How the SD50 Became The Blunder That Destroyed EMD’s Reputation| Garbage on The Rails Episode 8
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- Опубліковано 12 чер 2024
- #AndrewRailaBammers #SD50 #EMD #Garbage #GM #TheRocketCityRailfan
Alongside the failure of Penn Central, the EMD SD50 is one of the most infamous stories in both US railroad history and the history of North America's railways, yet seemingly mover overlooked than Penn Central. When EMD decided to charge an existing prime mover in their SD50 to an output the prime mover was not meant for in order to compete with GE's Dash-7 line, combining power and efficiency, coupled with the SD50's production being rushed, turned the locomotive from what was meant to be the true successor to the legendary SD40-2, to a catastrophic flop that permanently ruined EMD's reputation as a trustworthy locomotive manufacturer it had been known to be since America's transition to diesel locomotives, allowing GE to take the spotlight an eventually topple EMD from the throne of the number 1 locomotive manufacturer in the Americas. GE still holds that title to this day, tanks to their patience and persistence coupled with EMD screwing up the SD50 whilst being pushed to its breaking point. The company has never been the same ever since, and it is now owned by Caterpillar's Progress Rail.
How could such an unthinkable business catastrophe happen out of nowhere? Well find out in this video, through arrogance, bad timing, certain techniques, and some tricks of GE that EMD possibly didn't know about.
This is also the first locomotive on this show that isn't extinct, the first to have examples still in service, and the first to have at least one example preserved.
Links to info
Trainorders.com: www.trainorders.com/discussio...
History In The Dark: • 5 MORE of the WORST TR...
Worldwide Railfan: • Rebuilt: Progress Rail...
Buccaneer Railfanning: • Engines of CSX: SD50-2...
Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_SD50
American Rails: www.american-rails.com/806044...
Link to the modified Kevin MacLeod song: • Kevin MacLeod Gaslamp ...
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0:00-1:12 Intro
1:13-1:48 EMD segway into video
1:49-3:49 Backstory of the SD50
3:50-5:38 The BIG mistake
5:39-6:41 The Problems
6:42-8:00 Origins of the SD50's failure
8:01-11:37 The SD50's Legacy and negative impact
11:38-12:35 How it could have been prevented
12:36-14:42 SD50 fates, rebuilds, and mods
14:43-16:20 Conclusion
16:21-18:40 Outro - Наука та технологія
Read the book "On A Clear Day You Can See General Motors". It will really show you how much and how long GM has been messed up. One of the company's famous quotes was "GM is no longer in business to make products, we are in business to make money"
Same goes for every other corporation in America!!!! Why else is everything made in chitna?
I hate China products because I f*Cain hate communists. You can never trust countries run by these evil human-rights-violating-scumbags
That has been the general rule for most American industries since the end of the Tycoon era.
@@isaiahmarchington7614 I mean Europe and the US also did Human Right violations.
That's EXACTLY what happened to Boeing when they "merged with McDonnell Douglas" in 1998. What actually happened is that Boeing paid off McDDs hundreds of millions of dollars of debt and THEIR CEO came in and took over Boeing and said that profit was now the #1 priority.
This mentality taken to it's full realization caused the 737 MAX design flaw.
I’ve been an engineer for 17 years with BNSF in the Midwest. I run a lot of modern GE and EMD motors and I can tell you that the most reliable motors we have are the emd sd70 Macs. I’ve never seen one break down. If I’ve got problems it’s always a GE dash 9 or newer.
The opinion is the exact opposite on mountain grades. The newest GE's hold the rail and their dynamics are reliable and consistant right down to a stop. Never had 70 Macs but the 80 and 90 Macs were awful, if we had one in the cosist, we'd isolate it if we could and if we had to run it, it would always give us problems. Wheelslip, dropped load, stalled traction motors...always a headache. It seems like the EMD's run fine if they aren't grinding the whole way. Guys on the valley didn't mind them at all, and they were fine on haulers or switch jobs. But those of us worked the mountain pools hated them.
@@michlo3393 lol, I’m on river grade so they work all right.
Let me guess, they include turbocharger failures?
Still running 70MACs... must be running coal out of the PRB. I live close to Kearny, Nebraska so I still get to see a 70MAC lead from time to time. 4:05
@@calebkemplay6040 we don’t run the on the point that often. They’ve been overhauling them and giving them the new paint job. They get PTC and now they’re lead qualified.
There's a reason why GEs are called toasters, and it may or may not have to do with the parent company making toasters!
LOL
It’s not due to the low pressure fuel system fires on the engine or fire out the stack issues depicted in this video though, it’s because the Dash 7 engines, especially the C 36-7 had very unreliable dynamic brake grids. The units would come back with melted brake grids practically every time they went out, and they glowed bright orange every time they were used, so it’s no wonder they failed so often. Some railroads like UP even disabled the dynamics on them so they could be out on the road much more pulling freight instead of in the shop being worked on.
GE doesn't make toasters, that is Thompson/GE a Chinese company. GE sold it's appliance business years ago, it has also sold its locomotive business just like GM. I believe that the GE railroad division is now part of the MB empire.
GE Locomotive is owned by WABTEC which was created by the merger between Westinghouse Air Brake Company and Motive Power Industries, which was a descendent of Morrison-Knudsen Rail Division.
Edit: The term “Toasters” for GE locomotives has been around since at least the early 1980’s, a time period in which they did manufacture toasters and all sorts of other household consumer products.
@@henryostman5740 ge is part of wabtech. Ge sold off a lot of the business. Aviation is the money maker i work at ge Aviation in lynn Massachusetts.
GE's customer service is so good, they include free cardboard to shim up your instrument cluster when it starts to rattle loose.
So there's these GE card box's and when one would go bad they'd make you buy a whole new box and wouldn't replace the one bad card. They even made it so you couldn't swap cards from boxes...
I'll be a happy kid if (say I had enough money, etc, etc) if I buy an ET44AC and they gave me souvenir stickers to go along with it lol
I've learned about that from a few of "The ALCO Diesel Guy's videos"
Don't settle for substitute cardboard, demand the OEM cardboard!!!!
The entire 50 series was overall a not well designed. EMD was trying to get way too much from the 645 16 cylinders engines. They had major oil return problems were instead of using a steel return line they used a copper line with flare fittings. Then they had major electrical problems also. The roads that made them work knew what the issues were and made the fixes needed to correct them.
CSX practically rewired the units.
I watched this again and remembered when John Carrier and I stopped at Clifton Forge VA CSX shops likely around 1984 very late at night. A shop employee happened to spot us and took us on a tour of their engine rebuild shop. It was fantastic to us being engineering students at WV Tech and rail fans! It was very well lit and organized locomotive heavy maintenance and refinish facility. At 10p or later it was just us and our tour guide looking around this huge inside facility!
