When Amtrak chooses to place a substantial order for new diesels, should it twist GE's arm to re-enter the passenger locomotive business, or are there other off-the-shelf high speed passenger diesels out there, superior to GE?
Railroad Forums
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Pacific 2-3-1 wrote:GE once tried to acquire ownership of The Budd Company's Railway Division, but was prevented from doing so on anti-trust grounds.That's interesting. I don't see any antitrust issues about that seeing GE as in the locomotive and propulsion field and Budd with passenger cars. Vertical integration.
pebbleworm wrote:Caltrans is running EMD F59PHIs that meet tier 2 standards -
http://www.equinoxcenter.org/assets/fil ... otives.pdf
I rode behind one on the San Joaquin and it was pretty darn speedy from where I was sitting. 15 minutes early is always a good thing. Emission controls don't always mean lower performance or efficiency, despite what bankrupt Detroit automakers want you to believe.
But what needs to be done to the good old EMD 567 or even 645 powerplants (in particular) to make them EPA compliant? I know it's out of production at the moment, but every engineering drawing ever made for these have to be out there somewhere.First of all the 567 and 654 engines have long since reached their power limits so would not really be in contention for any sort of new build locomotive. That being said the standard tricks include electronic fuel injection that can vary the timing and amount of the fuel for an optimal burn. There's also some tricks you can do with Exhaust Gas Recirculation to reduce the NOX and one might be able to implement that on a 2-stroke by fiddling with the scavenge process. You can fiddle with the turbo system to get more air into the cylinders to avoid the black puff of smoke from the lag. You can adjust how the engine revs up, again to eliminate incomplete combustion. Specifically one can used a multi-stage turbo and this has actually become a popular technique by diesel engine manufacturers, CAT included, to reduce emissions.
Jersey_Mike wrote:It's nothing that can't be fixed with a little clever engineering. There is also nothing to say that CAT-EMD can't refresh its engine line based on the existing 4-cycle 1010 or an all new design of either 4 or 2 stroke design (and its about time they did anyway). The EMD engine family has demonstrated incredible longevity far outlasting their GE counterparts and have also been highly competitive in the world marketplace. With CAT's capitol and engineering resources behind them EMD stands to succeed no matter which route they take as long as CAT doesn't try to fit one of its existing road market diesels into the locomotive market peg.If you actually have traveled in Europe, you'd notice that the air quality in a number of European cities is worse than L.A. on the smoggiest day. Europe has had some fairly lax diesel emissions standards, which has lead to very high levels of particular emissions - and as we all know, diesel particulates are carcinogens. Then there's the issue of large quantities of smog forming diesel emissions which require urea injection. Diesel cars are dirty at the tailpipe without expensive technology and cost maintenance, hence the lack of popularity. Overall, the EPA has been successful in improving air quality in the last 4 decades, far more successful than the environmental regulators in Europe and Canada.
That aside \tThe best way to get responsive performance out of a diesel engine, yet still allow it to be robust enough for decades of railroad use is to go 2 stroke. Both the Junkers Jumo 204/205 and Napier Nomad models of 2 stroke diesels were not only intended for use in aircraft, but also set efficiency records in terms of specific fuel consumption for their day. The way EPA policy destroyed the highly efficient diesel powered passenger road vehicle market 30 years ago can best be described as suspicious. Europe had no problem with diesel vehicles (much the same way they have no problem with EMD's diesel locomotives) and with a majority of new cars being sold as diesels they can enjoy the MPG fruits of their policy. That the EPA would seek to undermine the best design for a passenger diesel locomotive hints that someone is lobbying behind the scenes to keep America shackled to its inefficient motor vehicles. Old school pollutants aren't the problem any more, heat trapping gases are and it turns out that decades of EPA policy has only made the problem worse.
goodnightjohnwayne wrote:If you actually have traveled in Europe, you'd notice that the air quality in a number of European cities is worse than L.A. on the smoggiest day. Europe has had some fairly lax diesel emissions standards, which has lead to very high levels of particular emissions - and as we all know, diesel particulates are carcinogens. Then there's the issue of large quantities of smog forming diesel emissions which require urea injection. Diesel cars are dirty at the tailpipe without expensive technology and cost maintenance, hence the lack of popularity. Overall, the EPA has been successful in improving air quality in the last 4 decades, far more successful than the environmental regulators in Europe and Canada.Well I guess if you count Eastern Europe as part of Europe, but i would suspect that poor urban air quality is highly correlated with cities that offer Trebant tours. Given the sheer quantity of environmental finger wagging and judgment flowing over from Canada and Europe I would say that whatever environmental standards they want to adopt are probably better than what we have here.
goodnightjohnwayne wrote:Locomotive do put out a lot, and I do mean a lot, of very noticeable, sooty emissions. Even Amtrak's GE Genesis locomotives put out huge quantities of particulates, and they're hard considered to be dirty, so it's clear that the EPA should demand lower emissions. The same goes for Class 8 trucks.The large amount of smoke indicates that the engines are working hard for me, the customer. Besides its traditional for railroad locomotives to blast large quantities of black stuff out the top.
goodnightjohnwayne wrote:Of course, there was that recent study that indicated that a single huge container ship puts out more emissions than 50 million personal automobiles. It makes railroad locomotives look fairly clean in comparison.Well of course because modern passenger vehicles have almost no classic emissions any more. That statistic is highly faulty as one could say that container ship puts out more emissions than an infinite number of Tesla Roadsters or Nissan Leaves. Hell, my 1969 Mustang probably out more emissions than 50 million modern personal automobiles. Forget about closing the garage door and letting the engine run, I'm lucky to back out of of the driveway w.o asphyxiating myself.