Locomotive breakdowns.

[Anonymous]

This is a Railroader Question.
Dealing with the EMD's & GE's.
Of all the years of working for the Railroad. Have you had more problems with EMD's or GE's?

[arbfbe]

GEs, without a doubt. Even though they were a minority at first they had noticably more failures. Now their quality is better and the computers monitoring their performance do a better job of protecting from total failures.

There are good reasons most shortlines start out with a fleet of EMDs, Reliability, parts supply and ease of maintenance compared to GE are some of them.

[csxengineer98]

you have to specify what modelsl of GE and EMD power your talking about... just to lump them into 2 classes will not realy get the info that your asking for.... for the simple fact that some models are better then others from both manufactors.... but to give you a little bit of info....the years that i use to run the big hammers....the cw44-9ACs...and the SD-70mac..and 80macs...ill tell you right now...i have had very few problems with the GE power...the 80mac is the worst engin that EMD has ever built..and the 70s come in a close second....alot of software issues that cause the computers to crash..... not saying that GEs dont have thier issues..but they have been more reliable in my book then any of the tech-no-tosters that EMD built
csx engineer

[Randy Stahl]

We were hanging around the shop the other day discussing just this. One fellow made the comment that the GE's don't use as many power assemblys as the EMD. I thought about this for a minute and figured the reason the GEs use fewer power assy's is that on a GE you cannot look into the liner to inspect the piston, rings, liner, etc. The best you can do on a GE is to do a compression test and thats about it. The EMD engines it seemed would need a power pack almost every time you got the engine in for a 92 day test , so it would figure that the EMD's used more power assy's. A GE will surprise you.
Randy

[Anonymous]

GEs I've run have had more issues on the road. Part of this was GE design (as others have mentioned the Dash 8 and Dash 9 series are vast improvements over the Dash 7s and U boats) and another part was that the mechanical folks didn't much care for the GEs. We had a lot of failures due to lack of water, brakeshoes and other basic maintenance that I couldn't explain any other way, even on units fresh from a 92 day inspection...

Oh, and the mechanical guys weren't alone. Operating guys generally disliked the GEs too. I can't tell you how many times I have helped to switch a GE out of the lead. The newer ones are significantly better. I run Dash 9s all the time now and although they have their quirks they are a vast improvement over their predecessors...

LC

[csxengineer98]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Limitedclear

GEs I've run have had more issues on the road. Part of this was GE design (as others have mentioned the Dash 8 and Dash 9 series are vast improvements over the Dash 7s and U boats) and another part was that the mechanical folks didn't much care for the GEs. We had a lot of failures due to lack of water, brakeshoes and other basic maintenance that I couldn't explain any other way, even on units fresh from a 92 day inspection...

Oh, and the mechanical guys weren't alone. Operating guys generally disliked the GEs too. I can't tell you how many times I have helped to switch a GE out of the lead. The newer ones are significantly better. I run Dash 9s all the time now and although they have their quirks they are a vast improvement over their predecessors...

LC

the -9s will smoke a 70 or 80mac too... great starting power...and even better dynamic brake... its low to respond to the throlle..but then agin..so are the new EMD models...eveything is load regulated now...insted of throttle responce....
csx engineer

[wabash1]

GE junk dash 8 and 9 when you go to work and this is yor consist you know it is going to be a long day, they wont run and they break down on a regular basis. on the other hand ive never had a emd go down and leave me stranded. yea give me a emd any day they are made better and dont rattle and the quality is better.

[ValleyX]

Don't much care for the new 2600's, hate that bell you can't turn off but have to wait to turn off, and I don't think they're that quiet.

The old GE's were horrendous and if something did go wrong with them, they were an absolute greasy mess to try and work on, filthy engines.

The Nines are history when they fail, sometimes you can get the computer to reset the fault but it seems like once they have a fault, it's going to happen again and you're not going to get it reset more than once.

I hate the modern load-regulated engines, today's railroading takes a lot of patience in many forms and that's just one of them.

[csxengineer98]

QUOTE: Originally posted by wabash1

GE junk dash 8 and 9 when you go to work and this is yor consist you know it is going to be a long day, they wont run and they break down on a regular basis. on the other hand ive never had a emd go down and leave me stranded. yea give me a emd any day they are made better and dont rattle and the quality is better.

maybe where your at...but i would take a -9 GE over anything in the fleet anyday!!!
csx engineer

[locomutt]

See jhhtrainsplanes post today. That GE has/had some serious problems.

[wabash1]

QUOTE: Originally posted by csxengineer98

QUOTE: Originally posted by wabash1

GE junk dash 8 and 9 when you go to work and this is yor consist you know it is going to be a long day, they wont run and they break down on a regular basis. on the other hand ive never had a emd go down and leave me stranded. yea give me a emd any day they are made better and dont rattle and the quality is better.

maybe where your at...but i would take a -9 GE over anything in the fleet anyday!!!
csx engineer

you must love overtime myself i love getting home. ge engine is a ge engine you cant tell me that the csx got the good ones they all come off the same line. I am also not going to have one of these lets fight over ge emd flame war go to fist fight BS session. i will close it by saying You have your opinion on how you want to move frieght i have mine. it dont agree with you and that is ok. that is america i will defend your right to say ge is better . have a good day

[csxengineer98]

QUOTE: Originally posted by wabash1

QUOTE: Originally posted by csxengineer98

QUOTE: Originally posted by wabash1

GE junk dash 8 and 9 when you go to work and this is yor consist you know it is going to be a long day, they wont run and they break down on a regular basis. on the other hand ive never had a emd go down and leave me stranded. yea give me a emd any day they are made better and dont rattle and the quality is better.

maybe where your at...but i would take a -9 GE over anything in the fleet anyday!!!
csx engineer

you must love overtime myself i love getting home. ge engine is a ge engine you cant tell me that the csx got the good ones they all come off the same line. I am also not going to have one of these lets fight over ge emd flame war go to fist fight BS session. i will close it by saying You have your opinion on how you want to move frieght i have mine. it dont agree with you and that is ok. that is america i will defend your right to say ge is better . have a good day

im not trying to bait you into anything... and your right.... we could battle it out...but it would be along the same lines as ford-cheve battles...a long pointless waste of time in which we both would end up pissed off at eachother in the end...lol... im just saying that i have never had to many problems with the new GEs...compaired to the new EMDs... both companys power have some issues from time to time... just like evey automobile has issues at some point....
but i got to know..what type of problems did you have..and with what model of GE.....
csx engineer