The Dominance of General Electric Transportation | Innovation and Persistence | History in the Dark
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 มิ.ย. 2024
- General Electric Transportation became the principle manufacturer of American locomotives over the tail-end of the 20th century. In a market once dominated by EMD, GE managed to remain consistent and push EMD to the point of being only a brand name. GE remains in the top spot in terms of the industry's market share to this day.
0:00 - Intro
1:25 - Formation
5:10 - Early Locomotives
11:11 - Going Solo
14:19 - Modern Day
"GE Transportation is a division of Wabtec. It was known as GE Rail and owned by General Electric until sold to Wabtec on February 25, 2019. The organization manufactures equipment for the railroad, marine, mining, drilling and energy generation industries. The company was founded in 1907. It is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, while its main manufacturing facility is located in Erie, Pennsylvania. Locomotives are assembled at the Erie plant, while engine manufacturing takes place in Grove City, Pennsylvania.[2] In May 2011, the company announced plans to build a second locomotive factory in Fort Worth, Texas, which opened in January 2013."
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#history #truestory #documentary
That GG1 locomotive is my all time favorite electric locomotive. Lovely lines- a true work of art. Only one close to the GG1 in looks would be the EW class of NZR. Both these worked really well too, for their respective railroads
back in the 80's GE had the slogan of "We Bring Good Things To Life". my Dad, who was in the Air National Guard at the time, had a t-shirt with that slogan and a picture of the M61 Vulcan cannon underneath it.
5:53 "The boxcab, for it's size, is the most powerful switcher to roll"
And the boxcab, are the powers behind the yards and railways that make up The General Electric Transportation System.
@@harrisonallen651 This... is OIL-ELECTRICS
I love the East Broad Top M-1 cameo as the doodlebug, The M-1 was made on site in Rockhill Furnace PA using a gas engine from Brill originally designed for airships.
If you take in consideration that most freight trains are multiple units, battery powered locomotives could be considered as the hybrid component of the consist. Considering that most of the time diesel locomotives run on low power, you can swap several diesel locomotives for battery ones in the consist. Cruising, the diesel locomotive runs harder and the battery ones just chill and low power recharge. Uphill and starting up, the batteries can pull very hard. Downhill batteries can recharge real quick while dinamic braking (instead of wasting energy via the resistor banks). But either way, American railroads need to seriously start looking into deploying some wires.
Or just wire
It's 2023, ALL of the electrification difficulty were already overcome, those thing is not magical alien technology AT ALL. The company (and whole government) just don't dare to burn their money for this
This makes some sense, I think most locomotives generate more power than they need, this is why there are slugs. Why not build an electric slug that is full of batteries, or possibly batteries and an engine. You could use one locomotive to charge the batteries on 2 or 3 electric slugs, along with dynamic braking charging.
Then when needed the electric slugs could either power the electric motor in the main locomotive and/or in the electric slug . We wouldn't need to deploy wires on every track in the US.
@@chrisbrown4570 those supposed electrical money can be used for adding another lane on interstate highway too
GE did offer to finance the Milwaukee Road expanding their electrification in the 1970s, but the Milwaukee Road declined the offer! I really don’t know what that was about.
... expense and maintenance. Consider how much infrastructure you'll need for those electrified lines, the maintenance of all those lines, and all the _off-rail accidents/incidents_ that would occur.
It would also not solve the 'last mile' problem that was rearing its head at the time after the monopoly that rail had was broken by viable cars and aircraft.
*I've been looking forward to this!*
My favorite diesel unit builder is finally gonna get a spotlight!
Too bad GE didn’t build the frames for the GG1 as well.
We might’ve had GG1 locomotives for a couple more years if the frames lasted as long as the GE electric bits did.
Nothing against Baldwin though, the GG1 frames did their job and no one expected to run a GG1 for 49 years.
The type of power used where GG-1s ran (former Pennsy territory) was changed and the GG-1s weren't compatible.
Very informative video my family actually has a air conditioner made by general electric
We need more electric trains that carry freight. The south shore line railroad does it
Odd how In the early days it was Edison vs. Westinghouse. Now a division of GE is owned by Westinghouse.
Electrification does pose issues, very long distances over sometimes challenging terrain, never mind the cost of materials and voltage drop, might be viable in a high traffic corridor with short distances. You'd need a really high catenary for autoracks and double stack containers.
