Diesel locomotive


A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the power source is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is conveyed to the driving wheels. The most common are diesel–electric locomotives and diesel–hydraulic.
Early internal combustion locomotives and railcars used kerosene and gasoline as their fuel. Rudolf Diesel patented his first compression-ignition engine in 1898, and steady improvements to the design of diesel engines reduced their physical size and improved their power-to-weight ratios to a point where one could be mounted in a locomotive. Internal combustion engines only operate efficiently within a limited power band, and while low-power gasoline engines could be coupled to mechanical transmissions, the more powerful diesel engines required the development of new forms of transmission. This is because clutches would need to be very large at these power levels and would not fit in a standard -wide locomotive frame, or would wear too quickly to be useful.
The first successful diesel engines used diesel–electric transmissions, and by 1925 a small number of diesel locomotives of were in service in the United States. In 1930, Armstrong Whitworth of the United Kingdom delivered two locomotives using Sulzer-designed engines to Buenos Aires Great Southern Railway of Argentina. In 1933, diesel–electric technology developed by Maybach was used to propel the DRG Class SVT 877, a high-speed intercity two-car set, and went into series production with other streamlined car sets in Germany starting in 1935. In the United States, diesel–electric propulsion was brought to high-speed mainline passenger service in late 1934, largely through the research and development efforts of General Motors dating back to the late 1920s and advances in lightweight car body design by the Budd Company.
The economic recovery from World War II hastened the widespread adoption of diesel locomotives in many countries. They offered greater flexibility and performance than steam locomotives, as well as substantially lower operating and maintenance costs.

History

Adaptation for rail use

The earliest recorded example of the use of an internal combustion engine in a railway locomotive is the prototype designed by William Dent Priestman, which was examined by William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin in 1888 who described it as a "Priestman oil engine mounted upon a truck which is worked on a temporary line of rails to show the adaptation of a petroleum engine for locomotive purposes." In 1894, a two-axle machine built by Priestman Brothers was used on the Hull Docks. In 1896, an oil-engined railway locomotive was built for the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, England, using an engine designed by Herbert Akroyd Stuart. It was not a diesel, because it used a hot-bulb engine, but it was the precursor of the diesel.
Rudolf Diesel considered using his engine for powering locomotives in his 1893 book Theorie und Konstruktion eines rationellen Wärmemotors zum Ersatz der Dampfmaschine und der heute bekannten Verbrennungsmotoren. However, the large size and poor power-to-weight ratio of early diesel engines made them unsuitable for propelling land-based vehicles. Therefore, the engine's potential as a railroad prime mover was not initially recognized. This changed as research and development reduced the size and weight of the engine.
In 1906, Rudolf Diesel, Adolf Klose and the steam and diesel engine manufacturer Gebrüder Sulzer founded Diesel-Sulzer-Klose GmbH to manufacture diesel-powered locomotives. Sulzer had been manufacturing diesel engines since 1898. The Prussian State Railways ordered a diesel locomotive from the company in 1909, and after test runs between Winterthur and Romanshorn, Switzerland, the diesel–mechanical locomotive was delivered in Berlin in September 1912. The world's first diesel-powered locomotive was operated in the summer of 1912 on the same line from Winterthur but was not a commercial success. During test runs in 1913 several problems were found. The outbreak of World War I in 1914 prevented all further trials. The locomotive weight was 95 tonnes and the power was with a maximum speed of.
Small numbers of prototype diesel locomotives were produced in a number of countries through the mid-1920s.

Early diesel locomotives and railcars in Asia

China

One of the first domestically developed Diesel vehicles of China was the Dongfeng DMU, produced in 1958 by CSR Sifang. Series production of China's first Diesel locomotive class, the DFH1, began in 1964 following the construction of a prototype in 1959.

India

Japan

In Japan, starting in the 1920s, some petrol–electric railcars were produced. The first diesel–electric traction and the first air-streamed vehicles on Japanese rails were the two DMU3s of class Kiha 43000. Japan's first series of diesel locomotives was class DD50, twin locomotives, developed since 1950 and in service since 1953.

