It would seem nothing is ever new...

[MadMike1024]

A steam-electric!

http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/elheil.Html

[Chacal]

A thing of beauty and genius.

[mapitts]

Take a look at what the N&W was doing with AC in the mid '20's. All of a sudden in the late '90's AC traction is new? People forget how far advanced enginnering capability was back then. I knew a man who was a PhD, a railfan, and worked on the Apollo program. We where talking years ago about this kind of stuff. His comment to me was to me that the transcontinental railroad was an engineering & construction feat far more involved than the Apollo Program to the moon. I have a book that talks specificaly about the N&W in those years. What they had actually achieved was nothing short of brilliant. A lot of times to me it seems that the railroads are only "trying it again".

[BNSFdude]

MLW/ALCO made the first over 4000 HP diesel, AND first AC driven diesel electric in North America.

[mapitts]

MLW/ALCO made the first over 4000 HP diesel, AND first AC driven diesel electric in North America.

As bad as I hate to admit it, EMD beat them by 1 year and 200 HP. The M640 came out in '71. The EMD SD45X came out in '70 with 4200 HP. Only 7 SD45X's were built. Don't know about the total production numbers for M640. If you know those numbers, I would love to know them. For the record, I am not a huge EMD fan. Give me a 4 cycle!