Cool! Volcano powered locomotives!

What the heck causes this? And, with all the fire and brimstone, it looks like they start moving at the end!

Amazing.

I don't know, but it seems to be quite common with those locomotives.  Here's another clip I found.

Not uncommon on 4-stroke cycle diesel engines, what with turbo lag and over fueling. Until the more modern computer controlled electronic fuel injection systems, GE  diesel electric locomotives were quit prone to do this same thing. It was always quite a sight to see a consist of GE units ascending Sherman Hill, on the UP, with the big orange flames shooting high out of their stacks!

That's truly amazing, I wonder how many people have called the Fire Department seeing something like that unfold?

Interesting! Here's the ALCO Alligator at IRM doing pretty much the same thing.

Another unique perspective....

Thank god they got rid of those darn steam engines...they polluted so much....

Now there's an opportunity for the manufacturers....smoke and fire fluid!!!

I'm assuming from what Hot Water posted, this doesn't happen with modern equiment. Good thing. Must have gotten interesting if the engine was pushing up flames while going under an overpass.

That will wake you up!

If you don't consider GE "Dash 8" and "Dash 9" series units modern, then you are correct.

I had it happen to me, twice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSJw8AhtdrA

Broken fuel injector tips can cause fire out the stack because the fuel isn't being vaporized sufficiently to burn in the cylinders, so it ignites in the hot exhaust manifold. The video of the Russian locos is one of the most extreme cases I've seen. It generally indicates an old engine in poor condition with serious problems.

Notwithstanding Hotwater's obvious bias against GE locomotives, I can tell you that EMD locomotives had their share of problems with cracked cylinder heads causing exhaust valve failure, then the cylinder loses compression and unburned fuel goes into the hot exhaust manifold. On an EMD turbo engine this can lead to overheat-overspeed failure of the turbo. Another problem is worn-out hydraulic valve adjusters on the four exhaust valves per cylinder of an EMD two-stroke cycle 567 or 645 engine, so the cylinder can't scavenge properly and the fuel doesn't all burn properly, some of it causing carbon deposits in the airbox or exhaust manifold which may eventually ignite into a big conflagration. If broken exhaust valves go too far the pieces might jam in the cylinder and cause major destruction leading to a rod punched through the side of the block.

I was a diesel tech for Union Pacific (years ago) and for a time I was doing failure reports on the engine components that came back to Omaha Shop for rebuilding. 

Component failures are one thing, but it has been a well known fact that GE "Dash 8" and "Dash 9" units would produce those flames out the stack, for 30 min to an hour at a time while ascending Sherman Hill, and there was NO component failures involved. The UP guys laughingly referred to those flames out the stack as "Additional Down Force" for added tractive effort.

The U30C's and C30-7's were good for the 'Downward Force' feature also.  We lit up many a tunnel inFeather RiverCanyon, even torched a couple of pine trees, luckily it was winter.  Aren’t the locomotives featured in the first video a Russian knock off of the Fairbanks Morse?

Greg Elems

I would be most interested to see some additional documentation and technical explanation for the "well known facts", because flames out the stack are not a normal operating condition for any diesel locomotive that is properly maintained. 

Well, you'll have to get THAT sort of information from GE. I do remember it took the GE Engineering Dept. quite some time to "modify" the loading characteristics in order to keep the prime mover from over fueling, especially at altitude. EMD units, going all the way fact to the turbocharged era, had fuel limiting built into the Woodward PG Governor, and beginning with the "Dash 2" model, all turbocharged units had barometric compensation. The EMD units may have smoked a bit at altitude, but didn't light up the countryside (unless there was a slipping clutch in the turbo gear drive system).

Hmmm, EMD didn't think they could put a turbocharger on their 567 engine until Union Pacific showed them how to do it back in 1959.

GE isn't doing too bad now, they outsell EMD and successors by substantial margins.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/m...otive-based.html.csp

GE has a 70 percent share of the U.S. freight-locomotive market, according to James Husband of Virginia-based consultancy RailSolutions Inc. Its chief rival is Electro-Motive Diesel, a former unit of General Motors Co...

