Top Locomotives Never Built

[Lucas]

I was looking at @TheMann's ideas for Gas Turbine locomotives, and came up with some ideas for more roads that'd consider the GTEL-4s he made in my TL:

Erie Lackawanna
In my TL, the New York Central began electrifying the Water Level Route between New York and Cleveland in 1962, and finished that part in 1966. Naturally, the Erie Lackawanna was shaking in its boots as the NYC's freight traffic between New York and Chicago began traveling at up to 110 MPH. Naturally, the EL was quick to jump at the idea of an engine that could go about as fast without the expensive infrastructure needed by electric engines. The first of the railroad's GTELs were twelve GTEL-3 engines that the railroad acquired for the grades on the mainline east of Akron, and on the former New Haven lines to Boston. However, the railroad still was annoyed with the maintenance problems, and quickly took up GE's offer to rebuild then into GTEL-4s, of which they ordered another 20.

Chessie System
Like the Erie Lackawanna, the Chessie bought the GTELs to better compete with a larger rival - in this case the Pennsylvania Railroad - for traffic in the coal country of the Virginias, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. By the time the Chessie was officially formed, the GTEL-4 had been on the market for quite a while, and so the railroad purchased several for use across their system. After the Grand Junction Disaster and the backlash against propane-fueled locomotives, they were relegated to the former B&O between Hammond, IN and Stirling, OH due to its largely rural nature - as the Chessie had already begun using the ACE's modern steam designs on the former C&O in the Virginias.

@Andrew Boyd @TheMann how would be look of the GTEL-4? I as inclined to build that units.

And what as the Grand Junction Disaster?

 

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

And what as the Grand Junction Disaster?

To quote TheMann:

On April 16, 1986, the problems of propane fueling of the locomotives became apparent when Rio Grande unit 1006, at the head of a heavy manifest train, slammed into the back of a stopped coal train doing nearly 60 mph in Grand Junction, Colorado, destroying the units and severely damaging the nearly-full fuel tank, which was subsequently buried in the rubble and was unknown to the firefighters arrived to fight the blaze. It exploded as fire crews were attempting to fight the blaze, in the process causing six tank cars behind it loaded with toluene, polyproplene and liquified natural gas to explode in two subsequent explosions. Thirty-nine people, including twenty-five members of the Grand Junction fire department and Colorado State Police died in the explosions, and over 70 people suffered injuries as a result. Investigations of the crash found that the locomotive was overdue for a fuel tank inspection. Furious, the state of Colorado banned the use of propane-powered locomotives in the state, at a stroke forcing Rio Grande to either convert or sell its eleven remaining units - they chose to do the latter, trading the units to the Santa Fe for twenty-five SD40-2s in November 1986. But the high-profile disaster at Grand Junction led to the NTSB investigating all of the turbines for flaws. Few had any and none were safety-deficient, but the high-profile press made the locomotives look dangerous, and the state of California used its own leverage to force Southern Pacific to refit or replace its locomotives in 1987.

 

[TheMann]

@Andrew Boyd @TheMann how would be look of the GTEL-4? I as inclined to build that units.

The GTEL-4 uses:

- Dynamic brakes that suck air from outside to force it up well above the locomotive, thus necessitating it having a somewhat-taller carbody in the A unit than in the B unit and long rows of intakes along both sides of the engine, to suck air through the vents and force it both into the 7FDL8 diesel backup engine and above into the dynamic brake grids. This is done so that air heated by the dynamic brakes is sucked into the turbine's air intake as little as possible[1];
- Draper Taper-style side air intakes for the turbines in addition to large intakes on the roof of the locomotive[2], to improve intake efficiency;
- E60CP-style flat-front cab, though with large grids a bit behind it to intake air for the air brake equipment;
- Coolant water tank beneath the B-unit;
- Larger rectangular exhaust at the back of the B-unit for turbine exhaust and to vent exhaust from the Beta-type Stirling engines used for efficiency improvement;
- Smaller set of radiators at the back of the B-unit, for cooling water for the Stirling engines;
- A square-ish tender (similar in design and size to an Alco FB2 unit) to cover the large propane tanker inside of it, the outer shell acting an insulated box for the large propane tank inside of it[3];
- U36C trucks under all three sections of the locomotive, for better track holding and to handle every bit of power than the turbine can throw at it;
- Horn is relocated to aft of the dynamic brake outlets, which makes freezing concerns of it much less likely.

