| Process locomotives are normally repowered and
down sized in horsepower. In plant switching and short line service often
requires a lot of tractive effort but not much rail speed. Typical in
plant rail speed limits are 5 to 10 mph. Most short lines operate at
speeds under 20 mph. There is no need to operate the old low rpm 25
ton to 40 ton standard locomotive engines when a modern 2 ton to 10
ton high rpm engine will provide sufficient horsepower at a fraction of the
cost. For in plant switching the old standard engines waste massive
amounts of fuel, smoke and slobber, are extremely loud, and drop oil
everywhere. The new repower engines are electronically controlled, fuel
efficient, quiet, clean burning ( most are EPA approved for off road use ), and
do not drip oil onto the ground. |
| Unlike the standard engines the repower
engines are designed to be turned off when not needed. The
normal procedure for the standard engines is to let them run continuously except
for shutting them down for maintenance. Most in plant switching operations
only require locomotive movement about 10% to 25% of the time. The rest is
spent idling. At idle the standard engines can still burn large amounts of
fuel. These standard engines are designed for speeds of 30 to 50 mph not
the 3 to 5 mph, where most in plant switching is done. Most people equate
horsepower to pulling power. This is simply not the case. Even a 450
HP engine can pull a string of 30 to 40 loaded railcars at 1 mph. Pulling
power is a function of machine weight multiplied by the average adhesion factor
of the steel wheels on the steel rail. Horsepower has very little to do
with it. Now generating that same pulling power at a higher rail speed
does require more horsepower. To go twice as fast you need twice as much
horsepower. So if a 124 locomotive with a 1200 HP standard engine is
designed to operate at 30 mph, then how much horsepower is required to operate
this same locomotive with the same drawbar pull at 5 mph? The answer is
5/30 x 1200 HP = 200 HP. We have built 80 and even 100 ton
locomotives with as little as 270 HP which handle up to 20 grain cars for
unloading. The lower limit for locomotives is about 240 HP because it
takes about 200 HP to properly excite the traction motors. Because the 450
HP engines are so popular with the trucking industry and the standby power
generator builders the unit price is very attractive and therefore we chose that
engine as the entry level unit for horsepower. On the high end repowers
tend to loose their price competitiveness at about 2400 to 3000
horsepower. Above 3000 HP the standard locomotive engines are more cost
effective. Therefore we have chosen the range of 450 HP to 2400 HP as our
standard offering for process locomotives. |
| Our standard repower engine choices are Detroit
Diesel, Cummins, and
Caterpillar. The choice of the brand engine that goes
into a particular locomotive is left to the purchaser of that unit. Other
brand engines can be incorporated at the purchaser's request and subject to
additional charges. |
|
Currently our standard engines are the Detroit Diesel
Series 60, Series 2000, and Series 4000 units equipped with the DDEC IV
electronic control system.
|
