So this week we'll go across the Pacific instead and have a look at a passenger locomotive developed by the Chinese that's based on a popular Germany family of locomotives. China has apparently bought the technology to Siemens EuroSprinter and Bombardier TRAXX along with thousands of heavy-haul freight locomotives from Germany and they have been busy developing with the technology ever since.
Is it just me or does it look German?
So this locomotive, the HXD1D is a 6-axle locomotive designed to haul long distance passenger trains on China's existing railroad network (I'm guessing since Chinese passenger trains are long, around 20 cars, they need a bit of tractive effort with all the available horsepower and hence 6 axles). The latest government directive apparently dropped the maximum operating speed on existing railroads from 124 mph (or 200 km/h) down to 99 mph (160 km/h) and that's how fast this locomotive is supposed to go.
Interestingly the locomotive was fitted with a Type E coupler, this wouldn't entirely legal for passenger service in North America
Power output is slightly below the European locomotives on a per-axle basis (1200 instead of 1600 kW, or 1630 hp instead of 2175 hp, yeah, that's like a GP38-2 per axle or something). I'm not too sure of anything in much technical detail, the things I know are on the Wikipedia page linked here. Since this is an European electric, the only thing that's usual for those of us outside of the Northeast Corridor on this locomotive is probably the Knorr (New York Air Brake's Germany based parent company) CCB-II electronic brake valve.
Thank Wikimedia Commons and YouTube for all the multimedia material presented here.
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
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
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
Power output is slightly below the European locomotives on a per-axle basis (1200 instead of 1600 kW, or 1630 hp instead of 2175 hp, yeah, that's like a GP38-2 per axle or something). I'm not too sure of anything in much technical detail, the things I know are on the Wikipedia page linked here. Since this is an European electric, the only thing that's usual for those of us outside of the Northeast Corridor on this locomotive is probably the Knorr (New York Air Brake's Germany based parent company) CCB-II electronic brake valve.
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