The TF34 turbofan installed in the GTEL-4 requires far more air intake than the Frame 5 gas turbine used by the original GTEL, which is why the B-unit has much bigger intakes, but its output at a lower temperature works better for the use of propane fuel (and is rather safer for passing under bridges and the like) and the use of Beta-type Stirling engines with rhombic drives allows the turbine exhaust to be used to improve efficiency by allowing said drives to drive alternators to handle auxillaries (air brakes, battery charging, hotel loads, etc.).

[1] Lower intake air temperature improves the efficiency and reliability of the turbines
[2] Facing the other way, to act as large scoops for turbines
[3] Better insulation improves the safety of the propane tank

 

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

@TheMann

Given that you mentioned the first ALCO Milleniums being carbody designs, what locomotives from OTL did they resemble?

 

[TheMann]

@TheMann

Given that you mentioned the first ALCO Milleniums being carbody designs, what locomotives from OTL did they resemble?

I didn't really design them out per say, but I envision them being closest to some sloped-nose Australian designs and the full-carbody one DounutCereal developed on Deviantart.

 

[Soundwave3591]

Southern Railway (UK) Wartime "Austerity" Pacific, designed by Oliver Bulleid in the same spirit as the Q1 0-6-0.
Basically in an alternate reality where the Nazis postpone their invasion of the USSR until the UK is knocked out of the war for good, and the UK is forced to tighten their belts to near-crushing levels.

With Bulleid's Q1's already proving their worth both power and ease of maintenance, the Wartime Commission called upon CME Bullied to design a "mixed traffic" Locomotive (wartime restrictions meant express locomotives could not be built) for higher speed running than the Q1 could manage, as the Southern, being the railway in closest proximity to Europe, needed a vast expansion of their motive power. While Bulleid had hoped to further electrification and dieselization, German bombing disrupting the power grid and wartime oil restrictions meant that coal was the desired fuel source, as it could be natively-sourced from mines within the UK.

Bulleid took his 1938 "Merchant Navy" Pacific design and simplified it further, adopting a boiler construction similar to that of the Q1, with a squared-off smokebox door and overall shape and near-featureless boiler shell. the Tender was likewise adapted from the Merchant Navy, maintaining the "full cab" crew enclosure. The Merchant-Navy-styled Chain drive valve gear and BFB Disk wheels both contributed to a reduction in maintenance of both engines and track, a further benefit to wartime needs.

 

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

@TheMann

In that case, I could easily imagine a few of these passing for ALCO Milleniums. That is, with the aforementioned car-body designs.

This one may need is back cab be absent on its ALCO Millenium counterpart.

Same with this one.

 

[TheMann]

I was more thinking that the Millenium would have a more square nose (like the last locomotive in your pictures) than anything else, to give a bigger cab and more room for the crew.

 

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

I was more thinking that the Millenium would have a more square nose (like the last locomotive in your pictures) than anything else, to give a bigger cab and more room for the crew.

In that case, would that last engine possibly be sort of the Millenium 190DP? Because the idea of an engine that looks like that in the ATSF Warbonnet livery is very attractive to me.

 

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

@TheMann

In that case, would these locomotives look a bitter better for visually comparing the ALCO Milleniums?

 

[TheMann]

The Millenniums were basically like that up front, yes. Earlier ones were more blocky, but starting with the second-generation models (in particular the 200EP) they got more rounded up front and had more slope to the windshields, improving aerodynamics.

 

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

The Millenniums were basically like that up front, yes. Earlier ones were more blocky, but starting with the second-generation models (in particular the 200EP) they got more rounded up front and had more slope to the windshields, improving aerodynamics.

In that case, I could see the green diesel in that list of engines being what the ALCO Millenium 210DP looks like. In no small part because I fancy the idea of the ATSF running several of them in warbonnet colors. Whereas I could see the 185/190DP engines being somewhat the yellow-painted engines in the cab's physical appearance - with a full car-body naturally making up what's behind the cab.

 

[TheMann]

In my world when the ATSF wanted to make promotional shots they generally used the carbody Warbonnets sandwiching hood units in the same paint scheme, FP45s or Milleniums or turbines or (later on) F59s, so I know where you're coming from here.

 

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

In my world when the ATSF wanted to make promotional shots they generally used the carbody Warbonnets sandwiching hood units in the same paint scheme, FP45s or Milleniums or turbines or (later on) F59s, so I know where you're coming from here.

I also thought of my TL having the SP electrics be in Daylight colors, while all their diesels are painted in the Black Widow scheme.

