M636CAfter all if it is based on the 265H which has at least 300 units running in China right now (ten times the number of SD80MACs) it will be based on some real experience in service.
That's a big help. It certainly helped that there were over 100 20-710s in tow motor service prior to the SD80MAC construction.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
oltmanndIt's why Conrail decided against the 6000 HP AC units and settled for a 20-645 engined SD80MAC. Even those had some teething problems - mostly with the electronic fuel injection (which was new to rail applications at the time).
Conrail wasn't considering the SD90MAC. They were buying GP60M's and SD70MAC's, but changed the order in 1994 to SD80MAC's (At a time when the H engine only existed on paper) and they started entering service on Conrail in early 1996.
The H engine didn't even start stationary tests until 1996 and the first prototype didn't even appear until that Fall. Production models didn't start rolling out until 1998.
I doubt they even seriously considered it when they ordered a further 28 examples in 1997 (Actually, supposedly over 100 were ordered before it was quickly reduced), before changing it due to the split to the SD70's and SD70MAC's that they recieved instead in 1998 (that NS and CSX wanted).
Is there any new info on the EMD 12 cylinder 4 stroke? Also is the planned EMD/cat CNG engine going to be based on the this engine or the 710?
Mntrain Is there any new info on the EMD 12 cylinder 4 stroke? Also is the planned EMD/cat CNG engine going to be based on the this engine or the 710?
The EMD 4 stroke EGR engine being developed from the 265H will probably be kept under close wraps until it's official unveiling. It is supposedly being installed in a "test bed" built from a retired SD90Mac-H..
I have read that the EMD LNG (not CNG) dual fuel locomotive will use a 16-710 engine..
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
Rather than start a new thread, today at work we were given a brochure from GE on the Marine V250 engine as equipped to meet what they describe as Tier 4i and IMO Stage III emissions compliance.
I just checked GE's website and couldn't find a copy of the brochure, number 20254-A (If anyone has an online reference to this version of the engine, feel free to post it).
However, I was struck by the similarity in appearance of what I take to be the exhaust gas recirculation installation to that illustrated in the Trains photograph of the EMD experimental four stroke engine.
Have any photographs of the GE Tier 4 engine been published (as opposed to the GE Tier 4 locomotives which are reasonably well known)?
It is worth noting that all the ES locomotives built to date have used air to air intercooling, as indicated by the intercooler box with two fans on top in the centre just forward of the radiator. The Tier 4 locomotives do not have this intercooler, so the engines must have air to water intercoolers as fitted to the FDL and the marine V250, equivalent of the GEVO engine.
So it seems to me that the V250 is probably set up the same way as the Tier 4 GEVO since both have EGR and air to water intercooling.
Anyway while the Marine V250 pre Tier 4 brochure illustrates a twelve cylinder engine with twin turbochargers, each supplying one bank of the engine through air to water intercoolers mounted symmetrically on each side, The Tier 4i engine is not symmetrically arranged. There appears to be a single turbocharger offset to the right side (in locomotive terms) at the free end. Below this turbo, there is a heat exchanger that looks a bit different to the standard intercooler. On the left side of the engine there is a duct splitting into two and feeding into what might be a pair of intercoolers. There are a number of pipes, possibly for cooling water in locations not seen on the older engine.
But the GE V250 package has remarkable similarities to the EMD engine in the location of what I assume is the exhaust gas recirculation outfit.
M636C
Leo_AmesConrail wasn't considering the SD90MAC. They were buying GP60M's and SD70MAC's, but changed the order in 1994 to SD80MAC's (At a time when the H engine only existed on paper) and they started entering service on Conrail in early 1996.
I was there and in on the decision! We DID look at SD90MACs. 6000 HP would have been nice, but it was too scary. The H engine was in test in LaGrange at the time. I saw it. EMD would have sold us SD90MACs if we wanted them.
I'm just a railfan, so I'll take your word for it. But are you certain that it wasn't when they were considering a 2nd order? The date that the H engine first was stationary tested is in B&W in publications like this one and supposedly occurred in March of 1996.
It wasn't back in 1994 (Or earlier) according to the press, which is when Conrail officially ordered their SD80MAC's (Early 1994) and EMD officially started design work on the H engine (18 months from the initiation of design work to that March 1996 firing up of the prototype 265H, a timeline which EMD publicized at the time).
