OK, I will eat humble pie
The six SDD20 Locomotives supplied to Tanzania used GE sourced prime movers
http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/le ... index.html
"B. Amaya
via email
GE is a sub-supplier to locomotive maker
General Electric (GE) has noted with concern the article in The EastAfrican (April 6-12, 2013) titled, “Tazara’s six new $24m locomotives fail trial runs.”
The article reported that the locomotives manufactured in China are under GE licence. The facts are as follows:
The said locomotive is not made under GE licence. CSR Qishuyan Locomotive Co., Ltd (CSR QSY) owns the locomotive design, final assembly and validation.
GE, is a sub-supplier of the project and provided major components, such as engine, traction motors, and related technical support. The said locomotive was assigned a CSR QSY locomotive model number “SDD20” instead of GE’s.
GE is committed to working with its partners CSR QSY and Tazara to resolve any technical challenges related to any of the GE components supplied. GE supplied engines for the locomotives and no technical issues were reported on the engines.
The GE team will continue to conduct trial runs for the locomotives and the status on the trial runs as of today is as follows: Trial run for unit number 3003 and unit number 3004 has not started yet whilst unit number 3005 is ready for test and has been put on hold pending the recovery of the rail line from flood damage.
GE will resolve traction motor-related issues on units 3001 and 3006 and also perform trial runs for units 3002 due to pass tests this month, and will also investigate the causes of the technical failures on the traction motors and provide a containment solution while continuing to work with QSY and Tazara to test the rest of the units to minimise impact.
CCECC would require all the participants of this project to uphold the highest standards of quality and be committed to expeditiously resolve any technical challenges that are discovered during the on-going procedural trial runs on the locomotives.
Thulisile Thuli Phiri
Media relations manager ( GE-Africa)
Via e-mail"
Similar alternator arrangements are used by both of the Chinese loco assembly groups. Alternators and alternator cooling and bearings seem to have been a problem in New Zealand and in Australia. The Chinese use a dogs breakfast of an arrangement, whereby the auxiliary alternators are driven by Cardin shaft and a splitter gearbox
Allen may have seen a similar arrangement in SCT's SDA1 from CSR. In the case of the SDA1 the main is in the conventional position, with the auxiliaries hung off the engines opposite end
This is the SDD6, which is a Cummins QSK60 powered el cheapo supplied to Africa
http://cs-railway.com/uploadfile/images ... 322(2).jpg (C&P this link, can't get it to load properly, won't pick up the .jpg)
Locomotive design in China is the monopoly of design bureaus attached to some of the prestigious engineering universities, however locomotives are credited to, and the model nomenclature allocated by the plant which bolts the assorted assemblies into a loco, which is all very confusing. Chinese assemblers are not yet vertically integrated builders in the western sense. Think Kenworth truck, all that Kenworth manufactures is the chassis and cab, everything else is supplied by OEM's
In reality to accurately catalogue Chinese locomotives, a system similar to Soviet Russian aircraft should be used, where an aircraft was credited to the design bureau, not the manufacturing plant
So we have locomotives with similar alternator arrangements from subsidiaries of both of the state owned assembly groups. Both of these groups were given plants building engines, generators, alternators and traction motors when loco assembly was consolidated into 2 "commercial" groups in 2000/2002, it may be that like the indigenous diesel engines, the designs were owned by the Ministry of Railways. Interesting that CSR have outsourced engine development, not a design bureau, this engine appears to built by both groups
http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/indu ... tract.html
The above move breaks precedence, with the announcement of the demise of the Ministry of Railways, with transfer of responsibilities to the ministry of Transport, and operations to a newly created China Railway Corporation, the manufacturing groups may be flexing their muscles, and exerting their independence, it is certainly the end of centralised planning by Ministry of Railways bureaucrats of locomotive manufacture. The assemblers may finally be able to throw off the yoke of the university based design bureaus, which are light years away from commercial reality (hence the failed SDD8 prototypes for Vale Brazil), and persisting with outmoded alternator designs which continue to fail.
In theory CSR and CNR are commercial corporations, however the State is still the controlling shareholder, and the in-house secretary of the Communist Party branch has equal status and authority to the CEO, so probably a role similar to political commissars in their armed forces. No wonder that all of the little Vegimites line up with military precession in new t-shirts and cheer on command, each time a new order is rolled out.