I asked our tour guide what he thought of the new SD50s and he said they don't know them very well because they have extended maintenance intervals of 3 months. In that regard they didn't like the SD50s because their required maintenance was so little compared to the other locomotives. At that time the SD50 had not developed the issue as it did later. They hadn't had an SD50 at that time in for serious problems and this is on the CSX mainline through VA and WV along the New River Gorge that GE U23s would always appear to shutdown to become dead weight being pulled up the grade by EMDs.
We got a tour of the locomotive paint shop with an immaculate inside and out refinished and rebuild GP30! It had just had its interior refinished in a perfect glossy gray likely poly urethane paint. It looked like a concourse car paint job. The GP30 had a build plate of sometime in the early 1960s. It looked so fresh from its refinish it actually glowed in the paint shop lights! I'd never seen such a flawless paint job on a locomotive. Every ding had been removed and every less than perfect surface had been made perfect. The CSX Clifton Forge VA locomotive paint shop had made that GP30 look better than EMD did for its own marketing photos.
Funny story: I bought an Athearn HO Scale GP50 in the 1990's. It ran well except the motor kept shorting out against the frame, the wheel sets kept getting out of alignment, and were hard to keep clean. - ironic that the problems of the SD50 transferred over to model railroading lol!
It should come as no surprise the GM also screwed up their locomotive division during these days. They screwed up everything else they did.
The biggest issue is the electrical system.
I believe the 645 E3 could in fact put out more horsepower with some significant modifications.
The crankshaft failures are because of failure to maintain proper alignment of the generator to the engine.
This is a subject that I have extensive experience with having aligned fifty or more main generators. Factory trained at Motive Power Wabtec in Boise Idaho.
I helped build MP36-3 and NP40-3 locomotives.
Thanks for some insight, I don't have true expertise in engines yet, so I just have to go with what I know from the internet. I’m bound to learn more about engines when I enter my 2nd year of college.
I’ve Ben a cat mechanic for 44 Plus years experience did active uscg 2 yrs and on the cutter cape Starr Alighment of the output shaft was a problem because fatigue in the main frames and flexing shaft to red gear should be less than .002 thousands of an inch we were getting reading of grater than.12 thousands of an inch ultimately causing a crank failure in #1 main a Cummins by 750 v 12 engine with a bore of 6” so alignment is critical.
0.002 thou? Really?
@@patrickporter6536
This is SAE not metric.
The alignment on a 645e3 to AR10 is .010 inches or less on the flex plate and .050 on the barrel of the generator.
I do less than .010 inches on both. Crank fatigue is a thing and alignment to very close tolerance is essential.
The EMD GP50's & SD50's were literal proof that the 645E3's were pushed to the maximum limit,at that being 3,600 HP.Two stroke motors run at higher RPM opposed to four stroke which make the same amount of power or more at lower RPM and therefore are obviously more fuel efficient.At some point,in order to get more out of two stroke the displacement needs to be increased.This is why EMD debuted the 710-G3A's starting with the GP60's & SD60's at 3,800 HP.The highest horsepower out of the 645E3 series was the 20-645E3's for the SD45's and other related units at 4,000 HP but obviously that was twenty cylinders compared to sixteen and those units always had crankshaft failures and/or block flex.Case in point,most GP50's & SD50's were corrected with adjustments on the governors or interchanged power assemblies from other 645E3's.The units as rebuilds which were far worse were the 3 PR43C's from CAT/PRLX...
Trains magazine also stated that the group of engineers that developed the SD40/45. Were going into retirement and a new group of engineers were to make improvements to the line of locomotive. They undid a lot of small things that the past engineers did example : they removed some flexibility in the lines. They put in loop for expansion and put straight piping to save moneys. There is no cost in going 50 RPM higher and no R&D cost in testing the effect of the change. I subscribe “ Trains Magazine “ from the 70s and get most of my information from them. I did occasionally go to the train yards and talk to some of the the personnel that I come across on the visits there.
I have the Trains DVD with every issue from 1940-2010. What issue was this in? I would love to read it.
Just adds more negatives to the already bad luck EMD was having with GM and GE
I handled one of the first batches to come to Seaboard System on the former Clinchfield in 1983. My first thought was "WOW"! They had plenty of power without wheel slippage (the radar system worked great) and a dynamic braking system that would stand a train on it's head. But as time and usage wore on, the quality issues quickly came to light. The dynamic brakes started to fail enroute and prime mover failures started happening too frequently, leaving many unit coal trains dead in the water. They were great locomotives when they worked, and when CSX got the A-frames rebuilt under warranty from EMD, they performed reliably. I would like to mention that the last batches of our CRR/Family Lines' SD40-2's that came out of LaGrange suffered from many of the same problems, especially dynamic brake overcurrent protection regulators. I think it was just the profit pressure coming from GM that led to the product quality issues of that day. And you are correct, it spelled the beginning of the end for EMD.
Frankly, I think the GP38 and GP38-2's were the finest products to ever come out of LaGrange, and I handled many of them, from the first batch of original Clinchfield GP38's to the Family Lines GP38-2's. On the CRR, they handled heavy trains far beyond their tonnage ratings without fail. We abused them, and they kept going. Aside from the battery box explosions, they were EMD's finest.
At work one of our fast track test units is a exConrail SD50. But Yes GP38-2 or SD are the best. I feel they're also the most fun and easiest to work on or rebuild. Spent lots of time wiring on them...
@@theodorethompson9032 Yes! The pre dash-2's were really easy good for switching, because they reversed so fast, and those equipped with the high excitation switching mode feature was handy too. The dash-2's had those awful rotary power contactor/reversers. They could be so slow, and the rotary dynamic brake transition contacts would hang up; and there you were, stalled again. And the sound of a Roots blower aspirated 645 was particularly satisfying.
Another place where EMD cleaned up was in tug boats and Great Lakes cargo freighters. Nearly every freighter built by Bay Shipbuilding in Sturgeon Bay, WI from the early 1970's to now has had 20-645-E7's or a 710 model. The 1000' long by 105' wide "super lakers" have 4 645-E7's coupled in pairs to reduction gears to one of two propellers. Most of the other vessels built have a pair coupled to a reduction gear to a single screw. Only US Steel built a 1000' vessel at Bay shipbuilding with a different engine model (two Enterprise diesel engines) and while more powerful she's had more engine issues. 3 ships on the lakes have two 16-251 Alcos, one ships was repowered from steam to a GEVO (now scrapped) and 1 tugboat (loudest thing on Earth) has two second hand GE FDL's that came out of an old SOO U boat or early -7. Look up Olive L. Moore makes a U turn to hear how loud that thing is. On the US side there are a few Cats/MaK models, a few Colt-Pielstiks (French engine), and Rolls-Royce Bergen's but EMD has the lions share. Great engines, I think when you look at how EMD's linger on even in Class 1's and dominated short lines it proves the longevity of EMD design.
