Krauss-Maffei Diesel Hydraulic Locomotives

[TH&B]

The British "Warships" didn't last long and the "Westerns" took a long time to get over their teething troubles. Were any of these mainline deisel hydrolics successfull anywhere outside of Germany.

[MStLfan]

KM's ML-4000's are mechanically an offshoot of Deutsche Bundesbahn class V200's build by Krauss Maffei and Maschinenfabrik Kiel. Later they were classed as Baureihe (BR) 220 and 221.
The machines build for the US and Brazil differ externally from the German, British, Yugoslav and Spanish ones. Internally they are more or less the same.

The German magazine Eisenbahn Journal did a special issue (1/2005) on the V200 and there is a Spanish book about their version with a couple of pictures of the American machines.
greetings
Marc Immeker

[ericsp]

QUOTE: Originally posted by samfp1943

One of the stories circulated in the Middle 1960's was that the K-M's were sort of "Hangar Queens" [ railroad terminology???]

Shop Queen sounds familiar. I would think that the term "Roundhouse Queen" would exist, however I do not recall ever hearing that term.

I forgot about Richard Percy's MK ML-4000 page last night.

[tree68]

QUOTE: Originally posted by samfp1943

... "Hangar Queens" [ railroad terminology???] ...

Airplane terminology for an airplane that never makes it out of the hangar, and sometimes is used to scavange parts from to keep the others running....

[samfp1943]

One of the stories circulated in the Middle 1960's was that the K-M's were sort of "Hangar Queens" [ railroad terminology???] ,not to mention the problems as Paul stated above. Supposedly,they did not fare well in the operating environment of tunnels and a dust dirty operating environment got sensitive air filtering equipment, not to mention more than likely, shopmen who were unfamiliar with "foreign" equipment and its intracies and not really willing to learn.

Sam

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Here's some links related to the Brazilian KM's.
http://www.pell.portland.or.us/~efbrazil/efvm.html
This covers the EF Vitoria a Minas, long famous for its 8-axle power and running big trains on meter gauge, envision DMIR in the tropics.
http://www.trem.org.br/lista01/iglvm02.htm
This is in Portuguese but it does give b/n's and dispositions of the KM's.

[Paul Milenkovic]

This topic has come up before, but I remember reading someplace, cannot remember if it was Trains or it was a railroading trade magazine, the the KM hydraulic drive had the three axles on each truck mechanically connected to rotate together. That feature gave it better adhesion because it averaged the adhesion of the three axles rather than allowed the most slippery axle to slip as with independent traction motors on each axle.

That was a liability for the maintenance shop because they had to keep the wheels all the same diameter within a millimeter as opposed to a Diesel electric where the wheel diameters are allowed to be machined to different sizes as they wear. I have always wondered if that was a problem with the steam locomotive, which of course had mechanically connected driving wheels and why the railroads having dealt with connected drives on steam would suddenly throw up their hands maintaining the wheels on the Diesel hydraulic. And the EMD AC units have a single inverter per truck and have an electrical connection that requires wheels rotating at the same rate.

I am guessing here, but as far as D&RGW and KM's, every Diesel is different and you have to learn its quirks to maintain it correctly, and the KM was an exotic foreign import -- kind of like trying to get service on your Mercedes far outside the big city.

The other consideration is simply the question of a hydraulic vs an electric drive. Every non-direct drive involves energy transfers resulting in some loss, that loss is in the form of heat, and every drive can be burnt up from abuse. A friend was telling me about using his Chevy Suburban to haul a trailer of telephone poles for use in a retaining wall on his land and how he burned up the transmission doing this. You can burn up an electric drive, but the limits of short-time ratings and ammeter readings are more or less understood. The capabilities and restrictions of the hydraulic drive perhaps less so.

[tree68]

Check the Trains Index (Index of Magazines - at the top of this page) - Trains did a substantial story on the KM's some years ago. There was also some discussion of the "ALCohaulics," IIRC. You may be able to get the article from Trains or locate the issue.

[SSW9389]

Joaquin, I just sent you an article on the subject. K-Ms rock!

[M636C]

A number of locomotives very similar to the second group of SP locomotives was built for the metre gauge Vitoria a Minas line (CVRD) in Brazil. These were about the same in every respect except gauge. They have since been replaced by four axle diesel electric locomotives, EMD DDM45 and GE Dash 9s (on BB+BB trucks). The small size of the final drive meant that full power (3500 to 4000HP) could be transmitted on six axles rather than eight, which was needed for the number of narrow gauge traction motors, not the axle load.

M636C

[Anonymous]

Weight: 330,600 lbs
Overall length: 65 ' - 11 5/16 ""
Tractive effort: 90,000 lbs
Max speed: 70 mph
Power: (2) 2000 hp 16 cylinder 4 stroke Maybach MD70 diesel engines
Drive: (2) Voith 3 stage hydraulic transmissions, geared to a "C" style bogie


In 1961, DRGW took delivery of 3 units and SP received another 3.

SP was more impressed with the units than DRGW, and after the initial 200,000 miles DRGW sold their 3 to SP, who then bought another 15 units in 1963.


The first 6 were "cowl" or carbody type, while the second batch of 15 were of the "hood" design.

[ericsp]

SP Trainline, the quarterly magazine of the Southern Pacific Historical and Technical Society had an article on these sometime in the last year, although that issue is not yet on the back issue page.

[Anonymous]

Please let me know if you have any information about these locomotives. My e-mail address: ([e-mail]) This my first post, and your help is greatly appreciated.