| Posted by Miguel on January 4, 2018 | |
Ugh, I don't know why DC traction is still around. AC is the way to go. Those SD60M's couldn't pull a bag of groceries without having something go wrong. When I was firing we still ran SD40's and 45's and they were AWFUL! I know people love them on the flat, but on heavy grade they gave us nothing but problems. Worst of all their dynamics were basically worthless so we used air for everything. Now we're running almost exclusively GE AC power and they are sweet. They can pull anything in any conditions and their dynamic brakes actually work. You put them into Set-Up and the train already starts bunching up. On an EMD you basically have to go to Brake 5 or 6 just to get ANY feedback. Like I said: worthless. A big reason why trains today are so much longer and heavier is because today's power is light years better than what we had before.
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