Testing locomotives

[Perry Babin]

I'm near Baton Rouge but a stroke ended my days of... doing much of anything. Thanks for the offer, however. 

[tree68]

Perry - Where do you live?  I don't mean your street address, just what region of the country.  

We may be able to point you to a tourist railroad, where operations are usually a bit looser than the Class 1's in terms of willingness to accommodate visitors.  

You may be able to get up close and personal with the equipment and get a better understanding of how it all works.

[mvlandsw]

Many newer locomotives are able to self load by using the dynamic brake grids to provide a load for the diesel engine and some of the electrical equipment.

[BaltACD]

In the 21st Century carriers are interchanging and using each others power on a routine and daily basis.  Some carriers that are short of power may keep 'foreign' power on their property longer than they otherwise would to make up for the power shortage.  This interchange of power is accounted for under the auspices of the AAR (Association of American Railroads) wherein each carrier maintain 'Horsepower Hour' Accounts.  A 3000 HP engine on a foreign property for one hour had 3000 HP Hours accumulated, that engine will continue to accumulate horsepower hours until it is interchanged to another carrier, it is not required that an engine be delivered back to the carrier from which it was received.  A CSX horsepower hours account with BNSF may have locomotives from all the other carriers - CN, CP, KCS, NS, UP in addition to BNSF.  Horsepower hour accounts get settled on a monthly basis with money only changing of the differences in the balances.  I have no idea what the monetary value of a horsepower hour is.

 

NOTE - I attempted to put all the above posts as a single post - EVERY time I tried I got the 403 Forbidden Error

[BaltACD]

When engines are brought out of storage, they will be run through the shop to restart their 92 day inspection calendar and have all the issues of the engine addressed.  A similar procedure is applied to leased power when it comes on to the carriers property.

[BaltACD]

When a carrier has all their locomotive fleet actively working and they are still short of power to handle the traffic being offered, the carrier will go to the locomotive leasing market and lease the number of locomotives they need.  Details of leasing as in duration, compensation and other details of the transaction are beyond the pay grade I ever attained.

[BaltACD]

A few years ago CSX sold off a number of GE Dash 7 and Dash 8 engines to the Pan Am (Guilford) Railway.  Within the past two years, CSX bought a sizable portion of the Pan Am Railway and those engines came back under CSX ownership for a second time.

[BaltACD]

Carriers deal with 'excess' power in a number of ways.  They can view that X number of units are TOTALLY excess to the needs of the carrier that they can forecast and foresee for years into the future.  Select locomotives will be SOLD into the secondary power market with locomotive lessors and short lines being the prime candidates for buying the locomotives.  In today's world in the US, engines going to sale are mostly 4 axle engines, either GP38, GP40 or butt head yard engines, they will also be selling GE Dash 7 and Dash 8 locomotives that utilize DC traction motors.  Nearly all the engines being sold will be 25 years old or older.

[Perry Babin]

I appreciate any (accurate) information anyone is willing to give. Even if it's not exactly what I was looking for, it's knowledge that will help fill in blanks. 

This forum has been a challenge for me because it's so different than what I've been dealing with for 20 years of tech support. One thing that's so different is that a question might be answered from multiple angles. I would never (or rarely do that) when helping others because it takes so much time. On other forums and email, I always ask questions to get specific answers which lead to specific suggestions to solve problems. 

Here, I have learned that I will need to narrow the focus to a tighter point to get the answers to questions. This isn't a criticism. It's just that I have to alter my way of thinking to fit in with the way this forum works. 

[zugmann]

I don't lay awake at night wondering if an engine I have in my consist is going to crap out when I need it.  If it happens - it happens.  And yeah, it has happened.  Not a huge deal.  

Some of the questions you are asking are way above my paygrade. I run 'em, I don't fix 'em.  So I can only answer based on that.   You need some input from the machinist side.  I know we had some, but don't know if any are presently here. 

[Perry Babin]

Fault logs for modern locomotives.. that's part of an answer. 

You can't load test while sitting still unless you have a dynamometer. The answer above fits modern locomotives. This may apply to most working locomotives. 

What about locomotives that have been in storage and any data they have could be wrong due to parts that are in the process of failing. Don't they have to test those under load or do you simply take for granted that they will work 100%?

As an example, let's say that you have a route that's mostly flat and will need only one locomotive to pull it but 100% of the traction effort of a second is needed for a short part of the run. Are you going to take it for granted (with no load testing) that the second locomotive will work without load testing?

I understand that these questions are just pollution, an annoyance to to those who have lived a life on the railroads. I have about 2 months of interest in railroads so I'm doing what I can to fill in a LOT of blanks in the operation. The questions I ask may not make sense to railroaders but they help me (even when not answered as directly as I'd hope). I'm asking follow up questions to clarify. I'm sorry of they seem ridiculous to those with more experience. 