EMD has remnant in business for stationary and marine apparatus where emissions regulations are irrelevant.In the railroads there are far more GE units than EMD units,it's been that way for three decades.GE became more technologically advanced and proved their units to have superior dynamic braking and tractive effort for any serious tonnage.Aside from EPA standards,EMD began to fall behind after discontinuation of the GP40-2's & SD40-2's.The worst part was when CAT/PRLX became their parent company...Shambles to shattered.
(Retired NS electrician here). A couple of points, if I may. The 50 was the first engine to employ the "super series" traction control system. Very complicated but very effective and still in use today on the ac models. The problem from an electrician's point of view is we had a computerized control system with no screen. No fault log, no real time data. Instead, there were over 100 test points. Real fun with an intermittent problem. The other thing is I don't understand the praise for the ge dash 7. Total junk and a little dangerous to work on.
I've heard it said back then without the SD-50's problems GE wouldn't have sold many 7's because they were junk as you pointed out...
As a diesel locomotive electrician for Union Pacific I was sent back to LeGrange to learn the new SD50 control curcuits. It was so very complicated that anything we learned on the more reliable SD40-2 module system was no usable. The back of the control cabinet locked like a Moog sythisizer with wires going everywhere.
Like the saying goes “don’t fix what’s not broken”. If engineers are going to do a redesign, they better make sure that everything works properly or better than the original. Not worse.
As a computer programmer, I had this posted on my wall for all asking for changes to see. Never had a major time issue:
A Good Quick job,
won’t be Cheap.
A Good job Cheap,
won’t be Quick.
A Cheap job Quick,
won’t be Good.
Yep. Old rule of 3's.
Fast, cheap or good. Pick 2.
Impressive! Nailed it telling this story, roasted those people who made it fail, and then went back to college.
Thank you for explaining the engineering behind some of America's most infamous locomotives, as I've always wondered what exactly led to their infamy.
Not all of the SD50’s featured in this video were built in the US. Utah Railway 6062 featured (16:09) was an Australian built example, being built by Clyde Engineering (Australia’s EMD license holder) in 1982. It was one of 5 built at Clyde’s Rosewater (Adelaide) plant for use by Hamersley Iron hauling iron ore through the Pilbara region. They remained in Australia until 1995 when they were withdrawn from Hamersley Iron service and sent to the US.
NREX 6063 is one of the ex Hamersley Iron SD50S
Same problem with the 4400 horsepower dash 9's. Ever wonder why they had so many catastrophic turbo failures? Because the motor was only ment to put out 4,000 horsepower but GE had them set up to run quicker to put out 400 more horsepower. It was too much stress on them. GE is a lot cheaper to buy than EMD, but there HELLA less reliable. RBMN's grey and green SD50's are ex UP and are SD50M's. They still retain 3600 horsepower, and for the most part they seem to work fine.
I’m shocked GE hasn’t even gotten in higher trouble with the public over faulty turbochargers. If they did while also having to deal with EMD finally getting back in the game after sorting out how to do so, it could give EMD a chance to get back at GE, given of course if EMD can do better.
@@AndrewTheRocketCityRailfan4014 which is why EMD is better even today. The aces are more reliable overall. They pull better, there 2 stroke which seem to be more reliable in any situation on the railroad. There a bit loud inside from what my engineer buddy told me, but other than that there great.
It still doesn't change much over the factors that GE units have far better traction motors,dynamic braking,tractive effort,and better cabs than most EMD units.
Modern EMD units absolutely suck while the GE units have been doing fine for thirty plus years minus the fires part that anybody knows about.EMD units are great for road switching and quicker at loading traction motors,but that hardly is doing much at all.When it comes to serious tonnage like coal and rocks GE units are highly prefered.The older EMD units such as GP40-2's & SD40-2's and previous units will outlive everything else that still is around.
Just remember everyone the most reliable SD50 is found in scale models
That’s cold, man😂
Am I wrong though
@@bpeterfeso Well... Despite teething issues, many SD50's are still in use today (albeit derated). Unreliable locomotives don't usually remain in service for 40 years.
You're not wrong but it ruined emd so regardless of them being still around they killed a good company
@@bpeterfeso It hardly "ruined EMD". The SD50 came out more than 40 years ago. Although it stained their reputation, EMD went on to build thousands of SD60 and SD70 variations in the following decades, which have since proven themselves.
I was on the inside of the manufacturing of the first SD50s while working for UP. I found an almost unworkable situation in LeGrange between the electrical engineers, the floor workers assembling the units and labor management. It was as if no one could agree on anything and the workers were hating everyone. Soon after the entire EMD facility was shut down and manufacturing was moved to Canada where labor union waters were more friendly.
GE engines don't go into "runaway" mode because oil leaks into the exhaust system and catches fire. They go into "runaway" because of a failure of the turbocharger bearing seal which allows the hundreds of gallons of engine oil in the crankcase to siphon into the combustion system unregulated by cylinder injectors...the result being the massive fires out of the exhaust stack and ultimate destruction of the engine when it uses up all of its lubricating oil while operating at twice the designed rpm it was intended to operate at.
I suspect any remaining EMD executives don’t regret anything.
They just 👉 at the GM overlords.
Thanks for featuring me.
EMD's down fall was due to more than just a locomotive. Their arrogance in the late 1980's was unbelievable! When the Monongahela Railway was planning to replace their wore out GP-38s. EMD said the GP-60, we will let you pick the paint and air horn. GE heard about the MGA looking for new locomotives and showed up asking what do you need to move coal. And that is why they bought B23-7Rs.
Then again, that one-size-fits all approach is what GE later did starting with the dash-9 series. At that point, GE started charging an indecently high amount for anything that deviates from the stock model. Later on, GE flat out refused to customize anything.
True, I will be making a video on this complex subject in the future
arrogance throughout, At the same time GE decided to put Rotary window air conditioner compressors into refrigerators and made millions of bad refrigerators and they put 12 compressors in 4 refrigerators I owned.
You have Roger Smith (CEO of GM at the time the SD50 was produced) to thank in part of the locomotive model's failure.
Smith was a horrible CEO.. his only 'vision' was to cut cost everywhere, even if it wrecked reliability.
Whoever his predecessor was, he/she should have been in office when the SD50 was being developed. Either that, or Smith should not have been CEO in the first place, preferably someone passionate about their products(especially someone passionate about trains).
@@AndrewTheRocketCityRailfan4014 Smith was a corporatist scumbag who took handouts from the government. He was a die-hard Republican (this was before the Democrats became what they are now, basically softer Republicans).
Roger Smith didn't become CEO until 1981, after the SD50 had been designed and entered production. (Not that his predecessor Tom Murphy was much better)
The change in philosophy was a huge blunder. The SD40-2 was a champion of reliability. Hence, the SD40-2 is arguably considered the finest diesel locomotives ever constructed. If the SD-50’s reliability had followed suit, it would have been much more successful.
