It seems to me that I had heard a lot of the old Fairbanks-Morse prime movers were used as stand-by generators when the locomotives were taken out of service.
It's possible. There was nothing wrong with Fairbanks-Morse opposed-piston diesel engines, there still isn't. They just weren't optimum for railroad usage.
Quite true, there are still a fair number of OP engines in marine service.
I doubt there were that many FM OP engines to start with to be "a lot of" them converted to that use, but surely some were.
They're still available new today for that purpose - as well as ALCO 251's ! See:
http://www.fairbanksmorse.com/commercial/
http://www.fairbanksmorse.com/engines/opposed-piston-model-38/
http://www.fairbanksmorse.com/nuclear/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairbanks_Morse_38_8-1/8_diesel_engine
http://www.amerensi.com/dieselgenerators.html
http://www.amerensi.com/traindiesel.html - last of 4 headings.
- Paul North.
The Hansel power plant in Kissimmee, Florida had a several FM opposed piston diesels. It was pretty impressive to stand in a big room full of them thundering away and making your kneecaps tingle.
Back in the late 50s the main power plant at Osan AB, Korea, used a pair (I think) of FM OP diesels. You could hear them throbbing away from almost anywhere on base.
I really doubt they were ex locomotive prime movers. I recall them being about fifteen feet tall.
Chuck
Many nuke subs use FM 0P diesels as backup power
Firelock76 It's possible. There was nothing wrong with Fairbanks-Morse opposed-piston diesel engines, there still isn't. They just weren't optimum for railroad usage.
My observation, the FM's were good in marine use - crank them up to the operating RPM and leave them there for hours. In railroad use, especially in yard engines (where most of them were put in service) they were constantly going up and down the rev range, as well as suffering the impacts that come from switching operations - they didn't like that kind of service and blew oil all over the place.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
FM OP's in Canadian Great Lakes freighters are almost extinct. They've long been considered fuel thirsty and a FM hasn't been installed in a new lake freighter for over 40 years because of that. But they were the diesel of choice for many new Canadian vessels in the late 1960's and early 1970's after steam turbine installations ceased.
Only three still going (The Algoway, Algorail, and the Manitoba), and the two Algoma Central vessels are living on borrowed time. And a cement carrier, the Stephen B. Roman, originally built as a package freighter before the container revolution killed that business, has two 10-38D8-1/8's and two 8-38-D8-1/8 diesel engines in her engine room and sails the Great Lakes to this day.
A lot of their issues were solved in the end by FM and the railroad's themselves, but too late to save them because by then FM wasn't building new locomotives and they were minority makes and attractive targets for elimination. The Milwaukee loved their FM switchers for instance and they were chugging along fine, years after heavy overhauls had ended, right up until the Pacific Extension was abandoned and they became surplus.
Most of their problems seemed to be in the covered wagons. The road switchers and switchers seemed to be rugged beast that would lug heavy loads at slow speeds all day long for years on end and were well liked by many of their users.
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