Early diesel locomotives and railcars in Europe

First functional diesel vehicles

In 1914, the world's first functional diesel–electric railcars were produced for the Königlich-Sächsische Staatseisenbahnen by Waggonfabrik Rastatt with electric equipment from Brown, Boveri & Cie and diesel engines from Swiss Sulzer AG. They were classified as DET 1 and DET 2. Because of a shortage of petrol products during World War I, they remained unused for regular service in Germany. In 1922, they were sold to Swiss Compagnie du Chemin de fer Régional du Val-de-Travers, where they were used in regular service up to the electrification of the line in 1944. Afterwards, the company kept them in service as boosters until 1965.
Fiat claims to have built the first Italian diesel–electric locomotive in 1922, but little detail is available. Several Fiat-TIBB Bo'Bo' diesel–locomotives were built for service on the narrow gauge Ferrovie Calabro Lucane and the Società per le Strade Ferrate del Mediterrano in southern Italy in 1926, following trials in 1924–25. The six-cylinder two-stroke motor produced at 500rpm, driving four DC motors, one for each axle. These locomotives with top speed proved quite successful.
In 1924, two diesel–electric locomotives were taken in service by the Soviet railways, almost at the same time:
  • The engine Ээл2 started on October 22. It had been designed by a team led by Yuri Lomonosov and built 1923–1924 by Maschinenfabrik Esslingen in Germany. It had five driving axles. After several test rides, it hauled trains for almost three decades from 1925 to 1954. It became a model for several classes of Soviet diesel locomotives.
  • The engine Щэл1 '', started on November 9. It had been developed by Yakov Modestovich Gakkel and built by Baltic Shipyard in Saint Petersburg. It had ten driving axles in three bogies. From 1925 to 1927, it hauled trains between Moscow and Kursk and in Caucasus region. Due to technical problems, afterwards, it was out of service. Since 1934, it was used as a stationary electric generator.
In 1935, Krauss-Maffei, MAN and Voith built the first diesel–hydraulic locomotive, called V 140, in Germany. Diesel–hydraulics became the mainstream in diesel locomotives in Germany since the German railways were pleased with the performance of that engine. Serial production of diesel locomotives in Germany began after World War II.

Switchers

In many railway stations and industrial compounds, steam shunters had to be kept hot during many breaks between scattered short tasks. Therefore, diesel traction became economical for shunting before it became economical for hauling trains. The construction of diesel shunters began in 1920 in France, in 1925 in Denmark, in 1926 in the Netherlands, and in 1927 in Germany. After a few years of testing, hundreds of units were produced within a decade.

Diesel railcars for regional traffic

Diesel-powered or "oil-engined" railcars, generally diesel–mechanical, were developed by various European manufacturers in the 1930s, e.g. by William Beardmore and Company for the Canadian National Railways. Some of those series for regional traffic were begun with gasoline motors and then continued with diesel motors, such as Hungarian BCmot, 128 cars built 1926–1937, or German Wismar railbuses. In France, the first diesel railcar was Renault VH, 115 units produced 1933/34.
In Italy, after six Gasoline cars since 1931, Fiat and Breda built a lot of diesel railmotors, more than 110 from 1933 to 1938 and 390 from 1940 to 1953, Class 772 known as Littorina, and Class ALn 900.

High-speed railcars

In the 1930s, streamlined highspeed diesel railcars were developed in several countries:
  • In Germany, the Flying Hamburger was built in 1932. After a test ride in December 1932, this two-coach diesel railcar started service at Deutsche Reichsbahn in February 1933. It became the prototype of DRG Class SVT 137 with 33 more highspeed DMUs, built for DRG till 1938, 13 DMU 2, 18 DMU 3, and two DMU 4.
  • French SNCF classes XF 1000 and XF 1100 comprised 11 high-speed DMUs, also called TAR, built 1934–1939.
  • In Hungary, Ganz Works built the, a kind of a luxurious railbus in a series of seven items since 1934 and started to build the in 1944.

    Further developments

In 1945, a batch of 30 Baldwin diesel–electric locomotives, Baldwin 0-6-6-0 1000, was delivered from the United States to the railways of the Soviet Union.
In 1947, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway introduced the first of a pair of Co-Co diesel–electric locomotives for regular use in the United Kingdom, although British manufacturers such as Armstrong Whitworth had been exporting diesel locomotives since 1930. Fleet deliveries to British Railways, of other designs such as Class 20 and Class 31, began in 1957.
Series production of diesel locomotives in Italy began in the mid-1950s. Generally, diesel traction in Italy was of less importance than in other countries, as it was amongst the most advanced countries in the electrification of the main lines and as Italian geography makes freight transport by sea cheaper than rail transportation even on many domestic connections.