Locomotive Diesel Engine Failure

[SHobbs]

Nick,



I remember a few years back I was headed from Ft Worth to Sweetwater on a stack train. We got a warning bell in the lead loco, there was problem with another engine, we had 5 loco's total. Well were running 60 mph and the engineer was busy so I went back to check it out. Here I was standing on the catwalk going down the rails at 60 trying to reach the overspeed lever on an engine to reset it. Took me a few minutes but I finally reached it to get it restarted.



Always an adventure walking from loco to loco while traveling down the tracks, lol.



I have always preferred the sound of the EMD's over the GE's. The EMD's have a totally different sound, you can actually feel them coming kinda like an SD-40. The SD-40 has a sound all its own.

 

[nickleinonen]

well, i had another good one today. . on the unit notes there was a report on the 3rd of heavy black smoke. . on the 5th there was a note engine dead & drained. fire out of stack. . got on the unit today [dash9] and i could smell burnt something so i started looking around. the intake air filters were burnt to a crisp and once i pulled one out, the compressor wheel on the turbo was half inside the air filter box. left side of the engine intake manifold was burnt and several aluminum sections were melted. she went boom big time. .

oh, same engine, i opened the crankcase covers after just to make sure nothing was broken inside [quick visual inspection] and one of the con rod bearing cap screws was loose/backed out by almost 1". . i think someone didn't torque that one quite right. .

 

[dkoldno7]

I'm a retired locomotive engineer,GM has a 720 4300bhp at crank,720 is the cubic inches per cylinder. the piston in your pic is very small.

dkoldno7

 

[nickleinonen]

the one from 2 days ago...

 

[JasonCzerak]

I wonder if a smaller version of a turbo like that would work on them V8 diesels.

 

[nickleinonen]

I wonder if a smaller version of a turbo like that would work on them V8 diesels.

it could, but the plumbing would be a nightmare and you would need to have separate aftercoolers and plumbing for the intakes. for them vee engines, they need to hang one small one off each bank and run dual chargers...

... and maybe run a 3rd one in the middle of the vee being fed by the lil ones. . bi-compounded :-laf

[it would need to be about 90x smaller. . that puppy is over 800lbs]

 

[Cattletrkr]

What's the dia on those turbos? Kinda hard to tell from pics.

 

[nickleinonen]

the pipe plug on the bottom of the compressor housing is a 1/2" pipe plug with a 3/8" square recess in it. the bolts around the compressor inlet on the housing are 1/2" bolts with a 3/4" head.

the rubber boot that joins the turbo to the filter housing is about 12" diameter [i am guestimating on that one]

 

[rbattelle]

An interesting (or not-interesting) side note is that General Electric was the first US company to build a gas turbine engine primarily because of their experience building superchargers.

Or so I've been told.

Ryan

 

[nickleinonen]

. . i wish i had a video of what i did last monday at work. . the new emd loco's we have gotten are poorly designed. it hit a snow bank, but the front end 1" plate is not supported at all, so it bent under by about 10" at the bottom. so to straignten it, the plow was removed and some 1" eye bolts were put on. . 12k tow chains were attached and hooked up to another locomotive. . throttle up and pull the plate straight. we did get it pretty straight, but that was after we snapped the tow chain and used 4 chains instead of 3. . what a bang that made when the chain snapped back. .

it so was a hold my beer and watch this moment

 

[JFaulkner]

. . i wish i had a video of what i did last monday at work. . the new emd loco's we have gotten are poorly designed. it hit a snow bank, but the front end 1" plate is not supported at all, so it bent under by about 10" at the bottom. so to straignten it, the plow was removed and some 1" eye bolts were put on. . 12k tow chains were attached and hooked up to another locomotive. . throttle up and pull the plate straight. we did get it pretty straight, but that was after we snapped the tow chain and used 4 chains instead of 3. . what a bang that made when the chain snapped back. .



it so was a hold my beer and watch this moment

I believe we all can agree that there is absolutely no excuse for activities like this to be taking place without a video camera. #@$%!:-laf

 

[DennyDay]

Sounds more like a Texas Tale - - A fairie tale start out "Once Upon a Time" A Texas Tale start ou "You ain't never gonna' believe this S***"



Denny

 

[Todd G]

How BIG was that chain?

 

[DennyDay]

Not quite big enough!!!!!



Denny

 

[nickleinonen]

How BIG was that chain?

12,000lbs rated chain. . about 1/2" thick links. . at first i had 3 chains [2 on the bent plate with eye bolts going to the single chain attached to the other locomotive]. the single chain let go

 

[JasonCzerak]

12,000lbs rated chain. . about 1/2" thick links. . at first i had 3 chains [2 on the bent plate with eye bolts going to the single chain attached to the other locomotive]. the single chain let go

I'd count that as one chain not three since it's obvious where the weakest link is. and the fact that i was stepped down. (2 into 1).

 

[nickleinonen]

I'd count that as one chain not three since it's obvious where the weakest link is. and the fact that i was stepped down. (2 into 1).

yep... after the snap. that single got 2 chains to double my load rating. .

 

[nickleinonen]

<embed width="448" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://i125. photobucket.com/player. swf?file=http://vid125. photobucket.com/albums/p70/nickleinonen/bendtheplate. flv">

 

[rbattelle]

Now that's what I call a plate bender!

Ryan

 

[SHobbs]

Must have had it tied to one of those truck frames. Can't remember which one Tundra or Titan. Seen it in a tv commercial so it must be true, lol.