That's one word for it

[mudchicken]

Even when GE was working out of the old DRGW Burnham shops, FDL belchfire was common. (and the Amtrak locomotive fires were still common, the local firemen in Arvada and Golden are now very well aware that you don't walk on the GE fiberglass cowling on top....)

[Electroliner 1935]

BaltACD

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_Mazda

Balt, That brings back the memory of the one and only time I drove a Mazda (test drive) with a Wankel engine. All conventional piston driven cars "told" you when to shift, but I was accelerating past 45 mph in second gear and didn't realize how fast the engine was reved as there was no audio feedback. Torque was great. Looked at the tach and guickly upshifted. I was amazed at the performance. This was back in the late 60's. Thought it was a fun car but I was on a limited budget and had no money to play with. 

[ChuckCobleigh]

Mookie

See what a good memory you have.  Couldn't think of any way to describe it, so Thingy seemed to fit....notice they disappeared shortly after that, too.

Well, I remember "yellow thingies" and some of the kidding that resulted, but for the life of me can't remember what they actually were now, only that you saw them on some locomotives and got them identified by some of the usual suspects.

EDIT: It looks like we are coming up on the 15th anniversary of the original YT thread (http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/4847.aspx).  Now that "search the community" has been found again, I was able to find it, along with a whole bunch of later references.  I can't believe it was that long ago, heck, I was still working (or at least fooling my employer that I was working) at that time, a few months before I retired.

[Semper Vaporo]

I had a Mazda RX-4 wagon at one time.  I really liked it... lots of torque and power... and it never backfired on me... UNTIL I let my brother drive it!  He set off the Tach alarm in 1st gear, 2nd gear and 3rd gear and was way above the 65 MPH speed limit when he shifted into 4th.  It backfired then... and no matter how I babied it, it would backfire often when shifting into any gear.  Brothers!