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traction motors
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I think a big incentive for going AC is probably in maintenance costs. I remember reading an article when some of the first ACs came out SD70 MACs, and one of the big things mentioned was the reduced cost of maintaning AC traction motors. No brushes,no commutator, and no armature windings. I work in the electric power industy and AC is by far easier to control. Especially when it comes to motor speed. Controlling AC motors requires changing frequency as oppposed to the way a DC motor is controlled. ( changing voltage current and series to parallel etc...) <br /> <br />Variable frequency drives (VFDs) have been around for quite awile but it took awhile for the the technology to make it to the loco applications. I suspect this was mostly because the semiconductors to control AC for such high current flows were pretty large initially and didn't lend themselves well to mobile applications.
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