Western Railroad Discussion > OH NO this isn't going to be pretty!!!!!!

This afternoons ,day late, L/M had an assist by the livingston helpers on the headend this afternoon, well when they came out of bozeman tunnel it wasn't a pretty site.

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Majorly smoky!  All engines working, just in need of some maintenance?

Making environmentalists mad since 1833 LOL

casco17 Wrote:
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> Majorly smoky!  All engines working, just in need
> of some maintenance?

Need oxygen to burn diesel cleanly. In a confined space like a tunnel the first 2 or 3 units use it all up and the trailing power is choking on exhaust.

Posted from Android

Darren Boes
Lethbridge, AB
Southern Alberta Railfan

The lead engine exhaust is short of oxygen so the second unit does not run well. That means the exhaust of the second unit is even dirtier than the first. The third unit chockes on the dirty air of the first two and cannot run at full rpm so it sends back carbon filled oxygen starved exhaust. If you are interested enough to go back to the trailing units you might find the units are no where close to 900 rpm and likely only loading a couple hundred amps. This increases the load on the other units dirties up the air in the tunnel even more.

Just another day at work, how is your day going?

Does this tunnel have ventilation fans or a tunnel curtain?

Maybe someone could invent an engine with..say...air intakes that are down by the engine floor...that could get more fresh air...Maybe take a standard enngine and modify it for tunnel use, and add a T to the model number?   Nah.  It'll never happen.

Assume abandoned tunnnel in #1 is ex MILW...nice shots, ty...SHM

Posted from Android

What's the old tunnel's history--the one to the right??

Portal on the right is the original NP bore under Bozeman Pass. It was replaced by the new bore in the '50s. That old tunnel was reused for fiber optic cables buried in it's floor.

steeplecab

Not long enough for either. It wouldn't have been as smokey if the helpers had been on the rear of the train.



gonx Wrote:
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> Does this tunnel have ventilation fans or a tunnel
> curtain?

This is Bozeman Pass which the MILW avoided by running north of here through Sixteen Mile canyon instead.





the_expediter Wrote:
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> Assume abandoned tunnnel in #1 is ex MILW...nice
> shots, ty...SHM
>
> Posted from Android

pdt Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Maybe someone could invent an engine
> with..say...air intakes that are down by the
> engine floor...that could get more fresh
> air...Maybe take a standard enngine and modify it
> for tunnel use, and add a T to the model
> number?   Nah.  It'll never happen.

One of the mexican roads got SD70ACes with eliphant ears on them a few years ago...

junctiontower Wrote:
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> pdt Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Maybe someone could invent an engine
> > with..say...air intakes that are down by the
> > engine floor...that could get more fresh
> > air...Maybe take a standard enngine and modify
> it
> > for tunnel use, and add a T to the model
> > number?   Nah.  It'll never happen.
>
> One of the mexican roads got SD70ACes with
> eliphant ears on them a few years ago...

That would be Ferrosur. Have shots of them on NS at New Haven In wrote to delivery from Muncie. Ben

Posted from Android

pdt Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Maybe someone could invent an engine
> with..say...air intakes that are down by the
> engine floor...that could get more fresh
> air...Maybe take a standard enngine and modify it
> for tunnel use, and add a T to the model
> number?   Nah.  It'll never happen.

Let's call it a "tunnel motor"!

TJY

First trains ran through New Bozeman Tunnel on July 28, 1945.  For many Ron Nixon photos of construction and initial operations, go to http://www.morphotoarchive.org/rvndb/ and search for location = Muir.  Then look at pages 6 and 7 of the search results.  

ns2557 Wrote:
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> junctiontower Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > pdt Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > Maybe someone could invent an engine
> > > with..say...air intakes that are down by the
> > > engine floor...that could get more fresh
> > > air...Maybe take a standard enngine and
> modify
> > it
> > > for tunnel use, and add a T to the model
> > > number?   Nah.  It'll never happen.
> >
> > One of the mexican roads got SD70ACes with
> > eliphant ears on them a few years ago...
>
> That would be Ferrosur. Have shots of them on NS
> at New Haven In wrote to delivery from Muncie. Ben
>
>
> Posted from Android

Probably sitting in the same spot I got my pictures!

pdt Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Maybe someone could invent an engine
> with..say...air intakes that are down by the
> engine floor...that could get more fresh
> air...Maybe take a standard enngine and modify it
> for tunnel use, and add a T to the model
> number?   Nah.  It'll never happen.

Thought I remember reading someone once posting that the tunnel motor design actually didn't really help improve things much...or actually made things worse in desert conditions...? Might explain why not many were actually built in the grand scheme of things?

Tunnel motors brought cooling air for the radiators from a lower level. Combustion air still came from high on the carbody close to the cab.

Electrification is the solution no one wants to pay for.

BNSF, KC to LA, by the time you add the overhead, the motive power, and the additional generating capacity shouldn't be much over
$50B, about half the CAHSR total.

Out