Imagine, my fictional variant of the SD50: The SD50ER, with the ER standing for *ENGINE REPLACED.*
As a former GE Locomotives fanboy, I could tell you that no locomotives are as dependable as an EMD...
One time, in our Third Divisional Region of Indonesian Railway of South Sumatra, our so-called "Dependable and Reliable" U18C, which has 1950 (hp) engine (1800 (hp) to generator) was broke down while carrying a 10 cars express passenger train because of unknown reason. The only locomotive available at that time in the nearest depot was an EMD G18A1A with 8-645E with 1010 (hp) (900 (hp) for the generator) from the 1967. That series locomotive (which in total of 8) with absolute limited spare parts could barely carry a GE U18C plus 10 passenger cars fully loaded but still managed above 60 (km/h) in notch 4.
Imagine that 😂
(The reason it is limited to notch 4 because the engine had an enormous oil leak if the driver speed up exceed notch 4 and spare parts. So, that's why they then used mostly for switching since early 2000s up until retirement around 2014 - 2016)
Meanwhile our GEs, sometimes (well, mostly) problematic even though they have better technologies compared to our EMDs
BUT, GE had one advantages that EMDon't
AN EXTREMELY SUPERB CUSTOMER SERVICES AND ADVERTISING 😂
That's the fact...
Did GE have much better ability to offer credit to potential corporate buyers of its locomotives than did EMD/GM at the time that all of GM was slipping?
I love it when The Diseasel theme is used whenever talking about bad diesel locomotives.
I've operated most of the locomotives mentioned here up until the latest models. To this day, give me a Fast 40 (Union Pacific) to run. Smooth ride, reliable and simple to control a train safely. What a great machine!
They may not have been reliable but I love the way they look with the long narrow hood and of course the 60’s and 70’s have the same design. So GM got one thing right with the SD50 In my opinion lol
The 20 cylinder 645 was actually MORE fuel efficient than the 16-645 in term of fuel burned per HP output. It did burn more fuel, because it produced more power. The real problem the railroad had with the SD45/SD45-2 was while it put out 600 more HP, it didn't put out more tractive effort than a SD40/SD40-2. In other words, the SD45 and SD40 could pull the same tonnage, but the SD45 could pull it faster because of the higher HP per unit. The railroads had limited use for pulling the same tonnage faster, so they decided the 3000 HP SD40/SD40-2 better suited them. The same thing happened with the 6250 HP AC6000 that CSX used for 20 years. They ended up electronically derating them to match the HP of an AC4400 to make the fleet more uniform.
The EMD 2 cycles were the pinnacle of locomotive development. It's been all downhill since they got in bed with Crapterpillar.
Ah, the luxury of 20/20 hindsight but you are basically all too correct in this case. As I recall the '50s also originally had plumbing and electrical system layout issues that had to be redone.
I used to work at the EMD fuel injection plant on Burlingame in Grand Rapids, MI back in the early '90s including during the sale and take over by Penske Transportation to Diesel Technology Company.
Here in Brazil we had similar problems with the EMD SD60M (we didnt have SD50s) which was built by Equipamentos Villares S.A., two units were built for Vale, at the time still called CVRD, to run on the Carajás Railroad which runs basically through the Amazon florest.
The two units had serious crankshaft, dynamic break, overheating and electronic issues which relegated them to being port and engine shop switchers respectively until they were scrapped in 2016.
The failure of the SD60Ms here twarted other EMD orders by brazilian railroads and solidified the already strong GE hold on the market here.
Vale would only buy EMDs again 15 years later with the SD70Ms and a few other brazilian railroads would buy SD70ACe/45s and SD70ACe-BBs most prominantely VLI.
But even with all their problems the SD60Ms are still fondly remembered for being the first wide cabs in Brazil and the only two SD60Ms to be built below the equator.
Took some time over Thanksgiving Break and the last days of my Christmas/New Year's break, but I finally have gotten what is now my first narrated video of 2023 out just in time before my departure back to my college in Altoona tomorrow as of the writing of this comment (Jan 4, right after publishing the video). That can explain why I didn’t have enough time to add in some little details because I knew the video would be longer than most since I had to also discuss the negative impact the SD50 had on EMD and railroads as a whole. I also didn’t start writing the script until I was on my way home for Thanksgiving.
Edit: We are almost at 100K views on this video, so keep the spread on!
Just a little correction about sd45s getting bad fuel mileage. They only burn high amounts of fuel at idle but when underpower they actually get decent fuel mileage
@@brendenburke272 As I recall it was the way the turbos were rigged with Alcos that caused them to lag the engines and resulted in their characteristic smoking problems.
@@whiteknightcat yeah
Agreed bud. Studies must come first.
@@whiteknightcat He doesn’t pretend, he knows and understands what he’s discussing.
GM/EMD actually DID have hindsight that they could have looked at before rushing their "new" diesel engine to market; all they had to do was look at ALCO, and what happened to them when they rushed new engines to market without testing and perfecting them. However, they decided to press on, and we all get to see what happened.
Estoy de acuerdo creo que EMD habiendo construido excelentes motores en el pasado cayó en varios errores todo lo hicieron por el afán de conseguir más potencia de manera rápida. Pero aún con todos esos errores estoy orgulloso de nuestras dos marcas americanas GE y EMD y se fabrican por todo el mundo.
Indeed. I was just talking to some guys with the Green Bay & Western Historical Society (which was an all-Alco railroad) on the weekend of May 4 (2024). I was asking about the GB&W's fleet of Alco FA1s, and those were the very engines you described as being rushed to market without a lot of trial and testing. The GB&W was lucky that they were able to wring 10 years out of them before trading them in. Despite being beautiful-looking engines, the FA1s were an absolute dog mechanically and none survive to this day from anyone's railroad, AFAIK. Problem was that the FA1 locomotives couldn't be re-engined or upgraded because the newer engines for the FA2s and subsequent Alco hood units wouldn't fit in the FA1's carbody, so they couldn't even be replaced with better engines! They had to fix what was there, and they were constantly in the shop for maintenance. One of the better GB&W books even has a photo of one of the FA1s in the shop with an explanatory caption describing their troubles.
True to a degree--- the D&H at one time had basically ALL 244 Alcos, and did not seem to have a problem. The later 251 engine is regarded as one of the best loco engines ever-- durable, and good on fuel. It's just that EMD and GE had MUCH more money behind them.
I learned to detest CSX 8500 series engines back in 2006-10 working for the Buckingham Branch in Doswell, VA. They would leave us Herzog trains with two 8500s. They tended to just shutdown at random times on you. No real reason that I could figure out; they would usually start right back up again, but it was a constant worry in the back of your mind when you had them as your consist. Rotten engines through and through.