Conrail's SD80MAC's were being outshopped approximately a year before the H engine was even first installed on a locomotive for testing (September 1996 for the official roll out of the first SD90MAC prototype), per publications like Trains. Production models started rolling out in 1998.
I could see you guys having seriously considered an order of convertibles with an eye towards upgrading them to 6,000 HP a few years later, as Union Pacific was doing at the time. I believe that the dates I have for their first convertibles vary only slightly from Conrail's 80MAC's and probably were on the shop floor simultaenously (Although Conrail's SD80MAC's were assembled in Juniata, not London).
(sound of palm smacking face !)
What does someone (Don ) know...who happened to be THERE ?!
CPM500
CPM500(sound of palm smacking face !) What does someone (Don ) know...who happened to be THERE ?!
I don't think that's the point here. Sometimes reminiscence can be mistaken... but in any case I'm looking forward to having Don actually explain in more detail what Conrail was buying, and about the precise date he saw the 265 engine -- prototype or production? -- running on test at EMD. Were the proposed Conrail SD90MACs going to be delivered with 'temporary' 710s as the UP's were (we having established that "SD9043MAC" is a strictly railfan term, and the factory designation for them was 'SD90MAC' as Don said the engines Conrail was considering were)? What precisely did Conrail consider 'scary' about 6000hp locomotives, considering how close the SD80's rated power is to that number; I suspect it refers more to the untried aspects of the 4-stroke powerplant, but I'd like to hear it from the source that 'was there.'
In other words, more, please, Don.
CPM500 (sound of palm smacking face !) What does someone (Don ) know...who happened to be THERE ?!
I feel like I was respectful and I also stated that I'd defer to him precisely because of what he said his background was.
That said, I was providing what the publicly known details were in order so that he'd hopefully post with a further explanation and erase some confusion.
Hopefully he doesn't have the reaction that you did, since it very much wasn't what I was after.
Found this image http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=4062538
ML
Interesting, thanks for posting. It seems to have the raised hood for DPF, and its inverters outside of the usual cabinet (just because it is a testbed.)
YoHo1975Yeah, My guess is that Conrail was pitched convertibles at the SD80 time frame, not actual H-Engined SD90s. That would make the most sense.
That was discussed, too. The SD80MACs weren't purchased with the intent that they'd "convertibles", but could have been converted.
Despite what EMD said out loud, they'd been messing with four stroke engines for quite a while in the early 1990s. The H engine was just a scaled up version of stuff they'd been working on.
I saw their four cycle test engine in LaGrange on a trip to go over specs for an SD60I order - probably in June or July of 1992. I was told "you didn't see that" by EMD guys I was working with. They then went on to explain "what I didn't see" and asked I not blab about it. The H engine design work was well underway at that point in time. The need for a 6000 HP prime mover to go with AC propulsion was a well established fact by that point - from the AAR ad-hoc committee work in 1992.
The SD80MACs were delivered Dec 1994 thru early 1995. The 6000 HP H engine was expected to be ready for service about that time - which meant Conrail would have been first with them. Our CMO wanted no part of that distinction! (In fact, it took a some persuasion to get him to go along with the 20-710...)
Is EMD no longer saying they have full confidence that their two-strokes will qualify under Tier 4? Last I read about this in Trains magazine, EMD confidently stated that their hotter engines allowed for relatively simple EGR and could meet Tier 4 with, and I'm paraphrasing, "no problem."
Thanks for the response.
As for EMD qualifying the 710 under Tier 4, that was what they were hoping. Despite optimism that they were in an even better position than GE to meet this mandate, it didn't work out that way in the end.
While I haven't seen an official statement that 100% confirms that it's dead, it sure looks like their attempts to meet Tier 4 with this tried and proven powerplant is finished.
Hopefully their Eco repowering solution starts to build up steam.
The problem for EMD is not unburned fuel but the NOx emmisions.
aegrotatioThanks for the information. I couldn't imagine how a two-stroke could possibly meet emissions standards. It looked, to me, that some unburnt fuel would always end up in the exhaust.
Relatively easy to catalyze that out... remember that regeneration of the particulate filter is probably done by running the exhaust 'richer' in hydrocarbons than any degree of excess hydrocarbon release (or bypass) that a two-stroke would inherently produce.
