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diesel engines

Yes ''But'' they start (usually) by using their traction generator as a motor to start the diesel. They are modular in that units of cylinders can be repaired rather than whole engine. The older engines were often 2 stroke, often GMC. Jim
 
Here's what I work on.
a274718.jpg
 
As David G indicated they the same general design but are much, MUCH, larger. The displacement of current railroad locomotive engines is in the 1000 cubic inch PER CYLINDER range and most have 12 or 16 cylinders. Power outputs are in the 4000 to 6000 horsepower range.
 
Well, sort of.

For decades, the overwhelming majority of DE railroad locomotive engines were two strokes. Think Detroit.

I believe that EMD still makes two stroke railroad locomotive engines but most new locomotive engines are four stroke.

In the 50s-60s, Fairbanks Morse built railroad locomotives with opposed piston two stroke engines. Think submarine. These were commercial failures due to serviceability difficulties, among other things.

Dean
 
We have a Fairbanks Morse at our local RR museum. It was once an army locomotive. We've used it around our museum but its blowing oil badly from somewhere. Even our passengers are complaining so we now only use it to move cars around. Our museum is like my farm - the museum has more running locomotives than we can use like I have more tractors than acres.
 
I worked in Columbus for 17 years and been at the new high horsepower tech center in Seymour for 6 years now.
 
A good part of the tow boats on the Ohio and Miss. river use the same engines that are in the locomotives, Kinda nice because you can replace a complete cylinder (Jug & piston to include connecting rod) in just a few minutes and be on your way again. Usually shut 1 engine down and run on the other one while the 1 is being repaired. Done it awhile while working as engineer for KRT towing out of Point Pleasant, WV & traveling up and down the Ohio and Kanawha rivers.
 
No one mentioned General Electric, their locomotives use engines that GE manufactures in house, and they have have sold more locomotives in the US than any other company for the last 20 years.

Rich
 
Our local grain elevator has an old retired locomotive they use for switching cars. It’s an old timer possibly from the late 50’s or early 60’s. I don’t know the manufacturer. One day they had a crew there replacing a few cylinders so I moseyed over there to snoop around. The mechanics were NOT friendly so I didn’t hang there long. One thing I noticed was the head was bolted to the sleeve and the whole works, head, sleeve and piston went into the block in one unit. And yes it was quite a bit bigger than anything we see on the farm.
 

We ran EMD's "Electra Motive Diesel" back in the 70's when I worked on barges.
EMD was a division of GM, the engines where over sized versions of the 2 cycle engine used in trucks and ag equipment.
GE became the leader in locomotive engines in the 80's and remained there until they sold that division in 2018.

The EMD's I worked on had 18" bores with 2 1/2 ft strokes. Only took a couple hours to change out a power pack which consisted of the rod, piston, cylinder and head as a complete unit.
Power pack weighed several hundred lbs.
Engines idled at 300 rpm with max revs at 850 rpm.

I traveled on the Ohio, lower Mississippi and Illinois rivers as well as the Inner Coastal Waterway to Texas with Inland Oil and Transport, pushing fuel barges.
 
Not that I can recall but there's engineering folk at least at 10 different locations in southern indiana. I think there's 6000 employees in southern indiana alone.
 
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