China Railways HXD1

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North America has always been at the forefront of diesel traction in railroad heavy haul freight service. Although not heaviest in tonnage and not fastest in speed, our freight railroad system is balanced with longevity, interchangeability, and most importantly, service affordability.

Today though, I will write about a locomotive in a state-owned and operated heavy haul system where technological prominence is placed at a higher priority. The HXD1 is the first of the massive numbers of European electric locomotives China Railways has ordered in the early 2000s. Her primary assignment is the 10,000 tonne high speed coal trains on the Daqin Railroad.

The looks of the HXD1 show traces of the EuroSprinter
The HXD1 is an 8-axle electric locomotive with 2 permanently coupled sections. The locomotive is based on the Siemens EuroSprinter, and is built by Chinese manufacture CSR Zhuzhou under license.

The HXD1 combines some of the best Europe and North America can offer. With a combination of German vehicle engineering, AAR knuckle couplers, Knorr CCB-II electronic brake valve, and locotrol, 4 of this powerful, 12 900 horsepower, locomotive command heavy coal trains in an 1-2-1 configuration at a top speed of 70 mph.

This video down here is quite nice, nice long railroad bridge, some fog (or maybe smog), and a long empty coal train. You probably want to skip the first minute of pretty much just still image though.

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