And if you continue to believe THAT, I may have some Pacific Ocean beach front property for sale in Arizona!

Hotwater, I stand corrected. Union Pacific started experimenting with turbochargers on GP9's in 1955.

http://www.wplives.org/locomotivepages/wp2001.html

In September of 1955, Union Pacific experimented with adding turbochargers to 2 of their 1750 horsepower GP9's and 1 cabless GP9B at the Los Angeles shops.  In 1959, the UP's Omaha shops added turbos to 20 more GP9's making them "Omaha GP20's".  EMD realized that to remain competitive, they too would have to adopt turbo charging for their next series of locomotives, and the GP20 was added to EMD's catalog.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_GP20

... EMD was initially hesitant to turbocharge their 567-series diesel engine, but was spurred on to do so following successful tests made by Union Pacific in the form of UP's experimental Omaha GP20 units. 260 examples of the EMD's production locomotive model were built for American railroads.

We now return you to your regular program: What happens when you use the wrong smoke fluid: 

quote:

 but it has been a well known fact that GE "Dash 8" and "Dash 9" units would produce those flames out the stack,

That's exactly right Ace.

In my case it was usually a Dash 8 and it usually happened on the notch up from 4 to 5 or even 6. And as H/w said, the only time I ever saw an EMD do such a thing was when some piece of machinery had a catastrophic failure.

Now try to start a cold four axle GE and you'll get smoked out just like the one at the beginning of this story!!!

quote:

That's truly amazing, I wonder how many people have called the Fire Department seeing something like that unfold?

I had it happen to me, twice.

Case #1: A Dash 8 lights up the town of Elkton, Va. right in front of their firehouse! Three miles later the entire fire dept. of the town of Shenandoah is waiting as I enter the yard!!! Quick job lads!

Case #2: After having to set off a working unit for the shifter at Waynesboro, Va., I then needed to start up a dead cold GE four axle unit for power. The smoke was so thick, cars were stopping as they couldn't see the road in front of them!

In the last 6 months I've had a couple CN C40-8Ms that shoot a good amount of flame going from notch 7 to 6. It sure makes the night more interesting!

CN_Hogger

Thanks for the comments Jim. Wondered what you meant by "four-axle GE", what model is that? Because that could mean a lot of different locos over the past 50 years.

I was hoping someone had a technical explanation of what was happening in those cases. Traditionally (on older units) EMD engines could rev faster because the turbocharger was driven by the gear train up to about notch six, or if it was a non-turbo engine the Roots blower is gear-driven all the time. The four-cycle Alcos and GE's had turbo lag that could cause smoking on acceleration because the fuel got ahead of the air supply. Of course the control systems on newer locos are a lot more sophisticated now.

Some locos (particularly older sick locos) had issues from being idled for long periods of time, like over an entire weekend, which could build up a lot of carbon internally, then when the units were powered up they created a lot of smoke or possibly fire out the stack.

It's not too unusual for older diesels to smoke heavily on a cold startup, especially in cold weather and especially if it is a high-mileage engine with poor compression and other problems.

More impressive smoke action with Russian diesel locomotives on "horseshoe curve".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=gjqz96rDu08

Uploaded on May 15, 2008

Thanks Ace. Those 3TE-10x units definitely seem to set the standard for smoke and flame action.  That was also a pretty impressive length log train. 

quote:

Wondered what you meant by "four-axle GE", what model is that?

Take your pick of what NS has had. It doesn't matter, they would all do it when they were dead cold.

I once watched one sit there and hit on only one cylinder for about 10 minutes before a second cylinder decided to warm up enough to ignite. Volcano like black smoke would rise up out of the stack and get sucked back in until a few more cylinders started to hit. By that time you couldn't see the unit. It was an interesting show to watch.