 

[BaltACD]

Each train that a carrier operates has a normal 'power plan', that specifies what type of power should be utilized to operate the train from origin to destination.  There ae also trains whose purpose, beyond moving freight, is to pick up/set off  outlying power and move it between its use location and a shop location.  The movement TO the shop can be because the power has some form of mechanical or electrical defect that the shop must repair or the power may be due its 92 day quarterly inspection that can only be performed at a designated shop. 

Class 1 carriers have multiple shop locations that can perform the 'Q' inspection and their Power Distribution organizations schedule locomotives to particular shops for their Q inspections so as to 'spread the wealth' and not overburden any individual shop.

The ideal for power at outlying locations is to move engines directly from the shop at the completion of the Q to the outlying point and have it work at that outlying point for the time until it is due its next Q inspection.

A zugmann has noted each engine is required to be 'calendar day' inspected by the engineer that is using the engine(s).  Failure to pass some of the requirements of the Calendar Day Inspection can cause the engine to be removed from service pending repair of the defect.

At today's prices, each locomotive is a Capital Investment of between two and three million dollars the carrier has made for its business.  The carrier expects high levels of utilization of these capital investments and that is the job of whatever power distribution organization the carrier has.

[zugmann]

Perry Babin

Why wouldn't you get them anywhere? If you have a locomotive pulling, why would the progress be stopped or even slowed? If you found that one locomotive wasn't pulling or had a fault, switch to the next one or back to the lead locomotive.

You can't really inspect an engine if you're going anywhere.  You kind of need to be stopped so you can be back there inspecting them.   So I'm not really sure what you mean by this. 

Perry Babin

What if you had a locomotive that only showed a fault after 10, 20, 30 miles of working hard and the techs/mechanics needed more information on what was leading to the fault? Would they make up a special train (and all permissions to have it on a track) just to get the information the tech needed?

Modern engines have fault logs.  The techs can do load tests and whatever at the shops.  And yeah, I have known them to send out a freshly-shopped engine on a local or turn job to see if the issue pops back up.   Easier than trying to get an extra crew just for that purpose.  Not saying that has never happened, but I'm thinking it's rare. 

[zugmann]

Perry Babin

A walk-through wouldn't be the same as a long-term test.

Locomotives either get a daily inspection, or a 92/180 day periodic inspection.   There's no such thing as a "walk-through" insepction.  You can walk through to make sure the brakes/lights/breakers are set up right, and which one has the nicest toilet in case of reasons, but that really isn't an inspection.  

If you find issues enroute, well, then there's rules that deal with them.  Most of them are to continue until the next repair point (if safe) or when the next daily inspection is required (sooner of the 2, usually).  All of this can be found in the CFR for locomotive inspections.  

[Perry Babin]

A walk-through wouldn't be the same as a long-term test. I worked in electronics and a short test that took only as long as needed to confirm operation didn't always show faults that long term, high-stress testing did. The same thing goes for racecars. Everything can appear perfect for a couple of laps but during the race, you find weak components. I don't see why a locomotive would be different. 

Would it be possible to do that sort of testing (even if it's not commonly done)?

Why wouldn't you get them anywhere? If you have a locomotive pulling, why would the progress be stopped or even slowed? If you found that one locomotive wasn't pulling or had a fault, switch to the next one or back to the lead locomotive.

What if you had a locomotive that only showed a fault after 10, 20, 30 miles of working hard and the techs/mechanics needed more information on what was leading to the fault? Would they make up a special train (and all permissions to have it on a track) just to get the information the tech needed?

[zugmann]

Locomotives need to be inspected at least once each calendar day they are utilized ( as in provide tractive effort).  They don't need to be inspected if they are being dragged around and not used. 

 

So if you walk through all the engines and inspect them Wednesday at 9pm, if they need to be used Thursday, they would need to be fully inspected *again* on Thursday by end of day.  So why inspect stuff that you have no intention of using?  Unless someone in charge wants you to.  Then you would.  But sometimes engines are moved from place to place because they have defects that need fixed, or are FRA dead.  Those you can't even inspect until they get addressed. 

And pratically, if you spend an hour going through multiple engines, you'll never get them anywhere, much less where they are needed in the first place.  Kind of defeats the purpose, no?

[Perry Babin]

As an example, let's say that a railroad needs to move multiple locomotives from one locaton to another and they're not needed to pull the train they're on. Would there be a time (or is it possible) to cycle through the un-needed locomotives, giving each one an hour or so of time to do all of the work to pull the load just to confirm that each is 100% ready to work when it gets to its final destination.