I was just curious about the size of the engine in today's train engine. How many liters and horspower etc. Id appreciate any responses. Thank you very much!!
Posted by Eric (Member # 674) on :
There is a variety of sizes of engines these days, with 3500-6000 HP, but most freight units run between ~4000 and ~5500 HP. Amtrak's GE P42's have 4200 HP, 16 cyl. engines. BNSF's (and other roads) GE C44-9W's have 4400 HP. EMD makes some (SD90MAC's) geared for as much as 6000 HP. If you're interested, you should locate a book called Modern Diesel Locomotives by Hans Halberstadt. It has a lot of information in it which you might find useful... Good luck, Eric
Posted by mikman (Member # 624) on :
Just to give you some idea, a 16 cylinder 567 GM engine is 9072 cubic inches or roughly 149 litres, a 16/645 GM is 10320 cubic inches or roughly 170 litres and a 16/710 GM is 11360 cubic inches or roughly 187 litres displacement. In case you're unaware the 567, 645 and 710 figures relate to the capacity of a single cylinder which when multiplyed by the amount of cylinders in the engine gives you its size. I have a feeling the GE 7FDL type engine is 645 (or thereabouts) per cylinder but am not 100% sure on that. I think my calculations are fairly accurate but couldn't find a formula to change cubic inches to litres so I'm sorry if they're not accurate!
Posted by irishchieftain (Member # 1473) on :
Mikman: Your conversions between liters and cubic inches seems to be right on the money.
The formula is this: CID × 0.016387 = Liters. Conversely, Liters ÷ 0.016387 = cubic inches.
This is coming from someone who'd like to see a 7.4-liter (454 cid) big-block V8 return to the Corvette, even though the new Z06, a 350-405 hp, is fast enough...