You may dislike the "facts" as presented (admittedly with bias), but they are hardly "fact-free." One could simply reference several previous examples of "government programs/grants" underwriting the construction of experimental hybrids or "alternative" locomotives which were apparently quickly sidelined or replaced as soon as the opportunity arose. Press releases and media events are staged for "new, pollution-saving, wave of the future" that government dollars helped buy; no one issues a press release then the "experimental" loco is stashed away on a back track, hidden on a back shop track, or sold off for rebuilding a mere four years into its ten-year program.

The problem is that it is easy to identify an apparent success story (the GP/SD40-2 and relatives and their longevity being one example), but endlessly argued as to what constitutes a "failure." No one wants to admit embarrassing mistakes. The PRR T1, as but one example, was such a "success" that people are now trying to replicate one, but at least one noted writer called the design "the greatest failure in modern steam passenger loco design." See also: N&W Jawn Henry, UP's coal-fired gas turbine, Amtrak's mothballed HHP-8 electrics, the SPV-2000, and EMD's SD90's.

Railroads have historically been conservative, cautious industries, determined to stick with what has shown to work and detrimentally hesitant to embrace the "new" unless money screams in its favor with a vengeance. At this point, I cannot find a railroad that has opted for a hybrid or battery-electric loco without some form of government underwriting, subsidy, or mandate being involved. Neither you nor I may care for the insertion of "politics" (or, phrased another way, the imposition of societal costs into the calculation) into what should be a purely economic discussion/calculation, but as long as politics is being forced into the assessment and discussion by the politicians themselves, it is futile to presume that it can be ignored or condemned simply because someone doesn't want "politics" brought up. You might as well try to discuss the history of Amtrak without involving "politics."

I'm half tempted to ask how much CMI is in your portfolio. First of all the Siemens Chargers are not rebuilds, but new locomotives. The other offering that is designed for a buck-25 is the EMD F125 with its 20 cyl Cat c175, but it seems not to be gaining many orders.

Instead, let me say this. I don't have a dog in the fight. I'm interested in the development and deployment of new power-and its effect on preservation candidates.

And have been for a while:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=34106&hilit=Gen+Set

Caterpillar, who now owns the legacy EMD products is also offers rebuilds, one based on the 710 :


"710ECO™ Repower Kit Contents

8 or 12-cylinder 710 engine
AR10 / CA6 alternator
Separate loop aftercooling system
EM2000™ Microprocessor Control System
Automatic Engine Start Stop (AESS™)"

And one based on the CAT 3512


"The EMD® 20B [also there's a 24B with very similar specs] is an EMD® GP style locomotive powered with a Cat® 3512C HD Engine and Kato Alternator. It was designed with flexibility in mind, allowing customers to choose options without extensive Engineering. It is constructed with a New Crashworthy Underframe, Cab and Fuel Tank and utilizes rebuilt GP style trucks with rebuilt D78 Traction Motors.

Reliable and fuel-efficient Cat® 3512C HD 2000 HP Engine
New HVC with Zeit SAL V Locomotive Control System
Offered with a 2-year warranty for new content
New Atlas Copco Rotary Screw Air Compressor
New PRS Crashworthy Event Recorder with LDVR
Control system EM2000™ including AESS™
PR Uptime® optional"

Knoxville Locomotive Works is using MTU engines. NRE's "gen sets" use other Cummins. Tractive Power is using Cats and Cummins

Nor is the idea of rebuilding using a commercial diesel new. MK Rail tried using Cat engines on their "MK 5000". They were subsequently given EMD 645's. MPI (pre Wabtec) has used a mix of EMD, GE and other engines.

The simple reality is most of these rebuilds and experiments are driven by government-either through the iron fist of emissions regulations, or the velvet glove approach of grant programs-so it's impossible not to have a full and fair discussion without considering that aspect of these initiatives. My guess, echoing Mr. Rowlands and Mr. Mitchell is that without Tier IV and similar state restraints, the choice would be to remain with 710's and perhaps GEVOs.

As much I like to consider contentious issues, this was merely indulging a bit of a personal interest.

The irony is that among the steam engines that were lost, those that were lost were the ones that had no potential reuse. Diesels (at least in the sense as originally designed and configured) are lost because they do have reuse.

And I haven't even offered up that mass reconfiguration to AC traction as an impediment to preserving some DC locomotives.

The moderators here are not oppressive authoritarians. Sorry if that offends you.

Here's some facts. Cummins and the rest are just fiddling with the edges when it comes to GHG production. The railroad Tier 4 standards are far less strict then the current clean diesels are achieving in the new class 8 trucks. An increasing percentage of all new class 6/7/8 trucks are natural gas powered and are FAR cleaner than the rails Tier 4 locos.

If you take the entire class 1 fleet of about 22,000 line haul locomotives they average out at somewhere around Tier 2.5 which is magnitudes dirtier than the average over the road truck.

If the BBB bill survives and includes the GHG provisions currently in it, the rails will find huge economic incentive to switch to natural gas asap and Cummins and the others will be forced to come out with a 4,000 hp ng prime mover pronto.

Interesting times. Ross Rowland

I follow the OTR and RR industry. What the railroads consider Tier 4 in terms of emissions the OTR industry was meeting or exceeding that in terms of reduction way back in 2007. The OTR industry is on what for the railroad would be Tier 6 in Emission reductions. Yet they are doing it with better MPG than we got with Tier 4 engines and better performance in terms of HP and MTBF on the engines. Just 5 years ago the average engine would last 600K miles the current ones are almost back up to 1 million miles. They finally solved the EGR cooler problem on the engines. The EPA is not going to relax anytime soon and they already have eliminated gliders in the OTR industry so the precedent is already there for getting rid of the overhauling market for the railroads.

