I had a golden opportunity to visit
Hubli (UBL) Loco Shed. It was a new facility to maintain EMD designed locos
for IR that were deployed to haul heavy coal trains over Braganza Ghat.
Needless to say, this facility has
proven to be successful in maintaining these sophisticated locos performing heavy
duty chorus, day in and day out.
Shri Marker and Shri Lawrence. These two Loco Inspectors spent two days with me to help me understand
operations in Braganza Ghat.
One of the first few locomotives in military camouflage.
Engine block. I like them with oil stains rather than in spotless, showroom
condition. Stains mean this engine block has earned it's living.
In 1980, EMD introduced the Q-fan across the domestic model line in order to comply with the reduction in loco wayside noise required by EPA regulations and enforced by an FRA regulation. The prior fans had the motor supported on radial struts from the fan frame that were on the inlet side of the fan. This caused a siren effect.
The Q-fan inverted the fan construction so that the motor support struts are located on the discharge side of the fan, which eliminates the siren effect and makes the fan noise more of a white noise. The Q-fan has 12 spots equally spaced on the fan hub where blades can be bolted but the motor is only powerful enough to handle 9 blades so no fans with more than 9 blades are used.
You can clearly see the spacer between the groups of two adjacent blades showing that there are 12 spaces for blades to mount. In the background you can see part of a DC dynamic brake grid fan with the motor hanging below the fan hub/blades.
This is dynamic brake grid fan. It is resting on it's motor. This fan also can
be seen in top right background of Q-fan used over radiators.
Space under radiators reminds me of Tunnel motors (Locos) designed for Southern
Pacific. Hot exhaust gases in tunnels caused cooling problems so air intake in
Tunnel Motors was designed in this fashion. Check http://tinyurl.com/5pshmq
for more details on Tunnel Motors.
Alternator and gears used for driving turbo. At low RPM, turbo is driven by
gears and later exhaust flow takes over that job.
Engine
Lube oil filter
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