THE NEW LOCOMOTIVE

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 71, 24 March 1926, Page 11

THE NEW LOCOMOTIVE

». ■ DIESEL-ELECTRIC SYSTEM

TAR MORE ECONOMICAL THAN STEAM.

"The year'l92s will be recorded in the annals of railway transport not only as the centenary of railway construction, but as itself a historical year,; as it witnessed the appearance of an absolutely new type of. railway locomotive in which the steam engine was replaced by a Diesol motor," said Professcr George Lomnossoff, the celebrated Russian railway engineer, to a London '"Morning Post''representative recent ly. :" '■ ■ • ■• -• ■ Professor Lomonossoff is now Professor of the Technological Institute at Kieff; but he has been Under-Secretary for Transport in three successive Russian regimes, the Tsaristy M. Kerpnsky's, and the Soviet. He it was who thought of the Diesel-electric loeome . tive, .which would make more effective use of Russian oil, and also supply transport in large tracts of country Where it was impossible to obtain water suitable for use in a boiler. -Professor Lomonossoff said that isnee the day of Stevenson this was the greatest; victory for his idea of the locomotive as opposed to the' train driven from a central power stalicn. Vhile retaining the ides of the independent steam locomotive, the Diesel locomotive used four to five times less fuel and no water at all. Already during the war small Diesel locomotives of 100-200 h.p. were being built. But real Diesel locomotives for main line service with over 1000 h.p. only appeared in 1925 in Russia and the United States. VARIOUS SYSTEMS TRIED. "Our first Diesel locomotive," continued Professor Lomonossoff, "was built in Germany in 1924, and arrived in Moscow at the end of January, W25. By now this locomotive has been 30,000 miles over various Russian lines. Among other Things, it made three trips to the- Caucasus. In1 the second of these trips we went as far \a Mount Ararat (Erivan),. and ascended altitudes of 6500ft. In this trip the British Charge d'Affaires in Moscow, Sir Robert Hodgson, and the representative of the Foreign Office, Mr. O 'Molly, took part, ... "A second Diesel locomotive, on'the Hackel system, which was built in Leningrad, is now being tested on the Russian railways. In addition, there have been ordered, and are under construction, for the Russian railways, one Diesel locomotive on the' Shelcst system at Armstrong's works, Now-castle-on-Tyne, one in Germany, and several in Russia; all these are of different systems for comparison. In America there is only one large Diesel locomotive, that of the Baldwin Locomotive; Works. The Germans are building two. There are small, although interesting, Diesel locomotives in Italy, "It is interesting to note that the third experimental engine for the Russian State Railways differed-from the others in that the drive is direct, as in the case of a motor-car, and this monster of 1200 horsepower becomes, in fact, the largest motor in tho world. The design for the first employed an electric.drive, the Diesel engine driving a dynftmp^-which in turn supplied electric current, to- electric, motors, which propelled the vehicle, but in the. third'design a three-speed gear-box, is embodied as in an ordinary car." The recent success of a Beardmore Diesel-electric railcar and;' trailer, which crossed the American Continent on the Canadian National Railway at an average- spejed of 52 miles an hour, 'was; mentioned in the motor column of the "Evening Post'' a few weeks ago.