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Home made tunnel motors

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Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, October 17, 2007 6:47 PM
Chessie even tried the deflectors on SD50 #8570. It was installed in 6/85 and were gone only two months later.
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Posted by ericsp on Sunday, September 30, 2007 1:22 AM
 CSSHEGEWISCH wrote:

 espeefoamer wrote:
Southern Pacific had some SD45s with deflectors.

The MRS locomotives in the 5300 series were rebuilt by NRE from SP SD40/SD45's in the 7300/7400/7500 series so some of the deflector-equipped SD45's possibly turned up in Brazil. 

However, none of those "deflectors" are any that were applied by SP, those were all removed years ago.

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Posted by ericsp on Sunday, September 30, 2007 1:20 AM
 bakupolo wrote:

Love the tunnel motors, here's a strange one in between two AC60s pulling rocks, naturally.The Big GEs are common around here heading up rock trains but the tunnel motor between them is a first for me. This particular rock train was at LEAST a mile long.

 

http://s222.photobucket.com/albums/dd174/bakupolo/?action=view&current=DSC03073.jpg

The locomotive is listed as a SD40-T, it is actually a SD40T-2.

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Posted by Pathfinder on Saturday, September 29, 2007 11:53 PM
CP Rail tried a few (4 I if I recall right) but they were not successful.
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Posted by bakupolo on Saturday, September 29, 2007 9:54 PM

Love the tunnel motors, here's a strange one in between two AC60s pulling rocks, naturally.The Big GEs are common around here heading up rock trains but the tunnel motor between them is a first for me. This particular rock train was at LEAST a mile long.

 

http://s222.photobucket.com/albums/dd174/bakupolo/?action=view&current=DSC03073.jpg

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Posted by mudchicken on Tuesday, September 4, 2007 3:32 PM
The old term was "elephant ears". Santa Fe B36-7's had them. At least they didn't have the maingenerator porch roofs and smoke deflectors fo cold weather use....
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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Tuesday, September 4, 2007 7:38 AM

 espeefoamer wrote:
Southern Pacific had some SD45s with deflectors.

The MRS locomotives in the 5300 series were rebuilt by NRE from SP SD40/SD45's in the 7300/7400/7500 series so some of the deflector-equipped SD45's possibly turned up in Brazil. 

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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, September 3, 2007 11:48 PM

I beleive the reason for lower intakes on tunnel motors is for the cooling of the radiator...regular locomotives would overheat and shut down while in the tunnels.

The air intake for the engine aspiration is usually right behind the cab above the walkway.

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Posted by espeefoamer on Saturday, September 1, 2007 3:07 PM
Southern Pacific had some SD45s with deflectors.
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Posted by ezielinski on Saturday, September 1, 2007 12:43 AM

 Murphy Siding wrote:
     What exactly do the deflectors do?

They aren't exactly deflectors, but more like inductors.  When locomotives go through tunnels, the oxygen-poor exhaust rises to the roof of the tunnel where a normally-aspirated locomotive would get it's air - the top of the locomotive.  The "elefant ears" force the locomotive to draw cooler, cleaner air from the bottom of the tunnel instead of the poor-quality air from the roof of the tunnel.

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Posted by Murphy Siding on Friday, August 31, 2007 5:58 PM
     What exactly do the deflectors do?

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Posted by AntonioFP45 on Thursday, August 30, 2007 8:35 PM

Cool pictures!

SP had some GP40Xs during the 80s that were equipped with the "elephant ears".

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Home made tunnel motors
Posted by pedrop on Thursday, August 30, 2007 7:16 PM

Hi guys,

 

Brazilian broad gauge MRS rebuilt its big fllet of SD40-2 and Sd40-3 for tunnel operation like SP did in the past, adding deflectors like elephant ears on the rear end of the locomotives. The railroad have more than 100 tunnels at mainline, some with more than 26,000 ft long.

Have you seen old SP or any other locos using these deflectors?

 

 

 

 

Brazil: the land of the 8 axles locomotives! Visit my web site http://minasgeraisrailways.ning.com/

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