Hey Jim, Thanks for the interesting account of the unspecified 4-axle GE's. My locomotive engine starting experiences are limited to a few dozen six-axle C30-7 and U30C locos which were rarely dead cold cuz the railroad was too busy running trains to let them sit around and cool off that much. Our GE mainline power was mostly later-model C30-7's in good shape (yeah, a few years ago). I inspected and signed for some of the new C30-7 deliveries from Erie. One project that was assigned to me at North Platte was to check start-up reliability of the GE units. (I got the nickname "crank" from that episode). Turned out we had a substantial percentage of degraded batteries that couldn't restart even a warm engine. Those GE's were a little slower to start because they had to build up oil pressure to close the overspeed link to the governor, and they didn't have a manual layshaft like an EMD. UP did an engineering test to put a layshaft on an FDL engine to help speed up the starting, it worked but if a guy wasn't careful you could overspeed the engine that way. I think GE eventually redesigned the overspeed link setup so the engine could start faster. Of course any big diesel is a bear to start from dead cold in cold weather and railroads usually wouldn't risk them sitting around dead if it was going to drop below 40°F, there would be too much risk of major damage because it's not practical to run antifreeze in those engines (long story there). Around 1979 UP initiated a project to put automatic dump valves on the cooling systems to drain the water if it got below 40°F and those were then specified on new locomotives. We lost a few engines in Wyoming a previous winter because some consists died and froze up while waiting for the next crew, no-one bothered to go out and check on them, not their job so you have to put an automatic dump valve on it.

Ive see SEMI's blowing flames out the stacks too.. mainly do to long cold start up..all that fuel sitting in the exhaust when engine fires up. light off and has to go some where..out the pipes for a flame show.

Another thought about the extreme exhaust fire in the original video, maybe they were using the wrong grades of fuel. It reminds me of a story I heard years ago: a guy driving a company truck was seen fueling his truck with diesel and gasoline at the same time. When asked why, he said he "like to see that blue flame out the stack!"

You had me worried.

I just bought a (2nd) Lionel Southern Rwy. Bay Window Caboose. Currently my room is too much of a mess to bring the trains out, even for a tiny oval, but I bought some of MTH's "Barbecue" flavored smoke fluid in the event that I ever roll them out in the near future (and am thinking of getting "Hickory" to mix with it. I REEEALLY wish they'd made some "Mesquite" smoke!).

(As for the 1st Southern B/W, it turns out it was missing more parts than I knew about -- mostly cosmetic, so now that I have 1 complete one, I may sell the other.)

This reminds me of my last request to MTH. Do you know anyone who makes colored smoke fluid? Put a couple of drops in, and you get orange or blue or pink colored smoke when the train is running?

Hi Nicole, Well, my first guess was answered several times about them being Alco powered, but maybe they were using some left over cold war Russian submarine engines. 

Hi Bill,  From what I have discovered so far, these locomotives used a Kharkov 10D100 2-stroke vertically opposed engine giving 2,960hp. This design was copied from the Fairbanks-Morse 38D-10.  In recent years, many of these locomotives (About 8,000 were built.) have been upgraded to use the GE 7FDL engine. 

I used to live right on the joint C&NW/SOO/LS&I iron ore line in Upper Michigan and saw the CNW H 16-66 (so called Baby Trainmasters) tripled headed every day on long ore trains, and never saw them put out the amount of smoke as shown by the Russian locos.  They were eventually replaced by Alco C-628's which smoked more, but still not as much.

BTW, the US Coast Guard still uses FM powered vessels today, their Bay class icebreaking tugs.

Well I never got a Hiroshima looking fireball but... I used to run an Alco S-2 in tourist service.  Instead of the 8-notch throttle design it had an air-slide throttle.  One click to engage the generator if you listened really close and or kept finger on it lightly like to tell if you have bite on your fishing line.  Once you got out of the yard you could feather the throttle between what is normally notch 2 and 3.  What would happen is some unburned fuel would make it through and lay out in the exhauster manifold.  At that point if you pulled back the throttle ... Look at Loretta!!!  That fuel would light off and make the old rattlebox look like a poorly fired steamer.  Impressive but scary.  Also you had a possiblity of starting a forest fire if you were under tree canopy!