Old topic. But relevant info not posted yet in this thread.

The CECX 1919 QSK95 locomotive tested on the INRD required DEF for the SCR exhaust after-treatment treatment to work.

https://www.railwayage.com/freight/shor ... -customer/

Class 1 railroads have REPEATEDLY told the various engine builders they under no uncertain circumstances want to deal with DEF.

What is DEF. It's called Diesel Exhaust Fluid.
DEF is an aqueous urea solution made with 32.5% urea and 67.5% deionized water. DEF is consumed in selective catalytic reduction (SCR) that lowers the concentration of nitrogen oxides (NOx) in the diesel exhaust emissions from a diesel engine

So basically, Cummins failed before this project even got off the drawing board, because they failed to listen to their customers.

Railroads are lazy, and this includes the expense of adding DEF filling stations to every locomotive fueling area. Now you see why this was no go before the thing was even built.

It doesn't matter that the Locomotive actually worked pretty damn good on the INRD. It used less fuel pulled really well. It would have been a hassle to replace even their entire fleet with these, you have the cost of the rebuilds, plus the cost of adding DEF filling to the servicing. INRD only ran the thing when Cummins could be convinced to send some DEF drums over... otherwise it sat.

Cummins needs to listen to their customers, if they try this again.

Considering that the NEW Amtrack power has the exact same engine with the DEF system installed I think Cummins might have broken thru the RR's stubborn streak. The Charger if it is Diesel powered requires DEF in order for it to run.

I should have mentioned, Passenger carriers (Amtrak and commuters) have been very accepting of it.

Well except Metra... (but thats for another thread)

Passenger carriers have much less locomotive servicing areas that need updating to Accommodate DEF.

The Class 1? Nope, pretty much never will accept it. Way way too many servicing areas to update. Plus, if one of the Class 1s did go for DEF, that DEF power could never be used for run through to other railroads. Which is why it will NEVER happen on a Class 1.

Are there really that many servicing facilities on railroads anymore?
It's not like the olden days when every town had a roundhouse for the local switcher.
NS in Pennsylvania has... Enola and Conway?

Everything else is pretty much an occasional visit from a fuel truck, right?

Last I knew, among the ones you left out were Harrisburg (PRR), Rutherford (Reading in Harrisburg), Altoona, Abrahms, Northumberland.......

There is a lot of good discussion here. Part of my area of expertise. While for some reason I cannot see the original post I gather that it is something about Cummins wanting to get into the rebuilding game with older locomotives?

Center cab diesels with big cam Cummins engines are very straight forward. Twin Cummins, when set up correctly are hard to beat. However they do not pull like anything we are used to on long trains. Center cabs would be perfect for several industries around me. They do not need an SD or even a GP.

The 567 and 645 EMD engine is super simple. If you have all the right tools (certain things to change HLP’s, timing etc) most any trained monkey could do the work. When it comes to a Cummins engines it involves working in tighter spaces and knowing some more “tricks” especially in the OTR Trucking engines, which is kind of what is used for these center cab rebuilds.

When it comes to the argument of keeping an EMD running without any computers is easy.. that is false. Until you’ve worked on and troubleshooting an SD40-2 or -3 finding the issue electronically is, in my experience just walking through a flowchart. A basic simple understanding or circuitry and electricity will get you a LONG way.

For industry use. Cummins would be the way to go IMO. However for any sort of weight, it’s hard to beat the tried and true. Cummins has had difficulties keeping up with emmisions standards. Which this day in age is something you can’t compromise on.

I forgot about the fuel pit in Harrisburg. Is there anything to speak of terminal wise at any of those other facilities? I thought Rutherford didn't have anything to speak of, facilities wise. Same with those others.
Last I saw in Altoona they were just using a yard track with a road next to it.

Anyway, my point is that the places the infrastructure would need to be installed are far fewer than they were just a few years ago.

Just a little comment. The EPA didn’t eliminate gliders, they just said that to register them as a new truck they had to meet the new pollution standards and the whole point of gliders was to call them a new truck for many different reasons. I have heard stories that some companies are restoring older trucks because they don’t need pollution controls and they don’t need computer logs.
Also International tried building motors that didn’t need DEF but it didn’t work very well. They would not always regenerate to clean the filter system, and then would shut down because they couldn’t do it until reset by a computer. Now that system might work on a locomotive with a lot more experimenting ,BUT you had better have multiple exhaust scrubbers that automatically switch out if something screw’s up.

And now they want us to add on these air brake systems, which we will then need to maintain, next thing it will be universal automatic couplers, and this idea of a standard gauge! We had no problem trading with the South before the war, why do we need to change their system from 5 foot? Next thing they will want us to implement standardized rules and signal systems. Where does it end?

If you haven't worked closely with modern class 8 trucks, you have NO IDEA how complicated, cantankerous, unreliable and EXPENSIVE these systems are. I am the Parts Manager for a fleet with two shops that maintain around 300 power units. I would conservatively say that 60-65% of ALL maintenance and repair on the tractors is related to the pollution control systems, and they are responsible for probably 30% of all of our on-road breakdowns and maybe half of all the trucks that have to be pulled out of service for unscheduled repairs. If we didn't have to deal with this stuff, we could probably eliminate a third or more of our shop forces and cut our maintenance expenses in half. That doesn't even address how much more we pay for the truck because of this equipment in the first place. We haven't done an actual engine overhaul in years, but every day we are plugging laptops into at least a half dozen trucks chasing emission related faults codes and power de-rates. I wouldn't blame ANYONE for trying to avoid this "modern technology" for as long as humanly possible.