IMO, for those familiar with both trains and computers, GE is now to freight diesel locomotives what Intel is to x86 CPUs, while Cat-owned Electro Motive is now the underdog of the freight loco market, which is similar to AMD’s (Advanced Micros Devices) position in the CPU market.
caldreamer The railroads DO NOT buy locomotives to keep one builder or the other in business, they purchase what they need to do the job. BNSF purchased some ES44C4's and found that they are good in all types of service. They have now purchased over 700 of them, which means that they really like them and they are reliable locomotives.
The railroads DO NOT buy locomotives to keep one builder or the other in business, they purchase what they need to do the job. BNSF purchased some ES44C4's and found that they are good in all types of service. They have now purchased over 700 of them, which means that they really like them and they are reliable locomotives.
When EMD had 90% of the market, at least some of the orders to GE were to keep EMD's pricing honest. Other times, it was because EMD was production constrained and there was no practical alternative.
It wasn't ALWAYS because of best value or best fit. It is closer to that now, however.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Erie news about tier IV and effect on GE & EMD.
http://www.goerie.com/caterpillars-missed-deadline-good-news-for-ge-but-for-erie
Leo_AmesYou're rambling on about nothing, frankly, since I'm not really arguing that's the case for EMD today although I think there's room there to debate it. Rather, I'm more so defending the concept which you've dismissed as nonsense.
You're rambling on about nothing, frankly, since I'm not really arguing that's the case for EMD today although I think there's room there to debate it.
Rather, I'm more so defending the concept which you've dismissed as nonsense.
Before this devolves into a GE vs EMD flame war, I'd like to remind you that this has nothing to do with the topic of this thread: the impending Tier IV deadline. Thanks.
GE Dominates, because BNSF in particular, bought basically nothing but Dash-9s, ES44DCs and ES44C4s for general service and intermodal. But BNSF very deliberately preferred EMD AC until very recently.
UP clearly preferred GE AC to EMD AC prior to the ACe, but did buy over a thousand SD70Ms and has heavy numbers of ACes. It's basically on par in the Tier 2 era.
You're waving your hand about something without doing the very simple legwork. The orders are out there to be seen.
We're not talking about Token orders here.
And remember the original point of this coming up. I questioned the strong statement that somehow 6 inverters were a damn near requirement. And yet, for BNSF, that has simply not ever been the case.
Don't dance around with these well known realities without providing the legwork.
NS has a vague preference for GE, CSX has a preference for GE, CP has a dominant preference for GE.
Nobody else seems to. UP maybe...but not in recent years. BNSF has a strong preference for them in Intermodal and General service but NOT in Unit Coal where they used to confine the AC units.
People are talking in generalities, not 100%. It's widely accepted that when a builder dominates, it's not uncommon for competition to be given small orders to keep them going.
I wouldn't be surprised that for every SD70ACe, there are three ES44AC's. I bet I'm pretty close with that estimation and I bet for every ES44DC and ES44C4, it outnumbers M-2's to an even greater degree. That EMD still has a few dedicated customers and occasionally hits a home run just shows that they're still in the running. It doesn't disprove that GE is the dominant force in mainline American freight locomotives today or that some EMD customers are just giving token orders to EMD to test the waters, encourage innovation, and to keep EMD a going concern.
It's not in any Class 1's best interest to see EMD go away and give GE a monopoly. Prices will go up and innovation and quality will suffer if that happened. Not to mention that there are a lot of EMD's still out there rolling that benefit from their builder still being active in the field.
Mea culpa, I mis-remembered the figures for 2002 EMD production was 468 locomotives, GE production was 472 locomotives in North America. So GE built 4 more locomotives than EMD. Source document is Sean Graham-White's 2002 North American production list, which is available on the LocoNotes Yahoogroup. Includes all production by EMD, GE, MPI and smaller builders which are substantially new locomotives.
It's a long held fact?
Where is the proof? I just showed you that at BNSF, for AC traction, it's a load of Malarkey.
UP ordered 1400 SD70M's just to keep GE Honest? Seriously? UP orders ACe's in roughly equivelent numbers to C45ACCTEs all pity?
