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[quote user="Railway Man"][quote user="Bucyrus"] I wonder if the hydraulic transmission might some day become victorious; as the ground shifts with respect to fuel efficiency, the use of copper, etc.  I don't see any fundamental reason why fluid drive should take a back seat to electric drive.  One reason we are doing it the electric way is that we have done it that way for so long.It is interesting that the hydraulic transmission has evolved as the preferred method for the high power drive trains in bulldozers, yet one of the major pioneers in that area was R.J. Letourneau, advocating what he called the "electric-wheel," as he called the principle.Letourneau coupled a diesel engine to a generator, and used the electricity to power traction motors.  He was an electric drive advocate swimming upstream with those who were more enamored with the idea of replacing gears with hydraulics.[/quote] Three basic types are offered:  diesel-electric, where the prime mover drives a main generator that supplies electricity to traction motors geared to each driven axle or wheel; hydrostatic, where the prime mover drives a hydraulic pump that supplies hydraulic fluid to hydraulic motors powering each driven wheel or axle; and mechanical drive, where the prime mover is directly geared to each driven wheel or axle via an intervening geared transmission connected to the prime mover via either a clutch or torque converter.   The K-M was a mechanical-drive locomotive with a torque converter.  I think what you are suggesting is that there is opportunity to revisit such a concept (but not a hydrostatic concept).  But I can't see why; the same old disadvantages of the K-M transmission haven't gone away in the meantime. RWM[/quote]I was just wondering if the diesel-hydraulic transmission principle was potentially applicable to locomotives in a variation that is different from the KM or Alco prototypes.  I was thinking of the hydrostatic principle, for example. So, my question is:  Did the KM experiment refute the diesel-hydraulic principle in engineering terms for the U.S. market for all time, or did it just prove that the KM product was not properly executed for the U.S. market at that time?It seems like it must have been the latter because, as you point out, the KMs were diesel-mechanical, not diesel-hydraulic.
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