that MPI quietly snuck in an AC traction upgrade for the Blomberg truck. That, to me, is a fascinating glimpse at things to come, and I would imagine that the prospect of AC traction rebuilds now being feasible on all Blomberg-trucked EMD passenger locomotives should mean big things for the appeal of aggressive rebuilds of these loco families, whether using 645s, 710s, or 1010s.

Bramdeisroberts wrote:...MPI quietly snuck in an AC traction upgrade for the Blomberg truck. That, to me, is a fascinating glimpse at things to come, and I would imagine that the prospect of AC traction rebuilds now being feasible on all Blomberg-trucked EMD passenger locomotives should mean big things for the appeal of aggressive rebuilds of these loco families, whether using 645s, 710s, or 1010s.

The MP40s use a variant of the truck with a 4" longer wheelbase which may be what's required to fit AC motors in. The intent of the wheelbase extension was, apparently, to make it easier to fit GE motors in the truck although none of the MP40s were built with them.

DutchRailnut wrote:Fuel saving yes, but the tier 3 and 4 also make engines slower than sh*t due to all enviro gadgets.

The HSPs are not slow by sense of the imagination. They take off like a rocket no matter how you try to make it start off slow. They put people in their seats fast!They all suck for spotting in tight spots. You get to know the wheel stops pretty well with these units.

I was going to say, every HSP train I've ridden accelerated so hard it felt like riding in a DMU.

I'm guessing that's all thanks to those AC motors and their more advanced wheelslip control systems.

Another reason why AC traction could be a major game changer for those hypothetical major F40 and F59 rebuilds.

Bramdeisroberts wrote:

Backshophoss wrote:Believe the GE EVO prime mover was a from the ground up new design,different from the FDL design,
but using lessons learned from the FDL's,and learned from the early EVO's that are in service now.

I seem to recall seeing somewhere around the time that the GEVO first came out that it was speculated to have a lot of HDL DNA in it (much more than FDL DNA), but that GE chose to outright avoid any mention of the HDL because it had been such a disaster.

You're both partially correct. They did use a lot of the designs and concepts from the HDL, but it was pretty drastically redesigned and reengineered to the point that there certainly isn't any parts interchangeability between the two.

It's also worth noting that the HDL wasn't anywhere near the "disaster" that the 265H was.

Plenty of info in the GE forum if anyone wants to know more.

I know the H-engine nearly took the company with it, partially because they sunk all of those development costs only to get a small handful of loco sales out of it, at a time when loco sales were especially slow.

Any clean-sheet engine design will have its share of teething issues, especially something as all-new as the H-engine was, and it can be tough to sort those issues out in a market that wasn't really receptive to the locomotive nor the engine in the first place.

I'd imagine EMD didn't have the cash reserves that GE did, so it stung that much more.

EMD had no answer for tier IV,and basicly did no New builds till the start of the F125 build at Munice In plant.
The 645 and 710 prime movers were as evolved as possible up to tier III standards
Cat prime movers have been a mixed bag as RR prime movers,the latest test beds are working on NS now.
The BIGGEST Drawback is the more intensive maintaince requirements for topdeck (Heads) to
be in emissions compliance,along with the urea exhaust after treatment.

The CAT-powered PR43Cs testing on NS were deemed a failure, weren't they?

Backshophoss wrote:The BIGGEST Drawback is the more intensive maintaince requirements for topdeck (Heads) to
be in emissions compliance,along with the urea exhaust after treatment.

Which is why the 1010 engine is such a big deal for EMD, as from what I've heard it has a relatively simple EGR system that doesn't require a DEF injection system to hit its emissions targets. Now EGR's on diesels can get clogged with particulates, and they can get dicey/cause their own headaches, but at least it's not a DEF system *shudders*.

MEC, that's interesting, but not surprising about the rumors of Cat teething problems. Have there been any rumblings about how that QSK95-engined SD70 conversion has been doing?

I haven't heard anything yet. It's probably too soon to tell.