On the other hand, the 'hotter' you yourself mentioned should have been a guide that NOx emissions were going to be the bugbear. As I understand from looking at what test data is available on the Web, EMD actually came reasonably close to the Tier 4 final NOx standard... they just couldn't quite get there without compromising the engine power or combustion. And with Government specs of this kind, 'close is no cigar'...
(I wonder whether Caterpillar ought to take the money they're going to pay for the Siemens passenger-engine lawsuit and use it to ... influence ... people in Congress or the EPA to come a few points off the Tier 4 final locomotive NOx... )
If 710 was really within a cat's Whisker of passing, I wonder why they didn't just iterate the 2 stroke again to get a design that would? Is it a Caterpillar thing that they aren't or is it just not worth the engineering effort? After all, a lot of money already invested in 265 and some amount of Tier 4 work. It may just have been cheaper to start from that test bed rather than a new 2 stroke block.
Not that it should matter at this point. I doubt any of the major railroads would treat a 2 Stroke successor with any deference versus a 4 stroke, but well, might have been more interesting as an engineering (inside prime mover baseball) discussion.
LOREN AANDAHL Colossal blunder that EMD has no Tier 4 locomotive ready for 2015.
LOREN AANDAHLAinsworth should be shunted to a sidetrack. Out of his league. Colossal blunder that EMD has no Tier 4 locomotive ready for 2015.
Binged the guy and found this:
"Education
Just ask any accountant what the think of marketing types....
(Just don't ask an engineer what they think of marketing and accounting)
Dakguy201I would think that Cat would step in here with an engine adapted for rail use that can meet the standards, but I know nearly nothing about their product lin
CAT's expertise is in making cheap engines not good engines. If they try to pass off a CAT powered locomotive in 2017, if nothing else they will finally beat GE on price. It might be the perfect locomotive in that every part on it wears out at the same time and they can sweep the pile of junk into a dumpster.
1: Don't blame Ainsworth for things that land squarely at the feet of the General Motors Corporation. They mismanged EMD for at least a Decade prior to the sale if not 2. This is known and has been reported on.
2: Cat doesn't have a non-Urea Tier IV engine either. So they can't solve the problem. In fact, if Urea were an acceptable solution to the Railroads, we probably wouldn't need new engines. I'd bet the 710 could meet standards with Urea. Could be wrong, but wouldn't be surprised.
YoHo19752: Cat doesn't have a non-Urea Tier IV engine either. So they can't solve the problem. In fact, if Urea were an acceptable solution to the Railroads, we probably wouldn't need new engines. I'd bet the 710 could meet standards with Urea. Could be wrong, but wouldn't be surprised.
At the recent Work Boat Show in New Orleans a Tenneco Company introduced their exhaust after treatment scrubber that would make any tier 0 engine tier 4 compliant. Just cut out the exhaust pipe and weld it in. This is great for marine and industrial engines where there is plenty of room overhead but these things are rather bulky,about the size of a marine engine muffler or at least a third the size of the engine. The dinky size of locomotive size mufflers shows that there isn't much room above the engine.
[/quote]
I doubt General Electric would let them get away with that............
I'm not sure that all the blame can be sheeted home to EMD management.
With the SD59MX test unit UP 9900, EMD had a locomotive demonstating the currently preferred means of meeting Tier 4 (exhaust gas recirculation plus diesel particulate filter) but 9900 couldn't get NOx down to tier 4 levels.
Remember that GE built an ES44 with SCR and urea injection, which might have been a "Plan B", but just maybe the EGR+DPF was the "Plan B" that finally worked.
Caterpillar build a lot of engines, the majority for non railroad applications, and Cat management would not be keen to develop what would be a completely different engine just for railroads. Had GE (and MTU) not been able to build a compliant non urea engine, or not in time for the Tier 4 deadline, railroads would be using SCR and urea just as most other engine buyers are doing.
You could argue that Cat hadn't had EMD long enough to understand the particular conditions of the market. The C175 equipped with EGR and DPF might have given EMD a freight locomotive engine while the new engine was developed. It works, after a fashion, in the PR43, and some PR43 problems are probably due to trying to match the C175 with the C18 in a meaningful way.
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