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The problem we are seeing now with the 6000 horsepower locomotives is a repeat of what happened in the late 1960's early 70's with the 3600 horsepower locomotives. And in fact a repeat of the mid 1950's with the 2250/2400 horsepower locomotives. We are again pushing the limits of what our technology can deliver. That always shows up any weakness there might be in the machines. Alco with the RSD7 and FM with the CPA 24-5 both ended up with locomotives that were huge problems for the buyers. But by the late 1950s 2400 horsepower was easily and reliably obtained. ALCO was able to make the RSD7 reasonably reliable, FM was less successful with the CPA 24-5. (But FM's 2000 and 1600 HP C liners were much more reliable) Then when the builders started supplying 3600 horsepower locomotives in the 60's the railroads started buying and soon found out that the extra horsepower came at a huge maintenance cost. By the time the builders had corrected the major problems the railroads were not interested in anything over 3000 horsepower. Both times though the builders were able to find ways to correct the problems and apply the solutions to new locomotives. We are well past the time when the standard new road locomotive was 1500/1600/1750 HP, and we are past the time when the standard new road locomotive was 3000 HP. We will see the time when we are comfortably past 6000 HP.
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