I remember years ago a local Railroad was being bought out by CSX, one night the local came in with a CSX SD50. It broke down and they cut it out and it sat about 2 weeks beyond the cutout on the spur. They luckily were dropping off a long cut of gravel and sand at one customer and a bunch of boxcars at another. And the 35s were able to handle the remaining train
EMD was too slow in coming out with a higher horsepower locomotive than GE during the 60s, 70s and 80s. Even today, GE is still ahead of EMD as far as horsepower rating. Poor assembly of the 50 and early 60s series is what doomed EMD. Another issue besides reliability of the 50 and early 60 series was GE has always had better financing, cheaper priced locomotives and faster production of large orders, especially after EMD closed the Lagrange plant. Despite the C40-8 putting GE ahead of EMD for locomotive dominance, EMD gets the last laugh as you still see today SD50s and SD60s in use. C40-8s are gone literally everywhere now. Most railroads scrap their GEs after 15 years of hard use. Can't say that for EMD!
Wait they closed the Lagrange facility? I know they closed their London, Ontario plant, but the Lagrange one? Atleast they have some other manufacturing facilities thanks to their new owner in Progress Rail and Caterpillar
@@AndrewTheRocketCityRailfan4014 They have been producing units in Muncie since just before London was shut down. LaGrange production for locomotive assembly was closed in the late 1980s. LaGrange still builds the engines to this day.
America's railroad's have been through a whole ton throughout the years. But now, America's Railroad's would return with vengeance. Though hey, one biggest mess up is the 1955 British rail Modernization Program, which was a massive failure.
*History in the Dark starts to have flashbacks*
This is awesome, the looks I got from the oldheads when I mentioned the SD-50🤣🤣🤣😅😅🤦🏾🤦🏾🤦🏾
Every failure of the United States railroading include the Penn Central Transportation Company failure, decline of passenger trains, and the Crazy Eights Incident. GE Transportation Systems was later sold to Wabtec in 2019. We have a sight of the errors of EMD SD50. The most unrecognized failure was being the SD50. GE Transportation Systems stole the title and still has it. Nowadays GE rail division was renamed GE Transportation Systems after the Wabtec acquisition in 2019. Unfortunately most older GE diesel locomotives are either scrapped or sold.
True, meanwhile older EMD’s of similar age like SD60’s, 70MAC’s and 70m’s, and even 40-2’s are still trucking along just fine. Many older EMD’s have even been reported with cleaner engines by their owners and even EMD themselves to meet new emissions regulations. And then of course EMD’s have better turbos and helper services performance Safe to say that EMD had the last laugh in the long run.
You forgot about the Milwaukee Road.
EMD 645s were regularly used for power generation, and when built for countries that used 50 Hz power, ran at 1,000 rpm. 950 rpm wasn't the problem. Pushing the 645 past its upper horsepower limit so that reliability suffered was.
THANK YOU FOR SHARING THE VIDEO
The EMD F59PH is a four-axle 3,000 hp (2 MW) B-B diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division from 1988 to 1994. A variant, the F59PHI, was produced from 1994 to 2001.
Most remaining SD50's on class 1 railroads have been derated to SD40 standards
NS calls theirs SD40Es.
CSX SD50-2s and SD50-3s
GE basically did the same thing with the AC6000 locomotives. The unreliable 6000hp prime mover got swapped out for the very reliable 4400hp one.
The SD50 had problems during the early years, but those were eventually fixed or upgraded. I rode in many SD50s and SD60s during my time with Union Pacific, and I wouldn't say the SD50s were bad locomotives, but they did seem to feel like a generic running locomotive. I always felt like they were a SD40-2 on steroids. They rode well and loaded up quickly. They were good on fast intermodal trains but not so much on heavier freight drags. We didn't use them as a lead locomotive if we could help it, as they were not as reliable as some of the other locomotives.
I think a big problem with the SD50s was that they were advertised as replacing two older locomotives. Many railroads took them up on this promise and quickly found out that this was not true. I know BN tried running coal trains with three SD50s and two SD40-2 pushers (normally they would have 5 or 6 locomotives up front and two pushing) and were totally overloading the SD50s until they broke down. I am pretty sure four SD50s would have worked out just fine for that coal train.
Despite the problems, the railroads kept the SD50s, and they more or less did what they were supposed to do. They are still around today because they are better than a SD40-2 but fall short of a SD60 (a very dependable and awesome locomotive). I would imagine that most of the SD50s at some point had SD60 electronics installed, which helped performance. If I were starting a railroad, I wouldn't buy a SD50. If I did have to run them, I would have 3 or 4 SD50s all together. They work best when they have the same models together.
This was a really cool video and great history lesson, thank you for sharing this video. 😊
I’m a 30 year Railroad mechanic, I’ve worked on GE U30C , C30-7 and AC4400, I’ve worked on EMD SD 40, SD 50 & SD60 . I like GEs better, The SD 60s didn’t seem to break as bad as the SD40s and SD50s. The SD40s always had there traction motors going to ground.
This video is golden! Subscriber earned!!!
We can say something similar about Ford 6.4 Powerstrokes too-powerful engine but will not last especially if you push it hard without refining, upgrading, or modifying any of it's core systems to make it handle the performance demands
6.0 too
@@UrMomsChauffer The 6.4 replaced the 'problematic' 6.0 (it really was problematic in at least two areas: stretched head bolts and the injector pump), the problem was that the 6.4 was even worse. That would be the last Navistar diesel for Ford; the 6.7 that replaced it is an in house Ford design and it's very reliable. All Power Stroke engines previous to the 6.7 are Navistar designed.
Very informative, thank you
As a diesel mechanic it's not the horsepower change it's the rpm change that doomed it. The crank is the weakest straw
I remember seeing them brand new at M&K Junction (Rowlesburg, WV) in early May 1984. They were the first order of Chessie System SD50's sub-lettered for C&O. Three of them replaced four SD35's in "West End" helper service. Whatever their problems, Chessie System bought a lot of them. I concur with your thought that if EMD had held off for two or three more years to give the technology time to catch up with the concept (plus a time to work on the prime mover), it may have been more successful. The 8558 and 8565 at 5:41 are going under the long-gone foot bridge at Tunnelton, WV just up the hill from Kingwood Tunnel. Note the working marker lights signifying that this is a rear-end helper set.
I think i would have kept the 4 SD35's and just have them rebuilt and updated at least they were reliable.
This happens when engineers get lazy.
Or--- just stupid.
Sad story about GM, I worked for them, don’t forget the Olds gas V-8 to diesel engine, the V-8 - 6-4, the HT 4100 Cadillac engine.
