The end of an Era: Good Bye EMD

[buzz456]

As recently as four months ago, GE didn’t have a single order for the new model. Then Union Pacific Corp. (UNP) and other carriers changed plans, faced with volumes causing gridlock on some tracks. Now 1,000 orders have poured in, according to GE, which doesn’t identify buyers. That could bring in $3 billion in revenue to the transportation unit over the next three years.

[johnmckenzie]

That's crazy - almost as crazy as the situation in the UK - where after the end of 2014 there will be precisely zero diesel units able to meet emissions regulations and still fit inside our small loading gauge. This, of course, means that more freight will have to end up on the roads and, hey, we all know that hundreds of trucks are way less polluting than one dirty 'lil diesel now, don't we?

Governments... God love em

[CSXK921]

i didn't expect to cry but oh well. anyway EMD shall be Missed

and to EMD itself if you guys can hear me Thank you for Helping make all this possible You shall be missed

[BoostedFridge]

BNOV, is the article you are referring to the one from the November edition of Trains? If so, I just bought it today, and at first glance it just looks like EMD/Progress Rail is still very much in business, but won't have a Tier 4 locomotive for North America until 2016/2017.

[Ericmopar]

That's crazy - almost as crazy as the situation in the UK - where after the end of 2014 there will be precisely zero diesel units able to meet emissions regulations and still fit inside our small loading gauge. This, of course, means that more freight will have to end up on the roads and, hey, we all know that hundreds of trucks are way less polluting than one dirty 'lil diesel now, don't we?

Governments... God love em

Yep. In California a few years ago they (EPA) kept harping on auto drivers about the pollution they were supposedly causing after years of tough pollution control laws, so to try and prove the point they did a very biased study.
The reason I say biased, is because they put the pollution detectors right next to the highways, not a fair distance away to get a better idea of the total picture.
Guess what they found out...
Almost all the pollution in the filters was construction dust, diesel truck particles, and the surprising one was jet aircraft emissions. They tried to bias the study against the auto drivers but still found out who the heavy polluters actually were.
The aircraft pollution was a huge surprise to everyone, because it was found in the filters miles from any airports.

[ErikGorbiHamilton]

BNOV, is the article you are referring to the one from the November edition of Trains? If so, I just bought it today, and at first glance it just looks like EMD/Progress Rail is still very much in business, but won't have a Tier 4 locomotive for North America until 2016/2017.

I re read the article yesterday night and i said that EMD was pulling out of the us market or so.

[GSkid]

Well Buzz's article is from July of 2014 and explains things a lot better. Clearly they have no intentions of giving up on the US market. This explains why I found no articles on EMD leaving the market.... cuz they aren't. That news would have generated big headlines in railroad industry and business publications.

I'm not surprised the rail industry loves the 2-stroke 710 engine. As the article points out, it is "ultrareliable ". What surprised me in that article is that the industry isn't really interested in CAT's own 4-stroke engines. I wonder why? They seem to be selling them just fine in other applications. Unless there is something inherently unreliable about the engine in rail applications.

Now that it's pretty clear that EMD plans to stick with the US market, the big question is...... will it be with a 2-stroke EMD engine or a 4-stroke CAT engine? Here's hoping for the 2-stroke! IMHO... it just isn't a true-blood EMD locomotive without the 2-stroke Winton-based engine at it's heart. It's why the SD90MAC was always a brother from another mother to me because of it's 4-stroke engine. That engine reminded me of 1985's disastrous "New Coke" where Coca-Cola changed the formula to taste more like Pepsi Cola. I could never fully accept the SD90MAC because my perception was always it's just a GE locomotive dressed in EMD clothing. An imposter in the EMD family.

[BNSFdude]

Railroads don't like CAT engines because CAT engines don't like variable speed variable load applications. They work best in constant speed variable load scenarios. Like ships and power generation.

[johnmckenzie]

the big question is...... will it be with a 2-stroke EMD engine or a 4-stroke CAT engine? Here's hoping for the 2-stroke! IMHO... it just isn't a true-blood EMD locomotive without the 2-stroke Winton-based engine at it's heart.

Sadly, I believe it's virtually impossible to make a 2-stroke unit compliant with the latest emissions regulations. I doubt you'll see any new 2-strokes being designed.

[buzz456]

This new emission standard is stupid. Law of diminishing returns.

Freight trains a clear winner over trucks in CO2 emission stakes
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/201111 ... _sys.shtml

[Fleegle411]

Crap like this is why I think the EPA has long outlived its usefulness.

[charliechan]

Good Morning:

Here is a portion of the article.

screen1.jpg

[buzz456]

Crap like this is why I think the EPA has long outlived its usefulness.

Yes. You should try to run a business today.

[glenn68]

Rumors have it, CAT and EMDlol. will be using GE engines.

[Rich_S]

Folks, EMD is not going out of business. The article is a little misleading. What is true is both GE and EMD will not be producing any locomotives next year (2015) as neater one has a diesel engine that is tier 4 compliant ready for production. GE hopes to start production of it's tier 4 compliant diesel engine in 2016 and EMD hopes to start production of it's tier 4 compliant diesel engine in 2017. In the mean time, both GE and EMD are biding on rebuild work to carry them through until their respective tier 4 diesel engines are ready to go. I do work for a class 1 railroad and this is the info directly from our EMD and GE on-site reps. As far as Caterpillar diesel engines not working in locomotives, that is not correct either, the latest EMD passenger locomotive is equipped with a Caterpillar diesel engine.

EMD’s 4,700 horsepower F125 locomotive consists of a streamlined Vossloh Rail Vehicles designed monocoque carbody; a turbocharged, 20-cyclinder; 4-stroke Cat® C-175 20 diesel engine; an a AC traction propulsion system.

The 567, 645 & 710 maybe dead, but EMD is far from dead, this is just a new page being turned in history.