I don't see any fact here long held or not.
It's a long held fact that North American railroads essentially have subsidized competition to keep EMD and now GE honest, inspire innovation, etc.
You can see this in many orders from over the years. The dominant brand and model might see 100 units ordered while a token order of perhaps 25 equivalent models from the competition will be placed at the same time.
I believe the size of the SD70M order from UP was a life line to EMD at the time, but I have severe doubts that any of the other orders from the American freight railroads was simply to maintain a viable second source.
Certainly the development of the SD60MAC and production 70MAC and the large number of purchases by BN/BNSF was no lifeline. That was done to support Powder River Coal trains.
Look at it a different way.
Ignoring ES44C4s which were bought to replace the Dash-9 and given that BNSF hasn't bought an EMD DC unit since ATSF ordered SD75M/Is
Total BNSF roster for AC4400s
108
Total for ES44AC
720
Total SD70ACe
529
Total SD70MAC
782
So BNSF has a total of 1311 EMD 2 inverter AC units
and they have 828 GE 6 inverter AC units.
And since Tier 2 went into effect they have purchased 720 GE 6 motor AC to 529 EMD AC 6 motor.
So PLEASE, explain to me how that is a pitty order from them. In particular the SD70 Macs. And if 6 inverters was so damnably important, why did BNSF buy on 108 AC4400s compared to 782 SD70MACs.
On the 6 motor AC front, GE has only lead at BNSF since the Evolution came out. But EMD has had good sales too. So how is this pity ordering?
Now, DC/4 motor AC is a different story. BNSF has been an All GE shop since the merger. I assume that comes from ATSF since they bought seemingly token SD75M/Is and never went beyond the GP60Ms, but bought Dash 9 before the merger and BNSF just kept going there. I don't know why that is or why the stark difference or what changed in the Tier 2 era.
I've never seen anything about EMD surpassing GE back in 2002. The last year I ever saw mentioned in the press for EMD outselling GE, at least for North American orders, was back in 1989.
If accurate, I'm surprised it didn't see more mention back then.
BaltACD Observation - The Class 1's are ordering just enough from EMD to keep them in business so they don't fall total victim to a GE monopoly. At present, as much as a lot of people hate to admit it, GE engines are performing better than EMD and GE seems to have done a better 'marketing job' to the Class 1's (with marketing covering finance, warranty repairs, parts supply and service expertise). The people that sign the contracts are not the people that operate the throttles.
Observation - The Class 1's are ordering just enough from EMD to keep them in business so they don't fall total victim to a GE monopoly. At present, as much as a lot of people hate to admit it, GE engines are performing better than EMD and GE seems to have done a better 'marketing job' to the Class 1's (with marketing covering finance, warranty repairs, parts supply and service expertise). The people that sign the contracts are not the people that operate the throttles.
That was true up to last year, this year seems different at every railroad except CSX and CN.
KCS - slightly more GEs than EMDs, 30 to 25
UP - 100 GEs to 40 EMDs, but also 100 additional SD70ACes to be built before 12/31/14 but delivered in 1/15. No additional GEs on order at this time.
BNSF - 275 GEs to 200 EMDs
NS - 75 EMDs no GEs
CP - 60 EMD ECOs
CN - 45 GEs to 4 EMDs
FEC - 24 GEs
What was the CSX order 50 GEs?
So EMD will be close to GE in North American locomotives this year for the first time since they outproduced GE in 2002 (the middle of 1400+ SD70Ms for UP)
YoHo1975A max tonnage train? What's the route profile? If this were as major a concern as implied, why did it take over 20 years for EMD to switch to 6 inverters? They certainly sold enough MACs in that time to imply that the design was adequate. Further, why isn't the P6 generating sales? Why are all the orders except the P4 conversions still for the 2 inverter version?. If it were such an important requirement, then all existing ACe sales would be converted yes? And to be clear, I'm not defending EMD here...per se. Simply reporting an anecdote from someone I talked to who works for a locomotive builder. I have no ability to evaluate his opinion beyond reporting it as interesting.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BNSF purchased 20 SD70ACe-P6s so no, not all orders are for normal SD70ACes (no P4s sold so far).
