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SD70ACe-T4 - does EMD actually have a T4 locomotive?

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Posted by flare40x on Tuesday, September 15, 2015 10:31 AM

BaltACD

 

 
BOB WITHORN

September 2015 issue of Railway Age on page 36 is a Progress Rail Services advertizement for an SD70ACe-T4 locomotive featuring an EMD 12 cylinder 1010 engine, AC traction, etc, etc.  What gives? Guess I've been in a fog or something, thought they were way behind GE?

 

They are.  GE is delivering production T4 engines to multiple carriers as we speak.

EMD is projecting 2017 for their T4 locomotive deliveries.

 Yes, and the prototype they're fielding this year is based on the four-cycle 265H engine, not the aged 710.

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Posted by flare40x on Tuesday, September 15, 2015 10:33 AM

Presumably the "1010" is the reworked 265H, based on experience with 300 JT56ACe's in China.  Has the same displacement.

 

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Posted by beaulieu on Tuesday, September 15, 2015 11:17 AM

First SD70ACe-T4 now exists and is on its way to Minneapolis for the RSIA show. Unfortuneately the locomotive is tarped so no good photographs until the show opens. Routing is NS from Muncie to Chicago, then BNSF to Minneapolis. The large exhibits were on display at BNSF's Northtown Yard in previous shows.

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Posted by M636C on Tuesday, September 15, 2015 6:59 PM
flare40x wrote the following post 8 hours ago:

Presumably the "1010" is the reworked 265H, based on experience with 300 JT56ACe's in China.  Has the same displacement.

As I think I mentioned earlier, the cylinder heads and the intake ducts look a bit like the C175, which is itself the first big CAT engine with cross flow heads. So the "rework" does appear to make use of years of CAT development of four stroke engines, as well as EMD's experience with locomotive engines and the 265 itself.

M636C

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Posted by SD60MAC9500 on Saturday, October 3, 2015 2:41 PM

GDRMCo

According to insiders it'll have a new wide cab, the 4th (well 5th) new wide cab on an EMD since the first SD70.

 

 

 

 

I'm thinking they'll keep the current wide nose, but rake the windshield area of the cab like the SD70M/MAC. Alot of crews can't stand the current ACe cab even with the isolated option. They should've called the new locomotive,SD45ACeBig Smile Since it will be rated at 4500HP.

Rahhhhhhhhh!!!!
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Posted by SD60MAC9500 on Saturday, October 3, 2015 3:45 PM

Just found this. Here's the newest EMD ad from the 10/15 issue of RailwayAge.

Here's the link it's on page 56.

Rahhhhhhhhh!!!!
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Posted by Lyon_Wonder on Saturday, October 3, 2015 7:02 PM

I guess EMD's keeping the SD70ACe name for marketing reasons, even though a SD70ACe-T4 has about as much in common with a 710-powered SD70ACe as an ES44AC has with an AC44CW.

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Posted by ottergoose on Sunday, October 4, 2015 9:09 AM

I'm sure we'll get a better look in a few hours, but I was able to grab a couple of shots of 1501 here in Minneapolis sans tarp last night: https://flic.kr/p/yst52K

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Posted by NorthWest on Sunday, October 4, 2015 9:49 AM

Thank you!

It is really strange that EMD is going back to teardrop windshields. As I recall many of the railroads became sick of finding replacements. The cab is similar to the meter gauge SD70ACes demonstrators built in Brazil. The radiator appears to be a modified SD80ACe radiator, but I can't quite count the radiator fans.

 

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Posted by SD70M-2Dude on Sunday, October 4, 2015 10:21 AM

The teardrop windshields really do make a difference in the crew's visibility, especially when the engineer is watching for the conductor to get on or off.  Hopefully they've redesigined the cab a bit too, the phase II cab sucks with a tiny desk and nowhere to store all the paperwork.  Then again, as long as it's a whispercab I can probably live with whatever else they've thrown in there. 

I'm also curious about how it sounds, IIRC the 265 sounded similar to a GEVO with quite a pronounced chugging, which being a 4-stroke makes perfect sense.

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Posted by SD60MAC9500 on Sunday, October 4, 2015 11:34 AM

Thanks Ottergoose for the pics. I figured that's what the cab would be like.

Rahhhhhhhhh!!!!
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Posted by ottergoose on Sunday, October 4, 2015 11:37 AM

Here's the official intro from EMD / Progress Rail:

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Posted by SD60MAC9500 on Sunday, October 4, 2015 11:56 AM

Thanks again for posting the promo. Hmm the castings on the HTCR have took on a European look?! Looks like the exhaust is routed toward the front of the unit. Lets see how this unit performs in tunnels.

SD70ACe-T4 brochure

Rahhhhhhhhh!!!!
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Posted by owlsroost on Sunday, October 4, 2015 1:18 PM

Interesting that the brochure only talks of 'Individual Axle Control' so presumably this is the end for the traditional 'per truck' EMD traction control.

Also it refers to 'bogies' not 'trucks' - curious for a home-market locomotive brochure.

