Train of the Week

This will be an interesting post I think. Although the class number 93 has now been referred to twice, none of the locomotives actually exists. At least not yet. The first Class 93 was discussed by then still national British Railways was going to be the electric locomotive designed to haul the InterCity 250, a concept trainset to command high speed intercity rail service on the West Coast Main Line like the InterCity 225 on the East Coast. Like the name InterCity 250 suggested, the train hauled by the Class 93 would have a top speed of 250 km/h, or 155 mph. Service was expected to begin in 1995. However, with multiple other projects the British Railways had taken on (including the Channel Tunnel lines), funding for the Class 93 and InterCity 250 could not be realized, and the project was scrapped. Artist impression of the Class 93 locomotive for the InterCity 250 Now, the Class 93 may not be dead after all. Although she won’t resemble the original Class 93 in any way, a new ...

The River Line is a unique “light rail” transit line operated by the New Jersey Transit that runs mostly on heavy rail shared with freight trains (I will leave a lot of details out so check out this Wikipedia page ). The line connects Trenton Transit Center (can change to the Northeast Corridor) to the Entertainment Center in Camdon and its portion between Camdon and Bordentown is formerly owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad (later Penn Central and Conrail, of course) until it has been purchased by the NJT in 1999. However, commercial operation hasn't began until 2004. The River Line is not electrified. It uses the GTW diesel light rail vehicles built by Stadler Rail of Switzerland. The River Line GTW is an articulated LRV with three sections supported by three 2-axle trucks. The diesel engine is in the short, central section, and the LRV is propelled by the middle truck only (i.e. the UIC axle arrangement would be 2'+Bo+2'). There are other variants of the GTW which...

The GT26 is a class of 6-axle export locomotive from General Motors Electro-Motive Division. Several variants have been built for different markets for quite a long period between 1967 and 2009. The GT26s, of course, utilised the EMD 645 engine I've written about last week. These locomotives have outputs ranging from 3,000-3,300 horsepower and have top speeds ranging from 77-93 mph. The GT26 was built for both standard gage (56-1/2 in.) and cape gage (42 in.) railroads. The locomotives are 9 ft. 3 in. in width to suit various loading gages of the different markets they are sold to. Over 1,000 units have be sold to Algeria, Australia, Brazil, Iran, Israel, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, Yugoslavia, and Zimbabwe. GT26CW-2 in South Korea GT26CU-2 in Brazil

The EMD 645 engine is a vast popular 2 stroke cycle medium speed diesel engine used in locomotive, marine, and stationary applications. The cylinders are arranged in a V-shape at 45 degrees. It is arguably one of the most successful engines ever produced by General Motors. This engine can be found at the heart of locomotives, pump houses, boats, power generators, etc all over the world. I'll try to make this post as high-level and not as boring as I can. An EMD 645 at the heart of the Irish CIÉ 071 Class Of course the F40PH uses the EMD 645 The 645 engine is based on the previously successful EMD 567 engine with an increase in bore from 8-1/2 to 9-1/16 inches.The stroke of the engine remained the same as the 567 engine at 10 inches. The number 645 denotes the cylinder displacement of the engine, at 645 cubic inches. Both engines employ a fabricated steel block of identical key dimensions. The change in displacement of the engine was done through a new power assembl...