Voith Turbo Maxima

By -
The Maxima is a family of 6-axle diesel locomotives built by Voith Turbo Lokomotivtechnik GmbH & Co. KG. of Germany. Unlike the conventional diesel locomotives we often see in North America, the Voith Maxima family of locomotives use a hydraulic transmission to transmit power from its prime mover to wheels instead of an alternator and traction motors (you may wish to read more about diesel-hydraulic at the bottom of this post). Voith, being one of the well-known transmission manufactures in the world who had been supplying transmission to other locomotives manufactures in Germany, completely designed and built the first Maxima locomotive in just 500 days and presented it at the InnoTrans 2006 fair.

Voith Maxima 40CC at InnoTrans 2006

The Maxima locomotives come in two flavours, the 40CC with an Anglo Belgian 3,600 kW (4,800 hp) 16VDZC prime mover and the 30CC with a 2,750 kW (3,700 hp) 12VDZC prime mover from the same supplier. They both use the twin converter transmisson designed by Voith Turbo. Depending on configuration (freight or passenger), the Maxima locomotives weigh 126 to 135 metric tonnes and can reach a top speed of 120 to 160 km/h (75-100 mph). They provide a maximum starting tractive effort of 519 kN (116,700 lbf) and a maximum continuous tractive effort of 408 kN (91,700 lbf).

Maxima 30CC on the job

Comments

M-NL said…
Theoretical numbers for tractive effort are nice, but how does it do in the real world when things are getting slippery?
How does it do compared to other locomotives, like last weeks EM JT56ACe or a GE ES44AC, of course compensating for the differences in axle load.
Is the fact that the Maxima has all the axles of it's trucks mechanically linked an advantage or a disadvantage versus the individual axle control of the ES44AC?
Dec 3, 2010, 1:00:00 PM
Train of the Week said…
Thank you very much and that's a very good question.

I did some reading on Wikipedia and it actually had a pretty good article describing and comparing the different types of diesel locomotives. Link here.

It is believed that diesel-hydraulic locomotives have slightly better efficiency than diesel-electrics in terms of power transfer, but some argue they are not as reliable (I have no hard numbers to back this up). However the reason why diesel-electrics are widely used in North America may just be a result of history and convention. Diesel-hydraulic locomotives were first developed in Germany (where they still concentrate on this type of diesel locomotives), and diesel-electrics in the USA.

According to the article, modern diesel-electric with anti-slip control and hydraulic locomotives are comparable in terms of tractive effort. However without such software diesel-hydraulic locomotives have an advantage due to the fact that the 3 axles on each bogie are mechanically linked and therefore have less chance to slip all together. But this also means under mechanical failure, diesel-electrics may still have traction from 2 out of 3 axles on one bogie but diesel-hydraulics lose all 3 axles.
Dec 3, 2010, 10:27:00 PM
M-NL said…
Check out these videos:
A diesel-hydraulic driven loco: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR03dvlFy_s

An AC-motor locomotive:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyX-qYjVqyE

I don't really see big differences here.

For comparison some older locos with DC-motors (and primitive or maybe even abcent traction control):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZFcpVTatZU and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3mnr0BBQUo
Dec 15, 2010, 12:57:00 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Amtrak NPCU

By -
Image
The NPCU or Non-powered Control Units are control cars used by Amtrak that are modified from surplus EMD F40PH locomotives. A control car is a generic term for a non-powered railroad vehicle that can control operation of a train from the end opposite to the position of the locomotive. They can be used with diesel or electric motive power, allowing push-pull operation without the use of an additional locomotive. Control cars first appeared in the USA and France in 1960s. Trains operating with a locomotive at one end and a control car at the other do not require the locomotive to run around to the opposite end of the train when reversing direction. In the United States, most control cars are modified from retired locomotives by removing tractive equipment and adding side baggage doors and have been used on several passenger railroads. The control cars are connected through the consist of the train by standard AAR 27-wire multiple unit jumper cables. The NPCUs at Amtrak are a
Read more

Briefly on the AAR Coupler Part 2

By -
Image
Last week, we've identified the Janney coupler and briefly looked at its elegant design. This week, let's, again, very briefly, look at the different types of Janney coupler that are widely used today. I will only talk about the head of the coupler, and ignore anything that the general public may need to trespass onto railroad property and get in a unsafe situation in order to have a good look at. As far as coupler heads are concerned, there are 3 types in used today. Type E, F, and H. Types E and F are used on freight, and H used on passenger equipment. Since the withdrawal of passenger service in North America by private railroads, the Type H standard is no longer maintained by the Association of American Railroads, a trade group formed of major freight railroads, but is under the control of the APTA, the American Public Transportation Association. Now let me introduce another term, slack. Slack is an allowed gap between two coupled up couplers. In other words, when most
Read more

SD70ACu

By Yi -
Image
After the post on the shiny rebuilt GE road power, it's only fair to have a look into what Progress Rail has to offer on their side of the table. I'm using the company's recently-changed, formal name of course. For those who are not up-to-date on the current state of North American railroading affairs, Progress Rail is the company (owned by Caterpillar) that purchased EMD a few years ago. The SD90MAC was arguably the biggest gong show in EMD's recent memory. It happened at a time when they were comfortably resting on their laurels, unaware the fateful changes that were about to occur in the locomotive market in the not-so-distant future (they got beaten badly by GE). What was supposed to be one of the most remarkable locomotives whose presence is to grace the mainlines in modern history, turned out to be an utter disaster (I'll redirect further readings to Wikipedia). As a result, today, the number of SD90s still in operation on a Class 1 Railroad is, if not id
Read more