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Posted by BaltACD on Sunday, October 4, 2015 1:35 PM

ottergoose

Here's the official intro from EMD / Progress Rail:

 

3 mins 42 seconds of all the buzz words you can apply.

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Posted by ValorStorm on Sunday, October 4, 2015 2:01 PM

SD70ACe-T4 reveal is online today (4 Oct 2015) on Progress Rail's Youtube channel.

Tags: SD70ACe-T4
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Posted by CPM500 on Sunday, October 4, 2015 5:23 PM
Bogies, or truck frames if you like, are of fabricated construction like the Krupp/Siemens/Vossloh 2 motor passenger truck.
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Posted by LensCapOn on Sunday, October 4, 2015 8:42 PM

EMD/CAT have a lot riding on this.

 

I like the new cab on the vision thing.

 

Some of those workers look like they could lose a few pounds (to keep my healthcare costs down)

 

Good luck to them. (since I like seeing more than just GE's...)

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Posted by NorthWest on Sunday, October 4, 2015 8:51 PM

The new cab is growing on me the more I look at it. Hopefully the units are reliable and sucessful.

The fabricated instead of cast radial truck does still look strange to my eye.

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Posted by Wizlish on Sunday, October 4, 2015 9:55 PM

Thereis a brief, but pretty clear, view of the 1010 engine a couple of minutes in.

According to a post to LocoNotes, this locomotive won't have the Whispercab, but the engine and generator will be resiliently mounted.  May be interesting to see how that works out.

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Posted by NorthWest on Sunday, October 4, 2015 9:58 PM

That is how GE has done it in their locomotives. There has been concern with isolated cabs breaking off of the locomotive frame in crashes, and this is no doubt an attempt to fix this.

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Posted by carnej1 on Monday, October 5, 2015 11:20 AM

owlsroost

Interesting that the brochure only talks of 'Individual Axle Control' so presumably this is the end for the traditional 'per truck' EMD traction control.

Also it refers to 'bogies' not 'trucks' - curious for a home-market locomotive brochure.

 

EMD has been working on going to an inverter for each traction motor system similiar to General Electric's for several years now.

 They built 4 demonstrators so equipped called SD70acE-P6s which were bought by Canadian National and then an order of SD70ACe-P4s (with 4 rather than 6 traction motors in 1-B three axle trucks) for BNSF.

 

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Posted by rdamon on Monday, October 5, 2015 11:52 AM

I like the return of the angled windshields.

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Posted by oltmannd on Monday, October 5, 2015 2:50 PM

BaltACD

 

 
ottergoose

Here's the official intro from EMD / Progress Rail:

 

 

 

3 mins 42 seconds of all the buzz words you can apply.

 

Wait!  It's not a locomotive, it's a "business solution"!

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Posted by Lyon_Wonder on Monday, October 5, 2015 7:24 PM

The SD70ACE-T4's cab with the teardrop windows reminds of UP's late phase SD70Ms, which too combined a SD70ACE-style nose with teardrop windows.

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Posted by D.Carleton on Monday, October 5, 2015 10:26 PM

Lyon_Wonder

I guess EMD's keeping the SD70ACe name for marketing reasons, even though a SD70ACe-T4 has about as much in common with a 710-powered SD70ACe as an ES44AC has with an AC44CW.

This has the potential for a lot of confusion down the road. The machanic sees the locomotive parked and blued for its 92, assembles the appropriate filters and other parts, opens the doors only to find it's not what he was expecting which means more time spent collecting the right stuff. It happens enough with what is already out there.
 
There had been a SD89MAC prototype. Strange they didn't keep with the tradition and dub this as SD89ACe. Then again they may be trying to distance themselves from the SD90 series.

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Tuesday, October 6, 2015 6:46 AM

The model designation may not be that much of an issue if the owning railroad numbers them in a different series from its other SD70 iterations.

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Posted by BaltACD on Tuesday, October 6, 2015 7:49 AM

If the company mechanical personnel are looking at the manufacturers model identification of a locomotive to plan their work they area in the wrong line of work.  Follow the company's own identification, not the manufacturers.  My carrier has 20 years worth of GE AC's that have been recieved in different batches over the years - I am certain each batch received has different details that require different service techniques from their predecessors.

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Posted by D.Carleton on Tuesday, October 6, 2015 9:42 AM

BaltACD

If the company mechanical personnel are looking at the manufacturers model identification of a locomotive to plan their work they area in the wrong line of work. 

A lot of them are...

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Posted by carnej1 on Tuesday, October 6, 2015 11:22 AM

GDRMCo
It'd be rated at 4500hp....
 

Per the EMD factsheet on the model posted in another reply in this thread the locomotive's power available for traction is 4400 HP. So it's 100 HP less than he SD89MAC (undoubtedly due to engine settings to meet Tier IV) but 100 HP More than the SD70ACe/SD70M-2.

 So should the model number SD88Acet-4 or SD71xxxxx?????????? Proof of Cat/Progress/EMD's insidious plot to confuse us poor railfans...

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