Germany’s definitive high-speed diesel locomotive, the V200, appeared in 1953, three years after the black-over-red VW Samba. Coincidence? It was a bit better powered than the VW bus, packing two high-speed turbocharged (1500 rpm) V12 diesels by either Daimler-Benz or Maybach, which gave it a top speed of 140 kmh (85 mph). That was in fourth gear. Yup; these were not diesel-electric locomotives, but sent their power through a torque converter and four mechanical gears, a system called “Mekhydro” for mechanical-hydraulic.
Contrary to popular belief, American diesel locomotives aren’t diesel-electric because it’s the most efficient way to transfer the engines’ power to the wheels, but because it’s simpler, more familiar, and requires less service, although the V200 did have an excellent reliability rep. And the diesel-electric drive allows better control of slippage, especially with modern electronic controls. That’s a critical function on take-off with today’s super-power locomotives.
Actually, there were two distinct versions of drive systems. Maybach supplied the Mekhydro, with a single torque converter and four mechanical gears, power-shifter automatically. Voith supplied a more complex (and smoother-shifting) “Turbo” transmission that incorporated three different torque converters in a rather complex arrangement.
The V200 wasn’t the first (or last) of this series of modern German diesel hydraulic-mechanical locomotives. But it was the most popular, perhaps in part to it’s VW bus styling. And the Voith transmission didn’t just stay in Germany either.
In 1960, the V200′s builder, Krauss-Maffai, built a larger 4000 hp locomotive using the Voith Turbo transmission and two Maybach V16 engines, targeting the US market specifically. The ML 4000 was much more powerful than the typical US diesel-electric locomotive, and stunned the industry. Southern Pacific and the Denver & Rio Grande Western were the first customers.
They didn’t do so well in the mountainous stretches, but served reliably on the flats, with only one recorded failure. ALCO also built a locomotive with the Voith transmission, the DH643. But EMD (GM) and GE got the message, and quickly turned out more powerful diesel-electric locomotives. The KM’s were soon phased out, as the railroads preferred to keep maintenance simple and around one (familiar) technology.
Oh, and the V200 had a little railroading brother too.
I suppose it depends on where one hails from, but to me, American design – appearance-wise at least, was the greatest. European design to me, has always come off as being odd-ball in every respect, but the circumstances are 180° apart. Where else but overseas did you see tank engines on mainline trains as normal?
For the record, I hate “Thomas the Tank Engine”…
Still, there is something beautiful about those old machines, foreign or domestic, that can’t, for some reason, be duplicated.
American engines look odd to me. Everything is on the outside, like they have had their skin removed.
It reminds me a bit of the GM Futurliner.
Why would you hate ‘thomas the tank engine’. The first decade was very good children’t television, the modelling on display was wonderful, too.
Besides, why is a grown man even watching????
BTW: that last picture of the VW Bus on the rails is cute and already on my wallpaper.
Because they replaced Ringo Starr!
@fastback:
No, I don’t watch “Thomas”, but I loved the “Teletubbies”…to understand this, just read Orwell’s “1984″, then it all makes perfect sense…
Little bro has the brightest lights ever seen on a Kombi, Cool story
This is fascinating, I never knew the diesel-hydraulics ever made it to such high power. Lots of details on this drive system in general and V200 and ML 4000 in particular in the Wikipedia.
Surely somebody somewhere stuck a great big round VW on the nose of a V200. That’s too cool.
How about dynamic braking? Can the diesel-hydraulic handle massive engine braking, without cooking the fluid or the whole drive train? That’s another advantage of diesel-electric.
Good point about the engine braking. Germany’s mountainous railroads were electrified very early, so their diesels were used mainly in flat lands, and not an issue there.
But that may explain in part why the very mountainous DRG&W wasn’t happy with theirs, and why SoPac took them off their grades and used them only on flat routes.
I don’t know the proper answer, though, to what extent they used any engine braking.
Just in the interest of accuracy, it was the “Denver and Rio Grande Western”, D&RGW.
Thanks; fixed.
Thanks Paul, I owned an N scale V200 and it was my single piece of DB equipment. One of the coolest designs in railroading, right up there with Nigel Gresley’s steam designs and the wonder liners of America.
I forgot to mention that I had no less than two Marklin V200s; my Godfother sent them from Austria, and he must have lost track. I really wanted a Crocodile, but no, here comes another V200. But they were beautiful, in die cast metal; old school marklin.
Good stuff, I never got my hands on any Marklin stuff sadly.
A few years ago I went on the train from Queenstown to Strahan in Tasmania, which took copper ore from the mine to the harbour. Part of the track features a rack railway to climb a very steep grade, the topography and climate were quite challenging for the operation to say the least!
Back in the 1950′s they replaced a steam train with a diesel that was mechanical drive with a 5speed gearbox and clutch. It didn’t work, as it simply couldn’t haul as much weight as the steam train, and the diesel was relegated to the flatter section below the rack while the steam loco was brought back into service for the top section.
D&RGW tried using the Krauss-Maffei on their mountain grades–they were a total failure; the drag freights burned up the hydraulic transmissions.
So does this mean the start of Trackside Classics? If so, can we have my favorite DB locomotive next, the V160/216? They’re still running around here in Germany and I was able to snap some pictures of a 218 working in Lindau recently.
We’ve done a few before, and we’ll do more. I should probably stick more to American locomotives, but if you want to share your finds, you could post them to the CC Cohort page: http://www.flickr.com/groups/1648121@N23/pool/, or if you want to write up a text to go with the pictures, send them to me at the Contact form.
Thanks, Paul.
haha this cool train inspiration from vw bus