(erielack) Tractive effort and loading characteristics

[Christopher Thurner <crthurner_@_yahoo.com>]

Listers:

A great thread and very informative responses from our 'in-the-know' members who attended prestigious institutions such as Stevens Tech and Penn State.  You've removed a lot of the 'fog' from a topic I knew little about and obviously didn't understand until now.

I've read in many other publications and heard from former engineers that the EMD's loaded quicker and the GE / Alco's loaded slower, but were better luggers.  I don't doubt this at all, both from the assertions of the people who operated them and the technical people who explain why this is so.   One oddity I find, is, that at first glance it seems counter-intuitive.  It would seem to be the opposite, as one would surmise that EMD's expertise would be in favor of the prime-mover, given that its part of GM.  Likewise, one would expect GE's to load faster, given GE's core expertise was / is in electrical components, not the prime mover (remember Alco's used GE electronics / electrical components, albeit that after GE became serious about building road units before the release of the U25b, Alco was then relegated to receiving GE's second rate components, as GE reserved its newest and best for their units - another factor in both the demise of Alco and why Centuries weren't friendly to mechanical depts.).  

Now, I also realize that a significant factor that can override this is the design objectives of the builder.  Maybe GE / Alco's design priorities were to build a superior puller and EMD's to build a racehorse.

Can anyone on the list shed any light on this?

Regards,

Chris Thurner

 



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