Ingersol rand 4-s

[NVSRR]

That contraption ran on the GM&O.  It was designed with the crew in mind.  Ingersolrand wasnt new to diesel (oil in thier terms) locomotives.  They were a big part of boxcabs plus supplying parts to alco and Baldwin.   The CNJ 1000 ran to 1957.  with IR time tested experience why did the 4-s fail?  

 

*note. I am aware that cnj 1000 and others were built

by a group of builders not just IR

 

 

Wolfie

[rrinker]

  OK, I give up, what is an I-R 4-S? I've read Steve Berliner's Boxcabs pages over and over and never saw this loco. The IR plant switcher from Philipsburg NJ, now at the Henry Ford museum, I used to have some documents the company released on the occasion of it being retired and sent to the museum, as my grandfather worked at that plant. 

 Is the 4-S the one-off Erir unit built by GE and IR? Failure, in what way? One Alco droppe dout, GE and IR made a few more locos from 1923-1930, but things were changing rapidly, with many improvements in prime movers from EMC/EMD and Alco getting into they fray themselves by purchasing Seymour & Mackintosh to get their own prime movers instead of using the IR ones. And there was a little bit of an economic issue in 1929 that certainly had an effect on what railroads were doing with experimental new technology.

                                                  --Randy

 

[garya]

Ingalls shipbuilding, not Ingersol-Rand.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingalls_4-S

[rrinker]

 Well, now that I have seen before.

By the time that was built, Alco was in big decline, railroads had pretty much settled on EMD and GE. Railroads don't like to experiment with unknown stuff, no matter how good it might be. Fairbanks-Morse powered a lot of submarines and other ships in WWII - by this time, they were gone as a loco builder. Too different. 

 A more modern example might be the MK5000, Morrison-Knudsen was well known as a locomotive rebuilder, but when they took the next step and built their own loco, with a proven Cat prime mover - not much interest. 

                                    --Randy

[peahrens]

Thomas the train diesel ?

[chutton01]

rrinker

By the time that was built, Alco was in big decline, railroads had pretty much settled on EMD and GE.

If you're referring to the Ingalls 4-S discussed and linked to, that was built in 1946 as the linked entry stated. While EMD was indeed ascendant, Alco was doing pretty well with the RS-1, S-1, and some other models, while GE in the NA market was more a supplier of electrical components (althought they did sell export and industrial units).  That would change by the early 1960s, but still...

[SSW9389]

 

? Randy: The Ingalls unit was built in 1946. Alco still had 22 years to go and GE was not building diesel road units, but in partnership with Alco. 

 

 

rrinker

 Well, now that I have seen before.

By the time that was built, Alco was in big decline, railroads had pretty much settled on EMD and GE. Railroads don't like to experiment with unknown stuff, no matter how good it might be. Fairbanks-Morse powered a lot of submarines and other ships in WWII - by this time, they were gone as a loco builder. Too different. 

 A more modern example might be the MK5000, Morrison-Knudsen was well known as a locomotive rebuilder, but when they took the next step and built their own loco, with a proven Cat prime mover - not much interest. 

                                    --Randy

 

[rrinker]

 OK, but the rest still holds. Unproven, untested, new builder. FM managed, sort of, but they never got to the level of EMD or Alco.

 Even the well respected steam builders didn't really make it as diesel builders - Baldwin and Lima for example.

 EMD and Alco got a jump start because of WWII and the decisions of the WPB. 

                                 --Randy

 

 

[Overmod]

The Ingalls Shipbuilding unit used a Superior diesel, which was a robust but relatively slow-speed prime mover -- some of the same reasoning as Baldwin used in the 600 family.

Remember that Ingalls was colossally overbuilt following WWII, and decided to enter the first-generation diesel market with an interesting range of proposed engines.  The longevity of the one 4-S seems to bear out their relative competence; on the other hand, when a company like Lima can be marginalized in the space of less than half a decade, no carbody builder dependent on competitors for its generators and motors is likely to do well.  

The great interesting thing that Ingalls had, perhaps due to its being 'connected' in the maritime industry, was the proposed 2000hp passenger unit, which was utterly unlike anything else developed in that period except the 'revised' PRR V1 turbine.  This would have used two Superior motors driving electromechanical transmissions with Cardan-shaft final drive, and would have had little (if indeed any) of the high-speed problems with flashover and birdsnesting that locomotives with DC traction motors, even with very high nominal final-drive ratios, would experience; they would also have very little tendency to apply lateral force 'down low' to the railhead as truck-mounted traction motors do.  It is tempting to speculate that in a world not subject to the ICC order of 1947 there might have been a market for 2000hp passenger engines easily capable of 120+mph day-in, day-out with considerably lower tare weight than, say, an E-unit and no issues with transition...