Well, this is one of those weeks where I can't really think of what to write and therefore have to pick something out of the blue. The world of trains is one where the more one looks the more she or he finds. It continues to amaze me how many variations of the same vehicle designed to operate on top of two steel rails there are in different corners of the Planet Earth.
Today we look at a locomotive from the JNR days
So I will briefly write about a Japanese electric locomotive from the mid 20th century. The Class EF58 locomotive is a joint product by 5 companies, 4 of which are still quite well known today (and they are Hitachi, Toshiba, Kawasaki, and Mitsubishi). She was built between 1946 and 1958, during the golden days of the North American Streamliners.
A picture of the EF58 from the 1980s
If you remember, Japan's national railroad network, until the days of the bullet train, was entirely cape gauge (42 inches). The EF58 has 8 axles, however only 4 center axles are powered. Compared to standard gauge counterparts of the day, the EF58 wasn't really all that powerful, at a modest 2 550 horsepower, however, that number looked just fine if the comparison was made to diesel locomotives of the 1940s and 50s. The EF58 was designed for both passenger and freight services and had a top speed of 60 mph.
This is what the EF58 looked like hauling the Royal Train
Over the years, this class of locomotives had also undergone a number of mechanical improvements and was eventually retired from regular service in the 1980s. Yes I've picked a locomotive out of the blue, however, the EF58's place in history is by no means random. Two (road no 60 and 61) of the 172 locomotives in this class were assigned to the Royal Train in Japan since the mid 1950s.
Suprisingly handsome. There's a cosmetically restored example in The Railway Museum in Tokyo (which incidentally is extremely good) and it was a very impressive piece of machinery, although sadly unphotographable due to the lighting.
The ES44AC (successor of the AC4400CW) is a member of the family of GE's latest and greatest diesel-electric freight locomotives, the Evolution Series . Other locomotives in the Evolution Series include ES40DC, ES44DC, ES44C4 for the domestic market and ES44ACi (Kazakhstan), ES59ACi (China), and ES44DCi (Australia) for export. The direct competitor of the ES44AC is the SD70ACe developed by Electro Motive Diesel (EMD). The name ES44AC can be simply decoded as E volution S eries 4 , 4 00 horsepower AC traction (this naming scheme does not apply to EMD products or the ES59ACi which actually outputs 6,250 horsepower). However, unlike electric locomotives, the rated power of diesel-electric locomotives are measured at the prime mover (i.e. the diesel engine), not at the traction motors. The Evolution Series were developed to meet the stricter EPA Tier 2 emission standards. These locomotives use the GEVO prime movers instead of the FDL prime movers used on th...
The train of this week is a locomotive unveiled in 2009 by the BNSF Railway. Instead of using conventional diesel fuel, it is powered by hydrogen fuel cells (I have very limited knowledge in this area, so please feel free to comment on this post if you are interested in and familiar with the topic of hydrogen fuel cells). It is called the HH20B, a hydrogen-hybrid switcher locmotive based on the GG20B Green Goat diesel-hybrid switcher built by Railpower Technologies Corp. of Brossard, Quebec (acquired by R.J. Corman Railroad Group of Nicholasville, Kentucky in 2009). The GG20B is powered by a 300 hp 4-stroke Caterpillar diesel-engine and a battery pack with a combined tractive output of 2,000 hp. On the HH20B, diesel engine is replaced by hydrogen fuel cells. Hydrogen storage is in a set of tanks installed on top of the long hood of the locomotive in a heavily vented enclosure, above the batteries. The BNSF Railway displaying its low- and ul...
What makes most trains, trains, is the fact that locomotives and cars are interconnected by some mechanism (of course they no longer had to be since the introduction of the rail diesel car) that allow them to move along the railroad tracks simultaneously. Before I go further, I wish to introduce, very briefly, buff and draft forces. Two cars are in buff when they push against and are in draft when they pull against each other. A little bit on history: at the very beginning, this mechanism that connects cars together are made up of separate components that deal with buff and draft forces individually. The link and hook take care of draft forces, and buffers (they look like pancakes sticking out the ends of trains as seen in Thomas the Tank Engine) deal with buff forces. Although this system works well once the coupling is complete, which is why it is still in use in many parts of the world, there are many disadvantages to this primitive coupling system that make it unacceptable ...
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