Yeah. That company was ran into the ground at warp speed. One of the best cars my family ever had was our 1992 Olds 98 Regency Elite with the 3.8L V-6 which, at that time, still had the very desirable aluminum intake manifold (as opposed to plastic). Ran and drove like a wet dream. It even had full digital-display instrumentation, which worked great right up to the bitter, premature end of the vehicle. We put over 200K miles on it with very little hardcore repairs other than standard preventative maintenance and very minor component replacement (alternator and starter; easy enough for a good DIY'er with a good repair manual) before it got into an accident (other driver's fault). It was deemed by our insurance company as not worth repairing, despite the fact that there was no damage to the frame or running gear, and it still ran and drove just fine. It just needed enough repairs to be street legal again, but the insurance company totalled it due more to its age than anything else (it was almost 25 years old at the time, despite being nearly rust-free before the accident). Contrast that to my 2004 Olds Bravada (yes, it's a Final 500--big, fat hairy deal, not worth the hype), which, like everything else made on the TrailBlazer platform from the early 2000s, has a practically bulletproof 4.2L straight 6-cyl. engine (the only good mechanical thing in the entire vehicle) hooked up to a drivetrain and suspension which might as well be made of blown glass. That SmartTrak is such a sick joke that I pulled the fuse which enables it (and gained almost 2 MPG in the process!). I've spent thousands of dollars having the entire suspension and drivetrain rebuilt (sway bars, ball joints, tie rod ends, U-joints, and especially the transmission itself, just for starters) so it can be roadworthy, which is still, in the long run, cheaper than buying another used vehicle with another set of problems (I can't afford the payments on a new vehicle). But the whole experience (along with other friends' and family members' complaints about their GM crap) has soured me immensely on "Genital Morons"; and unless it's a classic from the 1950s, I won't be spending any more of my money on their junk anytime soon.
UP had a few SD50s. I enjoyed operating them. They rode well, and pulled as well as the SD40-2s. They were certainly a better locomotive from my perspective as an engineer than the SD60s, which were absolutely horrible riders.
By the time Roger Smith became CEO in 1981, the SD50 project was already entering production. If anything, the SD60 can be attributed to him. He wasn't a good executive but the failure of the SD50 was hardly his fault.
GM has a reputation from the '70s, for using their customers, as their research and development staff.
You can get away with that on cars, but not on capital equipment like locomotives and heavy trucks. The buyers may be competitors but they talk to each other and compare notes.
Cool video and channel just subscribed
Do the ge c39-8 next plus rage hard at ge because they suck.
no they are my fav
Ok let me rephrase that the c39-8s Ruled ge repletion.
The S D 50 is a classic example of G M trying to stick it to the customer. It's said that Toyota, Honda and others owe their success more to G M's crummy late 70's- 1980's products than anything else. G E can thank EMD for becoming the predominant locomotive manufacturer. Did E M D seriously think railroads were going to overlook maintenance problems present in their value engineered products?
I'm willing to bet that if the PC lasted long enough, they probably would have replaced ALL of their motive power with the SD50. Just seems like something they would have done.
LOL. If they were that stupid, because they the railroad itself was stupid thanks to the Penny's bitter old men not wanting to innovate.
@@AndrewTheRocketCityRailfan4014 Ok,but if the Pensy was so nostalgic why is there such a lack of surviovors(2 K4,1D 4-4-0,1 2-10-0, 1 L1,NO T1!!!!!!!,NO 2-10-2S,NO J1,NO C1,NO STREAMLINED STEM!!!,AND ON THE DIESEL SIDE THERE STILL ARE A FEW MORE EXAMPLES!!!!)
@@vaclavmacgregor2464 It was due to their deteriorating financial status since 1946, which is what caused the scrapping of the S1. See, before the T1’s and diesels, the Pennsy had been relying on their aging K4’s as their premiere passenger locomotives up into the 50s. The problem was while the K4’s were insanely good, trains were becoming too heavy for them unassisted, meaning it was not uncommon for them to be double-heading which is more expensive than just using a single larger locomotive. PRR was floundering when it came to finding a suitable replacement for the K4’s even with the dual service M1a Mountains. PRR was late to start replacing the K4, but instead of doing it with more 4-8-2s or making a 4-8-4 Northern, they decided to replace it with a much larger pacific known as the K5 which sucked because of its lack of adhesion. That could have been easily avoidable had they just been willing to change and make some Northerns instead of being a bunch of bitter old schoolers who didn’t want to change. To make matters worse, the Depression hit and coupled with the electrification of the North Eastern Corridor caused locomotive production to shut down for a bit along with many surplus steam locomotives being displaced. And so they just used those for power gaps instead of scrapping them for new bigger locomotives. Thanks to the K5’s failing right before the Depression. the Pennsylvania had to keep the K4’s in first priority service because they didn’t have the money to make more bigger passenger steam locomotives. And unfortunately the K4’s where kept in top service well into the 50’s even when the T1’s came. But doubleheading and tripleheading the K4’s so often up to that point, not to mention misusing them on Freight trains mean by the 40s, the bitter old Pennsy-men had waisted a ton of money on the K4’s, hence along with tightening regulations from the ICC and declining passenger train ridership after WW2, was what all caused this deterioration of financial status. Had the PRR just gotten around to replacing the K4’s alittle sooner, with preferably more Mountains, new Hudsons, or even new Northerns, then that would have saved them so much money. And they could have used that extra money to save the S1, a T1, maybe even an R1, J1, Hudson, Northern, etc, had they just undertaken the simple task of finding a replacement for the K4’s in top priority passenger service with a new Hudson, Northern, or just more M1’s. Shouldn’t have been that fricken hard PRR.
I am going to roast the heck out of them in a few days when I start filming the upcoming K5 episode
good info/content, delivery is almost unlistenable
Influence from being socially awkward and shy due to aspburger's syndrome, and watching the Nostalgia Critic too much. Also hadn't narrated in months because of college. Sorry about that! I'm working on a new style for this series that isn't as similar to the Nostalgia Critic and more so a serious tone.
I remembered being excited about the brand new sd 50s on the KCS. but within 6 months I started to see the sd 40-2s back as the dominate power. and found out that the 50s were crap. then came the 60s. both still were in white paint. the only way I could tell the difference was to consult my locomotive rosters 2nd edition on the numbers. the 50s were 680-700. the 60s were 700 on. this was before they painted the 60s grey with wide cabs. the 50s, only lasted about a year and a half before it was all 60s and 70 macs, with sd40-2s still running through on different trains.
Chessie SD-50’s are my favorite locomotives.
I’ve had to deal with that engineering BS. I worked for Atlas Copco Wagner Mining and they had a big push to get into the 3 axle off road dump truck market over 30 years ago with the introduction of the fullback 645. 2 big issues was using the ZF transconverter transmission instead of a Allison transmission which was 10,000 dollars more then the ZF from Germany. And you could not update to the Allison because the hole power frame was designed around the ZF transmission. Second issue was the center oscillation hinge box they first went with a cast iron part made in India, instead of a welded steel part that we made for all other truck models. The cast part would fatigue and crack apart . They ended up selling the rights to some other company but they didn’t say but it’s my inclination is that it was Caterpillar. If you look at Caterpillar and other manufacturers, well I can see a lot of the 645 fullback in them.
