Trains.com

Alco 593T fuel consumption

5646 views
10 replies
1 rating 2 rating 3 rating 4 rating 5 rating
  • Member since
    November 2014
  • 55 posts
Alco 593T fuel consumption
Posted by Speaking clock on Sunday, December 20, 2015 11:17 AM
I've found a wonderful fuel consumption chart in GATX website but it does not have the alco 539t in there because they do not have them. Does anybody know how much fuel a 539T goes through? I hear they're more efficient than 2 strokes like an EMD 567 but is it worth it?
  • Member since
    January 2002
  • 4,612 posts
Posted by M636C on Monday, December 21, 2015 4:21 AM

Speaking clock
I've found a wonderful fuel consumption chart in GATX website but it does not have the alco 539t in there because they do not have them. Does anybody know how much fuel a 539T goes through? I hear they're more efficient than 2 strokes like an EMD 567 but is it worth it?

 
Of course it is worth it....
 
The 539 is a pretty reliable engine and with the Russian copies would up there with the most popular diesel locomotive engines in the world. Again due to Russian copies, the Fairbanks Morse 38D8-1/8 in its turbocharged ten cylinder version rated at 3000 HP would probably be THE most popular engine, followed by the EMD 567/645/710 and then the 539T....
 
I'm not in the right city to check (Christmas, you understand) but I'd expect the specific fuel consumption would be between 0.220 and 0.250 kilograms per kW.hr. Really efficient modern engines are around 0.190 to 0.195....
 
M636C
(edited, twice)
  • Member since
    December 2005
  • From: Cardiff, CA
  • 2,930 posts
Posted by erikem on Monday, December 21, 2015 8:23 AM

M636C

I'm not in the right city to check (Christmas, you understand) but I'd expect the specific fuel consumption would be between 0.220 and 0.250 grams per kW.hr. Really efficient modern engines are around 0.190 to 0.195....

I presume you meant 0.220 to 0.250 kg/kWhr.

 - Erik

  • Member since
    May 2013
  • 3,231 posts
Posted by NorthWest on Monday, December 21, 2015 12:22 PM

I'm wondering if the OP wanted data on the 251, as I don't think that there are many 539s left in revenue service.

  • Member since
    January 2001
  • From: SE Minnesota
  • 6,846 posts
Posted by jrbernier on Monday, December 21, 2015 6:01 PM
And the in-line 539T had a rather poor pwr/weight ratio - one of the reasons Alco designed the 244 series engines for their post WWII road service locomotive line. The 539 line soldiered on as the prime mover in the RS1 and S series yard engines.

Modeling BNSF  and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin

  • Member since
    October 2012
  • 177 posts
Posted by nfotis on Tuesday, December 22, 2015 2:34 PM

M636C

 I'm not in the right city to check (Christmas, you understand) but I'd expect the specific fuel consumption would be between 0.220 and 0.250 grams per kW.hr. Really efficient modern engines are around 0.190 to 0.195....

I would like to know the specific fuel consumption of the 251 engine myself (I have read a paper from Indian Railways where they claim their converted Alco engines reached as low as 180! gram/kW-hr, and I wonder what is the typical 251 fuel consumption).

The EMD 710G is rated at 204 grams/kW-hr (at full throttle), for comparison.

N.F.

 

  • Member since
    January 2002
  • 4,612 posts
Posted by M636C on Friday, December 25, 2015 1:38 AM

erikem

 

 
M636C

I'm not in the right city to check (Christmas, you understand) but I'd expect the specific fuel consumption would be between 0.220 and 0.250 grams per kW.hr. Really efficient modern engines are around 0.190 to 0.195....

 

 

I presume you meant 0.220 to 0.250 kg/kWhr.

 - Erik

Indeed, I was more distracted than I thought..

Thinking about claims for 180 grams per kWhr for recent Alco engines built in India, if these were equipped with modern electronic controls and maybe electronic injection, there is no reason for them not to be that efficient...

M636C

 

 

 

  • Member since
    October 2014
  • 1,644 posts
Posted by Wizlish on Friday, December 25, 2015 7:04 AM

M636C
Again due to Russian copies, the Fairbanks Morse 38D8-1/8 in its turbocharged sixteen cylinder version rated at 3000 HP

Say what?

Those would be some awfully long crankshafts, wouldn't they, on a 16-cylinder OP engine...

 My understanding is that the 3000 hp turbocharged OP engine is the 10D100, 10 cylinders, rated output at 850 rpm.  The uprated 9D100-F has 12 cylinders, 4000 hp at 900 rpm.

Could you be thinking of the 'replacement' engine that was put into some of the 2TE10Ms (or the one in the somewhat similar Chinese Dong Feng 4) which has 16 cylinders but isn't an OP engine?

  • Member since
    October 2012
  • 177 posts
Posted by nfotis on Friday, December 25, 2015 4:16 PM

M636C

Thinking about claims for 180 grams per kWhr for recent Alco engines built in India, if these were equipped with modern electronic controls and maybe electronic injection, there is no reason for them not to be that efficient...

M636C

 

The paper I read was mentioning many changes, a different turbo etc.

A sample paper (but not the same I read) is here:

http://www.irimee.indianrailways.gov.in/instt/uploads/files/1434534063426-Upgradation%20of%20ALCO%20loco%20design.pdf

 

N.F.

 

  • Member since
    October 2014
  • 1,644 posts
Posted by Wizlish on Saturday, December 26, 2015 6:05 AM

nfotis

The figures for SFC in the quoted paper are in cgs (gm/hp/hr) and appear to indicate that even in the early 1990s (at the time 3100 hp was first developed) 156 to 154 gm/hp/hr had been achieved (see graph on p.12).  The claimed figure for the 3600 hp development by 2003 (which I think is justified, given the types of improvement noted in the paper) was given as 152 gm/hp/hr, with prospective incremental improvement for 'Stage IV' by around 2005 to 150.

Be interesting to see if they have experimented with variable valve timing or individual valave actuation since then, as I'd expect that to make meaningful economy gains for at least part of the given duty cycles (top of p.3)

I wonder how many IR engineers appreciate the pun associated with the name of the steel-capped pistons...

  • Member since
    January 2002
  • 4,612 posts
Posted by M636C on Saturday, December 26, 2015 9:53 PM

Wizlish

 

 
M636C
Again due to Russian copies, the Fairbanks Morse 38D8-1/8 in its turbocharged sixteen cylinder version rated at 3000 HP

 

Say what?

Those would be some awfully long crankshafts, wouldn't they, on a 16-cylinder OP engine...

 My understanding is that the 3000 hp turbocharged OP engine is the 10D100, 10 cylinders, rated output at 850 rpm.  The uprated 9D100-F has 12 cylinders, 4000 hp at 900 rpm.

Could you be thinking of the 'replacement' engine that was put into some of the 2TE10Ms (or the one in the somewhat similar Chinese Dong Feng 4) which has 16 cylinders but isn't an OP engine?

 

 

I was clearly distracted in the days preceding Christmas....

I have no idea where my reference to sixteen cylinders came from.

The engines are indeed ten cylinders, model 10D100

You should note that ten cylinders and the "10" prefix are just coincidental: the ten cylinder blower engine was a 2D100 and the immediately preceding twelve cylinder turbo engine was a 9D100, which was not successful, or at least never entered real mass production....

At least my railfan activities have been successful these holidays...

And I've found an excellent book on the motive power of the Great Southern Railway of Ireland.

M636C

Join our Community!

Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.

Search the Community

Newsletter Sign-Up

By signing up you may also receive occasional reader surveys and special offers from Trains magazine.Please view our privacy policy