Starting a Diesel-electric locomotive

[Paul Milenkovic]

I have operated many a contrivance -- car, single-engine airplane, farm tractor. There was a time when I was checked out on a Zamboni ice resurfacer. Not much in the way of controls, but there were things you had to watch, procedures to follow and startup and shutdown checklists.

The main thing was you were to never stop once you were out on the ice and had the ice making bar down -- I was told you could freeze yourself stuck. If that happened, they would have to melt the entire ice and start over again to get you free, and lets just say the hockey club would be very displeased.

I imagine starting and operating a locomotive is similar. I mean what can you do already -- go forward, go reverse -- it is not like you can steer it. But I imagine there are oh so many things that can go wrong.

[WSOR 3801]

As for the test cocks...
When the motor is shut down for over 4 hours, the cocks get opened and you give the engine 2-3 rotations to blow any water out. Then close them all up and start it. We only have a couple of engines with purge control, and it might not work anyway. Opening the cocks is fail-safe.

Our motors usually have good batteries, so we don't worry about trying to start them, unless the engineer that shut it down didn't turn all the breakers off like he should have. The UP power that comes up on ballast trains is usually kept running, as they usually send up the oldest junk that might pull it.

Some of our SD40-2s had Kim Hotstarts installed. I believe they are all OOS. The coolant is plain water with some waterpump lube added, so they need to be kept running below 40 deg. Idle from 20-40 deg., Run 2 0-20 deg., Run 3 below 0. When the cab is empty, our motors are locked up.

[BNSFGP38]

QUOTE: starting it is only half the battle..you have to know how to set it up to be able to get it moving once its running...what switches you have to have on and off...and what not..and that information i am not going to give out......
csx engineer

Bingo.

Although imagine trying to steal a steam locomotive. The hours and hours it would take to get water to boil. Then figureing out how to move it without blowing the cylender heads off.........BWHAHAHAHAHAHAH[:D]

[Jack_S]

QUOTE: Originally posted by dldance

and all this time I thought they had a giant kick starter ;-)

dd

Yes, but it gets pricey to fly Rush Limbaugh out just to start an engine

Jack.

[Anonymous]

Lots of discussion on this topic, but why? You should only need to know if required to by your RR employer which likely will not occur. And as far as "engineers etc", out there responding with helpful info dont you think this topic might be better left alone????

[jrw249]

Well this thread has been dead for about three weeks until you brought it back to life. Besides, no big deal, you can get engine starting manuals off e-bay!!