And I thought all the incompetent engineers at GM were in the automotive division! Silly me!
It certainly didn’t help just how much pressure they were putting on EMD for the sake of chasing paper rather than caring about quality
America's loss was Canada's gain whereas the sd50 was dragging GM down the diesel division in London Ontario was turning huge profits because of quality workmanship and the battered Canadian dollar and the fact that GE was not in Canada's locomotive market at that time it was just GM and MLW (alco)
You should probably know the Dash 8 series wasn’t exactly perfect either. The C39-8 had its own issues that made it unpopular with crews.
Mostly overheating
Yet the Norfolk Southern had the most on their roster. 8550-8663? were the hunchback units. 8664-8688 resembled C40-8s.
…good report. I still miss the ALCo’s RSD products. EMD may some day come back…having engines catch fire does not really show a good Product Assurance program by GE. I think “cost per unit” may also be something for you to look at. Nice job!
This is among many reasons that GE, once the largest and most profitable company on the planet, now has a smaller market cap than either Starbucks or Nike.
If EMD does want to come back, they're going to have to really try hard. Best luck they have at it is making better hydrogen or battery locomotives than GE, or even US rail electrification allowing them to make electric locomotives. I think Hydrogen locomotives is the most likely way since they have better range than battery locomotives and due to Class 1's preferring to commit suicide with PSR instead of electrifying.
@@AndrewTheRocketCityRailfan4014
I mean EMD did make the AEM-7 Electric Locomotive with Swedish Company ASEA as well as the GF6C.
Diesels are very particular about what rpm they like especially big diesels. I am attending my local Community College for diesel tech. A lot of people look a 50 rpm like that’s not a big deal but when it comes to diesel that is a big deal. Especially to one that has a max rpm of 900 in its safe range. It would essentially be 500rpm to a gasser engine
Interesting analysis. Thanks for sharing.
Roll Tide! (And say "hi" to my old home on Rainbow Mountain. :) )
It’s not all that uncommon to increase fueling and air delivery to get more power out of the same engine with the same rotating assembly, but most of the time minor changes are made to help them last and there is a maximum that usually is found during R&D’s testing of the engines before they go to market.
NS still has about 60 SD40Es active today, I see them regularly on the Pittsburgh line pulling locals or for helper service (not counting the SD70ACu helpers at Altoona)
The SD50 destroyed the EMD reputation, the SD90MAC-H killed it for good...
The F125 was the nail in the coffin!
This THE MOST DRAMATIC(!!!!) railfan story I’Ve EVER viewed BAN NONE!!!!!
Would be nice to hear you take on the Bombardier/Acela HHP-8 next :D
That unreliable piece of crap?
Same, it was on that latest poll, I really want to start making episodes on electrics but my audiences seem to really like my any steam locomotive options win.
@@nolantherailfan5048 Yeah, the wheelspin happy "Acela" brother
This is the first time I have been on this channel. I think your content and video editing are up among the top channels on here. You have yourself a new subscriber!
There’s a sd50 soo line on the shoreline that runs not far from my house in the consist from time to time. I swear they run 3-4 sd50’/standard cab 60’s all oddball lease schemes together.
It was big news, when talk that the new SD50s would be coming to the C&O mainline in l982 or a little latter. I'd just started at WV Tech Montgomery WV. That school had the mainline of the C&O running down the middle of town by then owned by CSX. I had serious rail interest to about 12 then sports cars took over, with a few notable Amtrak experiences. Through the 1970s and especially the late 1970s USA products had taken on very under performing non leadership and non advancing image. When I first saw an SD50 appear on main CSX tracks, likely around 1983, I thought it looked proud and very capable. I'd read the SD50 had ground speed radar to monitor slow 5 mph speeds and slower for precise traction control. This was the first time in my life I was present for introduction of a new advanced locomotive and the SD50 looked and acted the part.
It wasn't until years later the SD50 was revealed to be so heavily flawed. I didn't find out about the SD50's marked failure till talking about it at my model railroad club I'd joined in 2009 from a teenage rail fan that informed me the SD50 was now looked at as being a major failure. That was a surprise to me because I'd stayed current with the C&O Historical Society newsletters until about 1991 after which my C&O interest and rail fanning was mostly in hiatus till joining the Naptown model railroad HO club of Indianapolis in 2009. That same teenager kept me in mind and my remembered impression of the SD50 and later he'd read and related to me that some of SD50 had been converted to SD40-3 where they were re-powered with a SD40 prime mover along with other upgrades.
When I'd left following railroads in about 1990 EMD seemed untouchable as the preferred crew and mountain freight locomotive. The GE's in the 1980s were not favored by crews, had poor low speed traction, had poor high speed manors and the real visible humiliation, gave out when attempting mountain grades when watching CSX coal trains under the New River Gorge highway bridge. GE had a long history by the late 1980s of seemingly little sense when it came to making a robust, reliable, well mannered mountain grade capable locomotive able to excel at both low speed full throttle for the longest mountain grades and high speeds where in comparison EMD's seemed like they were made for it, because they were. Looking at the GE's of the 1980s in mountain service one would have to expect there was some odd financial accounting reason they had made sense to have on the rosters, because they'd over stress and turn off becoming dead weight when climbing the New River Gorge C&O grade. Crews would always want an EMD in the lead because they rode better than the GE's among many other reasons.
It was therefore a surprise when I started seeing GE dash 9's in the 1990s at the lead of freight trains on the B&O between Washington D.C. and Point of Rocks MD. The New River Gorge C&O line has a ruling grade of about 0.66%. What makes it tough is it goes on for many miles. I figured the GE's might have improved enough they could take on the more mild grades of that B&O line.
I'd read GE had decided to use Microsoft Windows as the major software component in their dash 9 and later locomotives. I was in Electrical Engineering control system at the time at Eurotherm. MS Windows was just on top of MS DOS. It was considered an impossible to make reliable system. Nothing close to a human life should ever be made subject to anything close to the unreliable history of MS Windows. An engineer at GE said that they'd discovered as long as MS Windows has nothing else in it except MS Windows its surprisingly reliable. I still didn't sleep right thinking about it.
Other engineers in the GE locomotive program said MS Windows was really only used for displaying information and not control systems, but what about when you change a parameter with the mouse doesn't MS Windows have control over that input? Scary stuff. The fact that the GE ES44AC has become the mainstay of class 1 railroads in 2023 I still find surprising. The newer SD70MAC is still preferred for mountain helper service.