 

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

@TheMann
I was thinking about your idea for a GTEL-5 that runs on different fuels and a LMS100 stationary gas-turbine. Perhaps if I were to make such a design for my rail TL, I could see it made in the late 2000s of my TL.

Another idea I had was that this could have a similar design to past locomotives, but what could also be done to make it even better than your past GTELs? I can already see experiments with the locomotive running on vegetable fuel, and the GTEL-5 being specifically built so it could be maintained more easily than past GTELs. One place I could see them run is the Chessie's ex-B&O from Gary to Akron.

 

[TheMann]

^ There is a few problems with the idea of LMS100 idea, namely that of the size of the LMS100. It's nearly nine feet wide, which is far too wide to fit in a standard-gauge locomotive, and it makes at least 40,000 horsepower, which is gross overkill for any locomotive as its traction motors wouldn't be able to handle such current. If you want to go that route, use the GE LM500 instead of the LMS100, which produces 6,130 shaft horsepower out of a much smaller package - the LM500 motor-generator package GE offers for military vessels is 93" wide, 281" long and 94" tall, which is a perfectly-good size for a locomotive. (If you were prepared to, you could make a longer unit and use two of these, as that would easily fit on a Evolution Series frame, but you'd certainly need a fuel tender for such a locomotive.)

You can run a high-bypass gas turbine on just about any liquid fuel, so the idea of vegetable oil or biodiesel is indeed a possibility, but I'd aim a little higher and try for liquid hydrogen fuel, which is more easily done with a railroad locomotive.

Set up the unit with a separate fuel tender with an insulated liquid-hydrogen tank and powered trucks, creating a C-C+C-C arrangement, powered by two such turbines as above, built into box-frames allowing the units to be easily removed if needed, with all of the electrics up front in modular boards, similar to the GE Evolution Series locomotives. The turbines have their exhausts facing each other and vent well above the locomotives so as to not compromise the intake temperature of the rear unit, and to allow a . Underneath the A unit is a big battery box where the fuel tank would be on a conventional diesel, and uses a COGAS boiler to both reduce exhaust temperature (a concern when operated in populated areas or inside tunnels, as the exhaust temperature on a LM500 is over 500 degrees Celsius) and get more power, the COGAS system charging the batteries on the unit, allowing the locomotive to dispense with the old diesel engine used for auxiliaries on older turbine locomotives.

12,260 horsepower driving though twelve driven axles will give you ungodly power, at greater thermal efficiency than a conventional diesel locomotive could ever produce - the LM500 produces about 31% thermal efficiency, whereas the very best diesel-electrics could maybe make 20%, and the use of a COGAS system would improve that 31% considerably. The wider platform of the turbine system would make a full-carbody setup advisable, so the locomotive could look quite similar to the China Railways NJ2.

 

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

China Railways NJ2

Speaking of that engine, I remember I once had the idea fo Amtrak ordering some look-alikes to them under the GE C38AChe guise. It's a GE product after all.

Also, I was thinking I could try out some designs for what your ALCO Millenium engines would look like if you're interested. If you can provide some OTL engines I can use as visual references when envisioning them.

 

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

@TheMann

I was thinking about making my own HSR transiet for an 80s Amtrak HSR. So far, I have thought of my Pullman-Ansaldo company making it as a 15-car trainset that would be used on the NEC of my TL (which starts seeing HSR in my TL's 1977, with the PRR working alongside Amtrak on a Steel Interstate). Then, the same trainset starts working when Chicago-area HSR starts in 1981 to Milwaukee and Peoria.

 

[TheMann]

@TheMann

I was thinking about making my own HSR transiet for an 80s Amtrak HSR. So far, I have thought of my Pullman-Ansaldo company making it as a 15-car trainset that would be used on the NEC of my TL (which starts seeing HSR in my TL's 1977, with the PRR working alongside Amtrak on a Steel Interstate). Then, the same trainset starts working when Chicago-area HSR starts in 1981 to Milwaukee and Peoria.

A possibility, but do bear in mind that Pullman began to circle the drain after about 1960 and Ansaldo and Fiat Ferrovaria were fairly new to the high-speed game at that point, so a 1980s Acela from that consortium is prone to problems. It might be advisable to either hook them up with another company (very doable) or have somebody else do the project instead of Pullman.

 

[Jono]

Pullman-Ansaldo

Ansaldo"Wait, you guys get 5 digit MPTI numbers?"Breda, that Ansaldo? I wouldn't even let them near a bath as they'd probably run the cold water instead of the hot.