At the industrial park 9-30-10

[Gary S]

made a trip through the industrial park yesterday:

[nachoman]

Are those the hybrid battery powered locos?

[Gary S]

I think that is whatthey are, but need confirmation from "those in the know".

[rrinker]

I think those are Gensets - looks like they have 3 stacks each? Instead of one large prime mover that runs regardless of how much power is required, they have 3 sets of engine/generators and run only what's required for a particular situation. By using 3x 500HP gensets, you cna have a 1500hp loco but whent he situation only calls for less, like maintaining speed on straight level track, you don't have a 1500hp diesel running, just a single 500hp one. Great idea.

--Randy

[Gary S]

That is a good idea. I didn't know that was how the gensets worked - learn something new every day.

[FCIN]

Can't make out the numbers on these, but they look to me like NRE 3GS21B genset locomotives. BNSF has at least 72 of those in different locations.

Have seen one in use on RJ Corman, seems like they can handle about as much tonnage as a GP-38. They sure sound different with those small Cat (or whatever) engines. Especially when only one of the three is working.

[nachoman]

I think those are Gensets - looks like they have 3 stacks each? Instead of one large prime mover that runs regardless of how much power is required, they have 3 sets of engine/generators and run only what's required for a particular situation. By using 3x 500HP gensets, you cna have a 1500hp loco but whent he situation only calls for less, like maintaining speed on straight level track, you don't have a 1500hp diesel running, just a single 500hp one. Great idea.

--Randy

I remember when I was a kid about 14 years old, I thought I had this great idea that cars could have 8 cylinder engines but only use 4 cylinders when cruising in order to save gas. I told my dad, who was an aerospace engineer, and he told me such an engine would be too complicated and expensive, and probably unreliable (I didn't know it at the time, but cadillac had tried that in the early 1980s). Now, GM makes engines that do exactly that, and that is also the idea behind hybrid engines.

Of course, my dad claims that he and his grade school friend came up with the idea for the "breezway" rear window in the Mercury Monterey. He says that a Ford rep came to his school during a career week and gave a short presentation. My dad says he and his friend had this idea that cars should have a rear window that opens, so they told the Ford guy about their idea. A few years later, Mercury introduced the Monterey with the breezway window.

[Gary S]

What dissappoints me about the BNSF switchers is that not long ago, they used a Santa Fe freightbonnet GP30 and some GP38's for switching duty here. Now they are all gone, and the Kingston memory stick I had the photos on scrambled its brains and I lost the photos.

[faraway]

Can't make out the numbers on these, but they look to me like NRE 3GS21B genset locomotives. BNSF has at least 72 of those in different locations.....

Atlas announced the H0 Genset with an availability date more than a year ago. I read two days ago they have finally shipped to retail and did see them 15 minutes ago very first time as an available item in the online store of M.B. Klein. I assume they will sell like hot cake.https://www.modeltrainstuff.com/SearchRe...Search.y=0

[rrinker]

Here's the relevant portion of NRE's web site. Thre's a PDF that explains more details about the locomotives. http://www.nationalrailway.com/nviro.asp

This is some neat stuff - maybe I should see about getting a job with a place like this, make a slight career change.

--Randy

[faraway]

I understood the Genset engines are driven by the idea not to reinvent something that exits but use what is available on the market.

Traditional a new engine generations starts with a new engine. Huge amount of time and money is invested to get a better engine than ever. The Genset approach is different. There are literal millions of diesel engine - generator sets in daily use for lots of use. Virtual every body needing electricity but having not wall plug has a Genset. If you take one or more existing Genet together with standard trucks you get a locomotive.

The problems came up when they learned about the difference in use. The traditional use is like a little power plant. The load varies but is in general stable. Not so a switcher. The load may run up and down between 0% and 100% multiple times in a minute. The little power plants had not been designed for that use. It needed some time (years) to keep the positive characteristics of the small power plants in the engine environment.