Merch, anyone? okieprint.com/SPR/shop/home

After all of these (77) years I finally understand how a diesel locomotive is powered. Thank you so much. Looking forward to watching your other videos.

There is Plenty to Learn in School growing up but you can Learn a Lot more on this Channel. Your Topics aren’t covered on other Railfan Channels. Thanks! 👍🙏

Finally! Plain english explanation on how dynamic brakes work. Now I understand after all these years. Thanks!

I love that you used a picture of a Utah Railway Alco. My grandpa used to be a mechanic for them.

We will miss KCS 🫡

When I worked for NREC in the Silvis, Illinois shop, 99% of he locos had EMD engines. We also had engines out of barges and ships. The smallest I saw was 6 cylinders, while the largest I saw was 20 cylinders, in displacements from, I believe 575, 645, and 710 cubic inches per cylinder. Most were 645 cubes and 16 cylinders.

Cool! I love learning from you!

I've been a train person my whole life and I appreciate these videos. Also take a look at video on Animagraffs on how a diesel-electric locomotive works.

Great video! Nice to see you put in a VL class engine. Love those weird looking diesels.

Mate, i LOVED this video. If I ever left school again, I'd be a Freight Train Engineer. Dunno quite how that would work coz I live in leafy Oxfordshire, England.

Love trains! Great job - love your accent ! Cheers from Boston

Excellent video and content really appreciated learning more about diesel trains. I know I love the way they sound! Cheers buddy

LOL @ 2:01, Turboencabulator is listed there!!

0:39 thats the CFLA VL class great to see an australian locomotive here

I love watching your videos enjoy CP and KCS while you can

Fantastic video, I went in with very basic knowledge and came out with a much better understanding of DEs, very cool

love being a railfan and a car guy

SD45s had 20 cylinder engines, not 10. I'm guessing that was an "oops" on your part, only counting one bank of cylinders. Otherwise, good video.

As someone who fixes locomotives for a living, this video is very simplistic, stripped down. But it's not wrong either. 👍

Thanks for a really great presentation on how diesel electric locomotives work!

This is very useful. I'm going to share this with my girlfriend. I'm trying to help her understand how trains work.

I would have thought that most diesel-electrics have two ish generators so that the circuit between the motors and the rest of the train can remain isolated?

Love this 🙏👍👍👍👍👍

I'm assuming locomotive engineers have to fully understand how the locomotive works?

Why doesn’t the dynamic braking get used for charging surplus batteries. Trains sometimes struggle on grades, a booster battery would help with short bursts of extra volts X amps = power. I’m a mechanical engineer so this maybe off by a few decimal places. I like the fact that the locomotives still use piston engine technology. 0:40 The reason is efficiency. Thermal dynamic efficiency is Temperature of in coming air / Temperature of exhaust gases. Most piston engines run 30% to 60%. 60% is rare but it’s possible. Gas turbines are usually less than 10%. Turbines advantage are high up to weight ratios. The exhaust on the experimental Chrysler gas turbine car could burn your pant legs if you walked behind the car and it would start fires when driven through fields of dry grass. If weight and space (package) are not restrictive the system that the locomotives use and one of the newer Honda hybrids is probably the most practical and reasonable way to propel over the road vehicles until it can be shown that a full no fossil fuel system, including generation and distribution, is invented that gives the range and $/mile is invented this mad rush to Tesla’s isn’t warranted. Owners shouldn’t feel comfortable that they are doing any favors to the environment. Not yet. Not for quite a while our infrastructure catches up to demand. All public domain systems are always one day from disaster, i doubt that the electrical grid can meet the new demands in the time frame regulators advertise, but that’s just me. Remember our bridge systems about 7 or 8 years ago when a relatively small bridge in Minnesota collapsed and killed a few people? The whole bridge system of permitting, safety inspections and reporting were reviewed and changed. I don’t remember how many millions were allocated to bridge upgrades. It was a lot. Every little town with a river or creek and a bridge got a new bridge. The old ones were only 90 years old.

Awesome video!

This is why we need to use electric cars and save the diesel for these beasts and jet fuel for the airplanes.

Nice video our friend! (Dave).

„Diesel locomotives, they power the world“ is as true of a statement than „The US rail network is the best in the world“💀

The main generator is attached to the rear or flywheel end of the engine, not the front.

