EMD GT46 (India)
I think I’m gonna write about the other EMD GT46 this week (if you remember the Aussie GT46C from a few weeks ago).
Before I go on, I guess I’m gonna revise here the usual naming convention (at least the part that I’m aware of) used by EMD. I may as well talk about, in a run on sentence, a brief history of where EMD comes from and has become. Began as the Electro Motive Corporation in the 1920s, soon EMC was purchased by General Motors and became the Electro Motive Division in America and General Motors Diesel Division in Ontario, it then was spun off as Electro Motive Diesel Inc. in 2005, and was finally purchased wholly by Caterpillar’s Progress Rail Services Corporation. For modern locomotives model numbers, initials GP means 4 axle general purpose, SD means 6 axle special duty, GT means export.
So, by that last statement in the last paragraph, obviously the GT46 is an export locomotive. She’s a 6-axle locomotive equipped with 16 cylinder 710 engines. Rather than a local truck, the Indian GT46 uses a simplified version of EMD’s own cast HTC-R truck. The GT46 so far comes in 3 variants, 1 for passenger service (GT46PAC), and 2 for freight (older GT46MAC and newer GT46ACe). They also have Indian Railways’ own classification numbers, which you can look up on the wikipedia page I’m to link. The passenger and freight models are mostly identical. The passenger model has only 4 traction motors, arranged in B-1-1-B (look up axle arrangement again here), outputs 4 000 rather than 4 500 hp, and can reach much high speed, 100 mph rather than 75. Oh by the way, India uses a broad guage called Indian gauge, at 5 ft 6 in (the gage BART also uses). One more interesting thing to note is that a lot of times, Indian Railways run these EMD’s long hood forward.
Hope you enjoy the videos I’m sharing on today’s post. Love the sound of the 710 but with the unnecessarily strict EPA Tier 4 emissions standards (because even at current levels, the EPA estimates that every ton-mile of freight that moves by rail instead of by highway reduces greenhouse emissions by two-thirds) coming its way in 2015, I’m not sure if we will be able to hear this same beautiful sound on any of the new EMDs to come.
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| As always, a handsome EMD |
So, by that last statement in the last paragraph, obviously the GT46 is an export locomotive. She’s a 6-axle locomotive equipped with 16 cylinder 710 engines. Rather than a local truck, the Indian GT46 uses a simplified version of EMD’s own cast HTC-R truck. The GT46 so far comes in 3 variants, 1 for passenger service (GT46PAC), and 2 for freight (older GT46MAC and newer GT46ACe). They also have Indian Railways’ own classification numbers, which you can look up on the wikipedia page I’m to link. The passenger and freight models are mostly identical. The passenger model has only 4 traction motors, arranged in B-1-1-B (look up axle arrangement again here), outputs 4 000 rather than 4 500 hp, and can reach much high speed, 100 mph rather than 75. Oh by the way, India uses a broad guage called Indian gauge, at 5 ft 6 in (the gage BART also uses). One more interesting thing to note is that a lot of times, Indian Railways run these EMD’s long hood forward.
Hope you enjoy the videos I’m sharing on today’s post. Love the sound of the 710 but with the unnecessarily strict EPA Tier 4 emissions standards (because even at current levels, the EPA estimates that every ton-mile of freight that moves by rail instead of by highway reduces greenhouse emissions by two-thirds) coming its way in 2015, I’m not sure if we will be able to hear this same beautiful sound on any of the new EMDs to come.
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