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Post by calzephyr on Jan 10, 2013 13:50:34 GMT -8
My first picture of the one of a kind SDMX59 leading a train! Larry This unit has been used for about six months now around Roseville but it almost never leads a train. Due to the northbound valley line being closed for track work, the unit went west out of Roseville with a short train to the old WP tracks at Haggin and will turn North there to Portola! Some of the other units in the rebuilt fleet is on the slide show. These are the ex SD60M units rebuilt with the new 12 cyl 710 motor, computer controls and new crash resistance fuel tanks. The radiators are also new and the capacity increased. Nice looking units overall. One unit, 9919 has ditch lights on both ends for certain night time running. Got it! Larry s806.photobucket.com/albums/yy345/Trainsforyou/UP%20SD59MX%20Diesels/?albumview=slideshow |
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Post by rhpd42002 on Jan 10, 2013 17:58:35 GMT -8
Nice catch and some good pics, Larry. You sure seem to stay busy hunting for the unusual!!  |
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Post by calzephyr on Jan 11, 2013 7:16:09 GMT -8
Nice catch and some good pics, Larry. You sure seem to stay busy hunting for the unusual!! Mike Thanks. We have been blessed with different types of experimental units around Northern California and I enjoy watching the railroad when I have time. One of the new gen sets burned up this week also. They seem to be a problem. Larry |
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Post by fr8kar on Jan 12, 2013 12:23:24 GMT -8
Great photo, Larry (and many more at the link). You must have captured every angle!
Aside from the humpback, which must inhibit the crew's vision when running LHF, the thing that stands out most to me is the lack of red stripe along the frame. I know yellow is required now, but it still looks weird and incomplete to me.
Gensets are a great concept. For variable load conditions, such as industry switching, they're good. They load quickly and settle down quickly, which is great for spotting. They can be effective in a yard, so long as short cuts are switched out. Unfortunately, they are almost always assigned to jobs by someone who doesn't understand locomotives. Instead of sitting at the roundhouse for a shift or two until an industry job needs new motors, they go to the first vacancy and get torn up. Most railroaders hate them, so they refuse to baby them when they are given an inappropriate assignment, so that's one contributing factor to them getting torn up.
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Post by calzephyr on Jan 12, 2013 12:56:58 GMT -8
Great photo, Larry (and many more at the link). You must have captured every angle! Aside from the humpback, which must inhibit the crew's vision when running LHF, the thing that stands out most to me is the lack of red stripe along the frame. I know yellow is required now, but it still looks weird and incomplete to me. Gensets are a great concept. For variable load conditions, such as industry switching, they're good. They load quickly and settle down quickly, which is great for spotting. They can be effective in a yard, so long as short cuts are switched out. Unfortunately, they are almost always assigned to jobs by someone who doesn't understand locomotives. Instead of sitting at the roundhouse for a shift or two until an industry job needs new motors, they go to the first vacancy and get torn up. Most railroaders hate them, so they refuse to baby them when they are given an inappropriate assignment, so that's one contributing factor to them getting torn up. I like you motto for BNSF! This unit is said to meet tier 3 and close to Tier 4 by some discussions. It is a 12 cyl regular 710 engine with added exhaust scrubbers to meet the new standards. They use two type of canisters on the exhaust of each cylinder to get the particules out of the exhaust. ?Those canisters must require cleaning fairly often since the exhaust on any 710 computer controlled diesel does have particles in the normal exhaust. Speaking of Gensets, we had one burn up this past Tuesday in the Yard at Roseville. The first department came out and worked on it for quite a while to get the fire out, which took out another box car also. The Genset looks to be ruined. Larry |
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Post by fr8kar on Jan 12, 2013 14:19:28 GMT -8
I run on former Frisco territory, so some of the old head Frisco folks make it known in no uncertain terms how much better it was back then. In some respects, I think they're right. But, as much as I like 70s and 80s EMDs as a modeler, there is no comparison to the modern GEs as a trainman. Some of the other old heads call it Brand New Santa Fe, but it's never said with pride, more like a tinge of regret.
The gensets we run in Texas were acquired through a tax incentive program, if I understand correctly. They have these decals on the sides that state, "Keeping the air cleaner in Texas." Compared to what I don't know. Those things smoke like crazy under any kind of load, and when something is about to catch fire or is already underway, look out.
One of my buddies out west sent me a photo of a burned up genset, UP Y894. It looks like it was based on a an SD40-2 frame. In any event, that sucker sure got cooked.
