Why are diesel locomotives so heavy?

American freight trains are often long, heavy, and drive slowly. So, American diesel locomotives are build for that kind of work. That means they have to be heavy to be able to deliver the tractive effort to pull such trains. Otherwise the wheels would slip on the tracks.



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Diesel engines do not run on glow plugs, they run on diesel fuel which is ignited by the heat of compresion. The glow plugs are only used for starting when it is very cold.

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The life expectancy of diesel-electric and electric locomotives is expected to be similar—about 25 years. Both types of motive power are subject to technological obsolescence.

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As far as I'm aware, there's no legal limit. Passenger trains do not normally exceed 12 cars (around 900 feet, dependent on rolling stock type), but many are much shorter than this.

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It is generally agreed that the largest steam locomotives are the 4-8-8-4 'Big Boys', built by the American Locomotive Company in 1941-44. They are 39.852 m (130.74 ft) long and weigh 508.02 tonnes (1.12 million lb) with tenders.

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The locomotives weigh between 100 and 200 tons (91,000 and 181,000 kilograms) and are designed to tow passenger-train cars at speeds of up to 125 miles per hour (200 kph). Siemens' modern engines produce up to 4,200 horsepower, and the generator can turn this into almost 4,700 amps of electrical current.

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It is the policy of the largest US railroad to shut down engines for fuel conservation. However, besides temperature there are other reasons to leave an engine running. Among these are to preserve a supply of air to the trains air brake system or to ensure the locomotives batteries remain charged.

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Originally Answered: Why does the train shake so much while moving? Because they go really fast on metal tracks. These metal tracks are really long pieces of metal bended and joined end to end. The bending and joining introduces slight disturbances and irregularities in the rail - of the order of few millimetres.

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While the average car engine has about 200 horsepower, locomotive engines typically range from 2,000 to 4,500 horsepower.

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One of the primary reasons railroads use distributed power is to increase the pulling power of the trains as the length and weight also increases. By placing additional locomotives in the middle or at the end, the overall pulling power of the multiple locomotives increases, moving the train efficiently and effectively.

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A Brief History. As wireless technologies advanced in the 1960s, freight railroads began adding extra locomotives to the rear of trains to give them enough power to climb steep hills. This is how distributed power was born.

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The railways use a train detection systems which can tell signallers exactly where every train is and how fast they are going. There are also systems that can automatically stop trains if the driver doesn't take the correct course of action or passes through a red signal.

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