The May 2008 issue (sorry, I was out of town and didn't get it until this month!) issue of "Railfan and Railroad" has an article by Preston Cook on a tugboat designer and some of his creations: an article good enough to make up for some pretty boring isssues....
(Tugboats? in a railroad magazine? Well, the tugs in question were owned by railroad companies for use in the harbors at there termini, and the engineering design had more than a bit to do with a company that also built locomotives.)
But there is an incidental description of diesel engine history that I found thought-provoking. In the 1930s General Motors (and/or Winton Engines, which GM acquired about the same time) introduced the "201" engine, with an eye on both marine and railroad applications. (The U.S. Navy wanted a new generation of submarine engines, and was willing to **buy** prototypes-- this was a gig deal in the Depression. The program is mentioned only briefly in Norman Friedman's "U.S. Submarines: an illustrated design history," but as I recall Winton-GM, Fairbanks-Morse, and I think Cooper-Bessemer, were all interested: the Navy may not have been the parent of railroad dieselization, but it certainly contributed to maternal health during pregnancy!)
What's interesting is that further development produced TWO DIFFERENT derivative designs: the 567, optimized for locomotive service, and the 248 (and later 278) optimized for marine service. Very different: does anyone here know if there were ANY common parts? And yet the two weren't all THAT different in power and dimensions: one of the reasons GM finally discontinued production of the 278 (in, according to Cook, the early 1960s) was that it had been edged out of its market niche by a competing design: the 567C.
Fast forward to the present. People who build medium speed diesel engines for railroad and marine service don't have SEPARATE designs. EMD sells the 710 for marine and stationary service, GE builds the FDL and GEVO (under different brand names: 227 and 250) for marine and stationary.
I have a feeling that this reflects something more fundamental and widespread in our economy and society. At a guess, things like medium-speed diesel engines (and, I'd further guess, lots of other things of that size and price range) were closer to being hand-made in the 1930s, so the economic DISincentive to producing two different designs where one could do the work were less important then than now.
Anyway, it was a fine article: congratualtions to Mr. Cook!
(Tugboats? in a railroad magazine? Well, the tugs in question were owned by railroad companies for use in the harbors at there termini, and the engineering design had more than a bit to do with a company that also built locomotives.)
But there is an incidental description of diesel engine history that I found thought-provoking. In the 1930s General Motors (and/or Winton Engines, which GM acquired about the same time) introduced the "201" engine, with an eye on both marine and railroad applications. (The U.S. Navy wanted a new generation of submarine engines, and was willing to **buy** prototypes-- this was a gig deal in the Depression. The program is mentioned only briefly in Norman Friedman's "U.S. Submarines: an illustrated design history," but as I recall Winton-GM, Fairbanks-Morse, and I think Cooper-Bessemer, were all interested: the Navy may not have been the parent of railroad dieselization, but it certainly contributed to maternal health during pregnancy!)
What's interesting is that further development produced TWO DIFFERENT derivative designs: the 567, optimized for locomotive service, and the 248 (and later 278) optimized for marine service. Very different: does anyone here know if there were ANY common parts? And yet the two weren't all THAT different in power and dimensions: one of the reasons GM finally discontinued production of the 278 (in, according to Cook, the early 1960s) was that it had been edged out of its market niche by a competing design: the 567C.
Fast forward to the present. People who build medium speed diesel engines for railroad and marine service don't have SEPARATE designs. EMD sells the 710 for marine and stationary service, GE builds the FDL and GEVO (under different brand names: 227 and 250) for marine and stationary.
I have a feeling that this reflects something more fundamental and widespread in our economy and society. At a guess, things like medium-speed diesel engines (and, I'd further guess, lots of other things of that size and price range) were closer to being hand-made in the 1930s, so the economic DISincentive to producing two different designs where one could do the work were less important then than now.
Anyway, it was a fine article: congratualtions to Mr. Cook!
