Sprinter ACS-64 Electric Loco: Siemens.

Some of those euro-locomotives are edging on 10,000 hp at the rail. If I'm not mistaken, the only us locomotive to ever do 10,000 sustained was that one off monster GM10B.

here is the "mozart "locomotive , been relegated to not so glamorous duties .
http://youtu.be/ZenNx-V4p9E

Some of those euro-locomotives are edging on 10,000 hp at the rail. If I'm not mistaken, the only us locomotive to ever do 10,000 sustained was that one off monster GM10B.

North American freight railroads have generally realized that sometimes more hp isn't better. By relying on multiple unit technology and lashing up groups of modestly powered locomotives you avoid over powering short trains and you have redundancy with long ones. In Europe, for whatever reason, lashing up locomotives generally isn't practiced (have you seen their couplers?) so they would be interested in higher and higher power.

high horsepower for high speed . different application , these locos couldnt start a big freight train , but can whisk a passenger train up to 125 mph and keep it there quickly .

The ES 64f4 is a multi voltage machine but not powered by third rail. It came in coasting and after it was split from train the pans are raised, in Europe pans are dropped when personel has to go in between due to electrical connections.
In DC they raise both pans to avoid burning the catenary with high current required.

David Benton wrote:here is the "mozart "locomotive , been relegated to not so glamorous duties .
http://youtu.be/ZenNx-V4p9E

That's just silly.

The phase sequence noise usually goes up In frequency due to the axle spin increasing. You'd have to put on motors that get power from a second system, or for ridiculous complexity you could put 6 different independent systems for a 6 axle locomotive. Basically you'd have each axle start to work as the rotational speed passed the lowest phase. Would make a useless piece of motive power, but it would sound crazy (think that one but times 6 in at different times). I'd settle for ode to joy or flight of the valkries.

When a Taurus start a heavy train a wet rails it sounds like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRf30pVGMp4
every axle has a different speed and so every inverter creates it's own individual sound !

By the way : Only the Taurus locomotive with GTO-invertes (ÖBB Rh1016,Rh1116; DB BR 182; ES64U2; MAV 1047; ... first generation EuroSprinter) makes this sound (or for foamers: music),
the Taurus locomotive with IGBT-invertes have the normal inverter sound (ÖBB Rh 1216, ES64U4; ... second generation ES)

Andre

hblr WTF are you talking about?

Can we get a dose of Nasadowsk to straighten us out? (And where is Phil these days?)

in the possible abscene of phil , i'll try to explain it to the level of my knowledge (electrical service technician , servicing inverters for home power use ) .
a electric locomotive is basically the same as a electric motor controller , in say a modern washing machine or power tool .
it takes a.c power from the cantenary supply at say 25 000 volts . it puts it through a transformer , dropping it to say 5000 volts a.c ( voltage plucked out of the air i dont know what the transformer secondary voltage is in a locomotive . ) it then reticifies it to D.c power . you now have maybe 6000 volts d.c .it does this to smooth it out , and save having to worry about what frequency etc the a.c power coming in is . heres where the inverting part comes in . your transistor , mosfet , etc is basically a switch , turned on by a electric pulse from the control circuit . but its capable of turning off and on from say 20 times a second , to 200 000 times a second ( probably more these days ) . imagine your self turning a tap on supplying a hose turnng a water wheel . if you turn it on once a minute the wheel will turn slowly without much power . if you turn it on once a second , it will turn faster , and with more power . so too does the controller control the speed of the motor , by turning the transistor on a few time a second for slow , to 1000's of times a second for fast . as you can hear , once its up to high speed , the switch is turned on so many times per second that to the human air it sounds like a constant hum .

the "music" is simply changing frequency of the pulses . the designing engineers have intentionally or unintentionally stepped the changes in frequency to sound like popular classical scores . in addition you have up to 6 different inverters reacting to individual wheel slip speed amd changing the pulse frequency to bring it under control . i imagine someday some rock musican will be waiting at a station , and a combination of slippery rail and load on a locomotive will provide him with a new riff .


thats the real basics , i havent gone into the ac / dc part so much , ( i 'm thinking maybe it would be easier to understand if i left the d.c part out altogether . i tend to argue the only difference between a.c and d.c these days is where you put zero volts , its all pulsed to some extent or the other ) .

Tadman wrote:hblr WTF are you talking about?

HAHAHHAHA I almost spit my Cherrios out on to my monitor

Tadman wrote:hblr WTF are you talking about?

HAHAHAHA! My thoughts exactly!

Wow HBLR...


Mod Note: Citing the case of RR.net v. NJT Forum, we're going to allow minor humorous transgressions but no ad hominem attacks. That means no "you suck" or other personal degradation, but we will allow a modicum of snide remarks. Snide remarks are the "locker room method" of letting one know their comments are more than a bit off base. I've changed the image to reflect a no-personal-attacks policy. Hugh, take it away... Also see TreNECnyp's equally inane explanation of inverter technology and Oport's immediate reply: http://tiny.cc/x02xd {/mod note}

Tadman wrote:hblr WTF are you talking about?

Can we get a dose of Nasadowsk to straighten us out? (And where is Phil these days?)

I was stating that if a locomotive, or any electric drive had the right components it could indeed play music. However, it would mean that each axle would only be good for traction between specific speeds, hence why i said useless for motive power.