Why Were there No Great Northern GTELs?

[VGN Jess]

Any thoughts on why UP would not have been content with buying standard production diesels and coupling them together in order to achieve the required horsepower?

[VGN Jess]

By the mid 60's didn't UP pair DD35's with GTELS?

[VGN Jess]

Well they had long flat straight distances halfway thru Wyoming to IA; high HP locomotives seem made for that.

[VGN Jess]

As noted previously, steam turbines return power much lower than GTELs so comparing apples-oranges re: GN?????

[Overmod]

VGN Jess

Any thoughts on why UP would not have been content with buying standard production diesels and coupling them together in order to achieve the required horsepower?

I believe Don Strack covers this in considerable detail, and other people interested in UP have discussed it.

UP was famous for using what could be enormous consists of small first-generation diesel units, taking advantage of the ability of MU control (the most I recall from an article was 17).  This represented an enormous capital investment in contemporary dollars, and a great amount of unnecessary metal and duplication of parts, many of them fragile or prone to failure.

So UP, over the years, experimented with all sorts of ways to reduce costs, including the promise (which turned out unfulfilled for a few reasons) that gas turbines with vastly fewer and simpler moving parts and the ability to develop high horsepower to weight would be suited to railroad service.

Had the free-piston gasifier approach been commercialized by Hamilton, or Lima-Hamilton, or Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton as expected, UP would have been a prime customer -- ghastly noise or not! -- and I believe they were actively interested in the stillborn FG9.  

[Overmod]

VGN Jess

As noted previously, steam turbines return power much lower than GTELs so comparing apples-oranges re: GN?????

You seem to ignore that gas turbines were not at the stage of development in 1938 that they were in the late '40s.  The actual steam-turbine plant in turbines 1 and 2 was relatively tiny, dwarfed by the normal-for-the-time generators and even by their own exhaust plena, and there was little difficulty in increasing steam-generator or turbine shaft hp substantially -- the problem being GE designed them for 1500psi, which requires distilled water, which requires full obligate condensation as in the ACE3000, which has always proven a death-march on a working locomotive of this size.  It was definitely competitive with diesel-electric power when it was designed, still competitive on paper with, say, 5000hp worth of E3s if it had run as intended -- something GN was said to have managed where UP did not, and you can easily see some key differences that might help explain this -- but were made obsolescent at a stroke by the FT.  (The Baldwin contemporary competition in 1939 was the single-unit 6000hp Essl locomotive, which I think would have been delightful to GN in particular, but Baldwin couldn't build it profitably... compared to FTs, even before WPB action.

[timz]

The 1956 Cyc says UP's turbines burned Bunker M, which was Bunker C that had been "cleaned and strained to remove soda ash." But Don Strack says Bunker M didn't actually exist

Union Pacific, Bunker 'C' (utahrails.net)

Rwy Age for 20 Sept 1954 says UP had started running turbines Green River to Laramie and was planning to extend to Cheyenne "at an early date".

Rwy Age 15 Oct 1956 says UP gave one turbine a 24000-gal tender in November 1955 and started running it Ogden-Omaha. Said it could run Ogden to Omaha and back to Cheyenne on one tenderful of fuel -- wonder if that means they hadn't installed fuel facilities east of Cheyenne.

[Overmod]

timz

But Don Strack says Bunker M didn't actually exist

Actually, Don pointed out that Cinthia Priest said "Bunker M" didn't exist -- she tracked it down to a typo in UP material.  I have not read her directly on this, and someone should.

[SD70Dude]

While many of us, including myself use the term "bunker fuel" to refer to a heavy grade like No. 5 or No. 6 fuel oil, and then we assume it is a specific fraction of consistent quality, I have a sneaking suspicion that the residual fuel actually contained whatever the refinery had left over, and that its quality could vary widely from batch to batch.

No wonder UP wanted it filtered, and I'll bet that steam locomotives handled the impurities a lot better than the turbines.

[MidlandMike]

Erik_Mag

 

 

VGN Jess

Bunker C was $1.45/Bl in the 1950's; not sure what Diesel was.-FYI

 

 

 

I've seen prices of $0.10/gal quoted for RR use, or $4.20/bbl, so there would have been a slight cost advantage.

 

Bunker C being one-third the price seems like more than just a slight price advantage.  Plus there is a BTU advantage to the heavy oil.

Diesel is about 138000 BTU/gal.  Bunker C is about 153000 BTU/gal

[timz]

Overmod

Actually, Don pointed out that Cinthia Priest said "Bunker M" didn't exist

What Don Strack wrote was "Ms. Priest stated that the term came from internal Union Pacific documents, but it turns out that the notation to "Bunker M" was a simple typographical error, and should have read as "Bunker C." Dunno whether "it turns out" means she said Bunker M didn't exist, or it so turned out after her book.

In any case, "Bunker M" made it into the Cyc, and some fuel that wasn't plain Bunker C did exist, whatever it was called.

[Overmod]

timz

Dunno whether "it turns out" means she said Bunker M didn't exist, or it so turned out after her book.

Pretty sure it means that she says in her book that "Bunker M" is not a real thing; just a typo in documents, but as I said someone has to read it to be certain.  

I do get the idea that UP conducted more careful analysis of cost-effective treatment methods than described, and I find the idea of eliminating ash as a specific component of heavy fuel to be both a way to decrease overall locomotive operating cost and improve reliability, while retaining the ability to contract aggressively for lower-cost fuel.    It might be interesting to see if there were experiments to burn Bunker B or C in industrial gas turbines during the comparable period, and if so how the fuel was 'contracted for' and treated at various points before combustion.

[7j43k]

From this article:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_oil#Bunker_fuel

 

There appear to be three bunker grades: A, B, and C.--from lightest to heaviest.

It would be quite a reach to get all the way to "M".

 

 

Ed

[seafarer]

While the book "Turbine Power", by Walter Simpson (published by Kalmbach Media), does not go into why various railroads in the US in general, and the Great Northern in particular, did not buy into the idea of using STEL or GTEL locomotives, it does answer the technical questions that arose in the replies to the orginal poster. Well worth a read.

In most cases it was the price differential between lower cost bunker C oil and higher priced diesel oil that tipped the hat in favour of trying out GTEL powered locomotives. Reduction of that price differential due to increases in the cost of Bunker C, maintenance issues and the low fuel efficiency of gas turbines eventually did them in, some faster than others.