ML
NorthWest That was the reasoning behind the EMD SD70ACeP-6, with 6 inverters. Those have only been built the last couple of years, though.
That was the reasoning behind the EMD SD70ACeP-6, with 6 inverters. Those have only been built the last couple of years, though.
However that had been a hallmark of the GE's since their 1st ones nearly 20 years ago.
YoHo1975 Some interesting comments. The comments on innovation vs execution are well taken and as a worker in the tech industry I see it every day. By far end is the more innovative, but GE out executes. The fault can be laid at GM's feet largely. I've yet to see confirmation, but if the rumors of the ES44-t4s failing over donner have even an ounce of truth, then GE isn't home free either. I also love the general disdain for EMD's 2 inverter design. Talking to the siemens engineers that came to town to get the factory upgraded for the Amtrak locos and they call the GE design wasteful. Of course, American RR seem to prefer rugged and overbuilt.
Some interesting comments. The comments on innovation vs execution are well taken and as a worker in the tech industry I see it every day. By far end is the more innovative, but GE out executes. The fault can be laid at GM's feet largely. I've yet to see confirmation, but if the rumors of the ES44-t4s failing over donner have even an ounce of truth, then GE isn't home free either. I also love the general disdain for EMD's 2 inverter design. Talking to the siemens engineers that came to town to get the factory upgraded for the Amtrak locos and they call the GE design wasteful. Of course, American RR seem to prefer rugged and overbuilt.
Let's put a max tonnage train behind a set of GE AC's and another max tonnage train behind a set of EMD AC's - electrical failure with one traction motor requiring the traction motor to be cut out. Which train will continue to move? The GE's only lost 1 traction motor - the EMD's lost 1/2 an engine. The EMD train will need another engine to complete it's run, most likely the GE train will continue to destination (a little slower) but still moving.
If these failed, it likely means nothing. GE has a strong reputation and a few teething troubles with their test locomotives are going to be meaningless.
That's what these are, test locomotives. They're not demonstrators out there to sell customers. They're out there to identify issues so they can be fixed.
YoHo1975 The Bad news at EMD is now confirmed: http://online.wsj.com/articles/caterpillar-falls-behind-ge-in-locomotives-race-1405291739 I apologize to GP40-2 for questioning his assertions. I had a hard time believing EMD's engineering staff was so far behind. Of course. It is more often the front offices and the reorgs of those offices and the efforts involved in moving production that impacted this than any lack of engineering skill, but still. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but it does make some of the engine rebuild projects make more sense.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/caterpillar-falls-behind-ge-in-locomotives-race-1405291739
I apologize to GP40-2 for questioning his assertions. I had a hard time believing EMD's engineering staff was so far behind. Of course. It is more often the front offices and the reorgs of those offices and the efforts involved in moving production that impacted this than any lack of engineering skill, but still.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but it does make some of the engine rebuild projects make more sense.
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,3465039
http://atlasrescueforum.proboards.com/thread/2735/article-states-tier-diesel-2017?page=1&scrollTo=41657
- Paul North.
Some things I have found poking around (also just a railfan):
-The C175 appears to need urea to meat Tier IV standards
-The railroads appear to have enough emissions credits to delay the Tier IV deadline about 6 months into 2015
-FRA seems very reluctant to allow LNG cars in locomotive consists, probably dooming LNG as a fuel source.
The question was asked on Loconotes, so I'm not the only one asking.
I'll forward any responses I see there.
YoHo1975 I wonder, Does a move to CNG or LNG mitigate this problem for EMD? Could they be banking on Natural Gas making this moot?
I wonder,
Does a move to CNG or LNG mitigate this problem for EMD? Could they be banking on Natural Gas making this moot?
Everything I have read (and I'm only a railfan, I don't work in the industry) indicates that the Natural gas conversions being developed for locomotive prime movers still have emissions issues and, as of right now,still require some additional technical development to meet Tier IV.
I have read some suggestions that the EPA may issue a partial exemption for Natural Gas fueled locomotives but this has not happened yet.
I wonder if any of our fellow forum members who work in the industry know more about the Natural Gas Tier IV issues?
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.