Diesel Electric is the Most Efficient Motor used for Transportation purposes. Just think how many Tractor Trailer trucks are taken off Roads with a Stack Train.🤔👍

This is exactly what I need to see when I need to go to sleep

Farewell KCS 🫡

It is, of course, not the *fans* themselves which slow the loco in dynamic breaking mode; it is the resistive load banks which they *cool* which dissipate the current generated by those braking traction motors, which have to dissipate as many megawatts as the generators have to put in to accelerate the train. A small point in an otherwise fine lesson.

We gonna miss the great northern in schenectady

Great video. Very well explained. Is it not possible to capture the electricity generated by the traction motors and store it in a battery? I imagine it is in new models, but not in these older types of trains.

I just got one question. It might have been in the video but , what makes that really loud rumble that you hear from a gevo?

Sounds a lot like regenerative braking without the regeneration.

Each powered truck or bogie is designated A for 1, B for 2, C for 3, and D for 4 powered axles; therefore your A1+1A has 2 trucks with one powered axle and one idler axle + one idler axle and one powered axle. The A1A + A1A is a 3-axle truck with 2 powered axles and the middle axle is an idler. Most diesel electrics are either B+B or C+C as the only D+Ds of the UP are no longer in service. I am including this comment as your description seemed confusing to me. It is more complicated, but there is an additional step that you did not cover, which is transition. Transition is having all of the traction motors in series changing to series-parallel to all parallel when starting. It may be the other way of parallel to series-parallel to all series when starting as I have forgotten. When the traction motors are all connected together they have the most torque but when changed (transition) to the other way, they have the most power. When starting you want the most torque then change to more power which is electrically changing gears. Transition occurs automatically in modern locomotives instead of having to close the throttle, change the circuit then reapply power with the throttle. Air is always being blown in and around traction motors to help cool them and help keep trash out of them.

Cool video trilogy of the Diesel's. :) But when you starting the train Diesel-electric you are blowing electricity through the standing electricmotors. And if the Wight of the whole train is to much, you are burning the Rotors and Stator of the Electric motor.

My man didn't dare touch upon the old pre-dash 2 series DC motors and their selector lever and electrical "transitions", that stuff gets complicated!

As a farmer I've always wanted to try and make a tractor that uses a locomotive motor

I think today's Locomotives have alternator's not generator's for powering the traction motors

What I love is fuel/electric works so awesome for train industry, and awesome also for submarines. But somehow they only automotive solution that seems to be allowed and accepted by our politicians pure electric and all the limitations of evs? Why are hybrids not being pushed more as an outstanding alternative to pure gasoline?

How much energy those generators produce?

SD 45 has massive V10? Are you thinking 10 cylinders on each bank? V20!!!

The turbochargers on these things are almost bigger than a freaking person! I still can't believe that..

What about Amtrak's famous EMD F40PH/F40PHR locomotives????

Baby TeSla kingDom 😍💚 love 😍

Ah yes, the elusive Turboencabulator :)

I thought SD45's had V20 engines, or were you referring to the number of banks, since technically a 20-cylinder V-line engine actually has 10 "V's"

I love Series-Hybrids. They are the best of both worlds. The instant torque & stealth of Electric, but the convenient, faster then charging batteries refueling of an engine, with fuel stations more common than plugil-in spots. The engine can also be kept at it's most powerful or most efficient RPM, and there's no wasteful, jerky transmission, or clutch or CVT to burn up. But I didn't know Diesel-Electric trains used resisters instead if Regenerative-Braking to charge traction batteries/ultra-capacitors. That's so wasteful. Yeah, your not wearing out traditional brakes, but you're still just throwing all that momentum energy away, converting it to heat. Just like how an old steam train had a space behind the engine loaded up with coal. There's no Diesel-Electric train with a huge battery car behind the the drive car? I remember hearing somewhere, that if tires on road, had the same rolling resistance as train wheel on rail, then an engine that could fit in your pocket, would be enough to move a car. So seeing how big a train engine is, really puts into perspective how much weight they move on rail. That, and the fact that it can take miles for them to stop.

emd sd 45 ia a 645 v 20

Alternate title: Man with strong American accent explains diesel locomotives

It’s a shame the dynamic braking energy can’t be reused, seems a hell of a waste.

Gas go electric go train go Nyoom

Pity they can't use that generated energy to, say, charge batteries. Are their no modern ones that do?

So all diesel trains are really electric, interesting 🤔

The world would be possible it would just be powered by oil powered steam trains

Wasting all that sweet, sweet braking energy to heat... should charge batteries with that power like a plug-in-hybrid car.

Every diesel locomotive.. except the Krauss Maffei and Alco hydraulics

Are you a mechanic

You lost me with the brakes.