There's some good input from others about the EMD SD-50 while a good majority of them are absolutely absurd. The railroads were largely responsible for their plagued issues. Having ran them for 20 years on CSX the SD-50 was more reliable than most brand new locomotives being delivereded from Erie PA. After the SD-50s were rebuilt in the very early 90s they were unmatched and solely were responsible for moving mountain upon mountain of coal to export and various utility companies. They were easily just as reliable as the SD-40-2. It's easy to make accusations without any real world experience. There's a reason why several class one railroads still roster these reliable workhorses.
In terms of horsepower per unit of fuel, the SD45 was more fuel efficient than the SD40.
You are correct, but most railfans still believe the myth that the were less fuel efficient.
The EMD F40PH is a four-axle 3,000-3,200 hp (2.2-2.4 MW) B-B diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division in several variants from 1975 to 1992.
Can anyone tell me what song was playing roughly 1:57 into the video please? Thank you!🙏
Those engines were me and my dad’s favorite because they run by in town Windber Pennsylvania but unfortunately they were all retired.
We got 4 SD50-3’s on the B&P and the only issues they have had were blown traction motors one of them I got on video
I was never a fan of EMD's. Running them on long heavy trains up long steep grades was always a hassle. You'd stall, slip, hop, burn the rail, lurch...etc. Downhill you'd always need a couple more lbs of air than with the GE's because their dynamics were iffy as they were weak on either end of its range. Dash8/9's had similar issues but the GEVOS, especially the C44 and C45ACs were the best of the bunch. If you were stopped downhill and creeping, you could go into reverse Run 2 or 3 and go to sleep while the power holds you up. In dynamics they were precise and reliable. They could pull anything, and for the stretch brakers out there, you could drag 10 lbs all day long and keep track speed. The SD70ACe's are good pullers but ergonomically they were inferior to GE and don't even get me started on their ridiculous and convoluted screen setup. If you got a unit alarm, it would take you 10 minutes scrolling through menu screens just to find the option to turn it off! Or worse, the auto-stop would chime and by the time you would get to the screen where it's located the unit would already have shutdown. And they were loud. Riding in an SD70ACe uphill in Run8 is likely the closest approximation to sitting atop a Saturn V at liftoff. Ugh, always a pain in the ass.
How true!!!!!
You are correct. The SD70's are not user friendly.
The original SD70 was a good locomotive
I agree. I wish the IC and NS would've used different horns. Just saying....
I still see a few IC SD70 black units on the Canadian National( formerly Illinois Central) a block or so away from where I live. I actually see quite a variety of different railroads units on that line. A lot of BNSF, a few CSX, and occasionally even some Norfolk Southern units. Very rarely even some UP units but haven’t for quite a long time.
It seems GM designs trains like cars. Let the end used be the test subject.
The same could be said about the EMD GP35. With all it's complicated transition switch gear and desire for more horsepower.
EMD had also hit the ceiling with what they could reliably get out of the 567 by that point, not unlike what happened with the 645 20 years later.
Would you rather have a GP35, or SD50????
Bet there are alot of GP35 lovers out there.
Regardless of how they ran, they looked so good in Chessie scheme. And BN, UP, SF, SOO, etc.
Yo Andrew, You might want to look up on the ML-4000 that was used by the SP and the D&RGW, which was built by Krauss-Maffei making it the first German import locomotives way prior to the Chargers & ACS-64 built by an Ex-Nazi that made those death beds during the Halocaust.
I remember seeing a video about that locomotive a few months ago. Southern Pacific was very interested in it. The problem with it was that it was poorly suited to American railroads. The engine wasn’t up to the strain of heavy freight trains.
I have been thinking of those ever since I watched High Iron's video on them. I will certainly mention them with some depth when I make the ALCO DH-643 episode
1:53-1:54 "In some serious jelly"
Polar Express reference
It was January when I made it though, so I didn’t feel like pulling any snapshots out of the movie. That recording was a redo of the original version, which I recorded during Thanksgiving break and got lost somehow.
The tier 4 SD70 is what finally killed EMD into oblivion
Yep, that poor thing. Now EMD is resorting to battery power and hopefully hydrogen locomotives to regain its footing on Watec-GE. If our railroads were electrified, they'd have no problem since electric locomotives don't emit CO2. And I do support electrifying America's railroads, even if the government has to step in.
@@AndrewTheRocketCityRailfan4014
I mean EMD made the AEM-7 Electric Locomotive with Swedish Company ASEA as well as the GF6C.
Just imagine the entire penn central roster was just SD50s 😂
Having terrible management and being sunk in debt AFrick whilst suffering with outdated cranky units was bad enough. Also, having a roster consisting of just one particular model would have been impossible for them.
The thing is - GM always liked big Vee configured engines, even when it came down to diesels. But had a bad habit of trying to build a high speed diesel lightweight, powerful, yet on the cheap. Then on top of all that - rush production. Diesel engineering is something which cannot be rushed. It's not exactly rocket science. Though, one has to keep in mind that they are dealing with a high compression combustion engine that has close internal tolerances (oil clearances). Even the height, length, and spacing of the block gussets have to be taking into consideration. Nowadays - you have to design a high speed diesel engine around stringently unfair EPA requirements. 1 tenth of a micron of soot particle equals a visit from an angry EPA hippy.
Reason why we don't see a lot of in-line diesels for rail use is simply due to their overall length and height. A vee engine is much more compact and can get more fuel economy. But its heavier, has more moving parts, and internal side thrusts(contributing factor in the 645F3B's catastrophic failures when they souped it up).
Detroit Diesel ruled the diesel market for decades.. The problem wasn't the V configuration itself, it was Detroit's strict modular design policy (EX you can bolt four 8v92's end to end for a 32 cylinder engine, theoretically as many cylinders as you want), and that modularity mindset always led to some really unfortunate block design flaws when they're put into certain applications. In long-haul long-life road applications, inline-6 is still the rule, whereas big power static-load, V is the rule. GM lost its way with Detroit Diesel getting a little carried away with applying old thinking into new applications, often to hilarious fails 😁
@@Drmcclung The 6-71, V-71, and V-92s were all phenomenal engines in their day and had many interesting configurations and were also used in industrial locomotives. But, yes. The end-to-end modular design didn't hold up in certain applications. Just like the 110 series engine.
@@berkshireerielocomotive3322 I still get a *lot* of joy explaining how diesel works in 2-stroke, with poppet valves, a blower, able to be linked together like Lego (the V's anyway), to much younger Cummins guys who haven't seen them before. They always find it fascinating and it's nice to see people take interest in huge part of our industrial history
@@berkshireerielocomotive3322 Maybe you're the right guy to ask, I could never get a proper answer from anyone in the know; Detroit's diesel locomotive engines (diesel-elec era), were those engines 100% purpose-built for the locos, or were they in fact a spinoff of the large high-torque marine engines you'd find in big dog tugboats and the like? I could never get a straight answer on that, but the ones I've seen did share a striking resemblance.
i hope you do a video on Penn central