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Post by jamesbrodie67281 on Jan 13, 2013 1:45:20 GMT -8
Kind Sirs, Please excuse this Limeys 'iggerance' over USA Diesel/Electric types and always took the drivers side over the gaffers point of view, maybe I should never have been made a loco inspector if my protectiveness to the drivers and fireman had been realised. I have got more men saved from getting brownies by quietly saying to them "mention this rule wasn't carried out" or similar.To the point, if a foreman needed a shunt he might have had no choice but to use a non suitable loco. I've not studied the possible shortcomings as to why a loco fails, I do know a diesel engine is at it's most economical when working hard so it's the auxiliaries that seem to be the problem. Abused driving won't help....nuf sed...now to models and here is where I am out of my depth. The new Atlas all scales Dash 8-41CW shews a red line along the footplate edge is this in keeping with the time period of the model ? It is too modern for me unfortunately as my rolling stock is the era of roofwalks and high placed handbrake wheels say upto 1950. back to the train photo your guidance please at first i thought the train was in a yard and the boxwagon side doors were open then realised the wagon next to the engine, is it one of these central spine wagons could you tell me. Your box wagons on reflection have sliding doors don't they.
Jim sorry it's Sunday...James Brodie. Rosedale North Yorkshire Moors time 09-44hrs snow and cold.
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Post by fr8kar on Jan 13, 2013 9:45:19 GMT -8
James,
It's good to have someone protecting the crew's interest out there. Many times people are only protecting their own craft or personal interest. As far as the power desk is concerned, their word is final unless you happen to be close to the person running it that day, so you will live with what they give you, absent an obvious defect. That means sometimes you switch with road engines or run a transfer job with gensets.
To your point about differences between North American diesel locomotives, most of them have the same mechanical configuration. A large diesel engine drives an alternator/generator which produces electricity for traction motors mounted to each powered axle. Regardless of the power requirements of the train, the engine will burn the same amount of fuel for each notch of the throttle. This can be wasteful if you're only handling a couple cars at an industry or shoving a dozen cars on the lead. A typical engine used for switching, such as a GP38-2, has a single diesel engine that generates 2000 horsepower and four powered axles.
A genset differs from the typical engine by having multiple smaller diesel engine/generator sets instead of one large diesel and generator. As the load increases, the second diesel/generator comes online. Further increases in power requirement cause the third diesel/generator to come online. As power is reduced, the diesel/generator sets shut down in turn. BNSF uses NRE gensets rated at 2100 horsepower, and they are comprised of three 700 horsepower diesel/generator sets. I'm not very well informed on how gensets work beyond my description, but the failures I see and hear seem to occur when the power requested by the engineer is maximum and one of the diesels/generators fails. Then the two remaining diesel/generators has to deal with 50% more load which can cause problems.
I'm not sure when UP was required to change their traditional red frame stripe - which is a reflective tape - to yellow, but it was only a few years ago. The C418W should have a red stripe, unless it represents a unit operating today.
The cars you see trailing the locos in the photo are centerbeam lumber cars. The majority of the structural integrity of the car comes from the vertical truss that runs the length of the car. The floor slopes from the outside of the car toward the truss, helping keep the load pressed against the truss and helping avoid shifting. There are bulkheads at each end of the car to eliminate longitudinal shifting of the load.
Some boxcars can be operated with doors open and others cannot. If a boxcar has plug doors, which are spotted by the two large vertical rods near each edge of the doors, the doors must be secured before the car can be moved. Boxcars with sliding doors have no restrictions on movement based on the position of the doors, so it's common to see them open on empty cars.
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Post by calzephyr on Feb 14, 2013 7:24:32 GMT -8
Kind Sirs, Please excuse this Limeys 'iggerance' over USA Diesel/Electric types and always took the drivers side over the gaffers point of view, maybe I should never have been made a loco inspector if my protectiveness to the drivers and fireman had been realised. I have got more men saved from getting brownies by quietly saying to them "mention this rule wasn't carried out" or similar.To the point, if a foreman needed a shunt he might have had no choice but to use a non suitable loco. I've not studied the possible shortcomings as to why a loco fails, I do know a diesel engine is at it's most economical when working hard so it's the auxiliaries that seem to be the problem. Abused driving won't help....nuf sed...now to models and here is where I am out of my depth. The new Atlas all scales Dash 8-41CW shews a red line along the footplate edge is this in keeping with the time period of the model ? It is too modern for me unfortunately as my rolling stock is the era of roofwalks and high placed handbrake wheels say upto 1950. back to the train photo your guidance please at first i thought the train was in a yard and the boxwagon side doors were open then realised the wagon next to the engine, is it one of these central spine wagons could you tell me. Your box wagons on reflection have sliding doors don't they. Jim sorry it's Sunday...James Brodie. Rosedale North Yorkshire Moors time 09-44hrs snow and cold. James In reference to the color of the now yellow stripes, our government in all of their wise choices made a new rule several years ago that railroads had to use yellow or white reflective stripes on the locomotives and I believe rail cars get those also. Union Pacific had used red stripes on the footplate edge for over forty years, but had to start changing the stripe color on the locomotives. Red normally means danger or stop, but our wise and all knowing FRA leaders decided yellow for caution or white for whatever was best. We all know new laws must be better and the Union Pacific had to start changing several thousand colors on the footplates on older units. We still see a red one now and then, but that is a unit that has not been in the shop for the upgrade. Most of our cars have sliding doors but some have plug doors. The cars behind the engines are for lumber products. They have a center section and the lumber or manufactured lumber products are loaded on each side equally as not balance the load on the car. Larry |
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