Wabtec (WABCO) and Westinghouse Electric are different companies. The latter was broken up and sold (much like GE recently) and became a media company under the CBS name, which merged with Viacom. The transportation division of Westinghouse Electric (West Mifflin, Pennsylvania) sold off to AEG in 1989, later Daimler-Benz and AdTranz and now Bombardier/Alstom.
I even though i dont really care with modern GE stuffs, im looking forward to this
Diesel locomotives in general are nothing more than self-propelled generators. But the ease of maintenance with a diesel prime mover is the reason why they continue to dominate the rails and trucking industry.
The real reason they dominate is that we don't have a more efficient way to move more weight. Look at container ships, and long haul trucks. There is no better way to move large weight!
That's true. Freight by rail is the most efficient way of shipping bulk goods long distances in the one go. Though in terms of prime movers, I honestly think we'll be using Diesel for another century. Yes, there are other alternatives. But diesel has always been a more practical choice. @@Tipman2OOO
Diesel exist because the cost to install overhead is expensive... However the Class 1's won't bear the full cost anyhow in any electrification scheme.. Also straight electrics are cheaper to maintain than diesels and can replace them on a 2:1 basis or more..
now im still waiting for that werkspoor episode
My favorite GE locomotives are the AC4400CW, U23B and the P30CH'S.
Don’t forget GE made motors for subway cars the PCC cars the trackless trolley buses I restored a four car subway set build by Pullman Car Company Chicago Illinois these cars were the Boston El Railway # 0500 thru # 0547 built in 1923/1924 these cars ran until 1980 GE built 8 new motors for these cars so GE can have the old ones dating from 1923/1924 this was for a major railroad show in Boston Massachusetts the Seashore Trolley Museum in Maine now has a 4 car train from the MBTA on display
The 01800 series on the Red Line were the last with GE equipment and among few cars with GE's AC traction equipment (an early 90s GTO system).
I can understand why GE isn't really dabbling with electric locomotives.
1. Their diesel products are still selling well, and there's limited competition.
2. Due to the limited amount of electrified railroads here in the US, they haven't made any electric locomotives in 40 years. (From what I've read, the last ones--the E60s--were fairly problematic.)
3. Barring a seismic change in American railroads (either internal, or external), the expansion of electrifying railroads seems meager at best.
Granted, this is eerily reminiscent of the complacent thinking that other locomotive manufacturers had, and it didn't end well for them.
Let's hope GE can learn from their mistakes
The big difference for the locomotive manufacturers is that what is needed to make a good freight service diesel-electric locomotive is mostly also useful for building a good freight-service electric locomotive. It doesn’t help the railroads much, though.
@@JohnGeorgeBauerBuis it also doesn't solve things like the 'Last Mile' problem or the fact that electrification is very costly both in the short and long term...
The idea of a battery locomotive actually make sense in a hybrid system, where this locomotive replaces one or two of the disels in the fleet. Actually what would make it even better is if you could then decouple the trucks from the locomotive and have either locomotive run both sets of wheels when possible.
It's not hybrid
It's just dumb battery charged locomotive
Even in the modern day, the difference is night and day between EMD and Wabtec. EMD sells engines and thats it nothing else after that. Wabtec will sell the engine, offer trade ins, bring it back on the house to fix an issue, rebuild engines. They are such a great company to work with. Even out here in the west, they brought 2 of these c45s out to Donner Pass and put one in run 8 and one in Brake 8 and pulled and pushed eachother through the big hole, our 2 mile long 2% grade tunnel to max out there computers and push them to the limit then took them back and built locomotives that can handle those conditions. And if you ask any Railroader on class 1s, they will always tell you a GE is better then any EMD
The video misses the export diesel-electric models -like the U12, U13 and U18-, which where test beds to the latter succeful US models
Would be cool to see a Video about Siemens doings on the US market, as they’re now trying to compete with the others.
This will be interesting !
Can you do a video on Union Pacific
Well done Darkness!
At some point, you should discuss Beyer Peacock & Co. and H.K. Porter Inc. Those don’t get as much attention
Yeah I honestly find there are a lot of issues with batteries. Where with having the lines above there are also issues on height restrictions also most people will say they would be an eye sore. If the western companies learn from the European and Asian using the wires they will profit from what they have. Honestly they can phase the lines to have the wires to then go full electrical where they can use engines like the GG1 that engine reading up on it was ahead of its time and strong and reliable. But I think the companies are only thinking on the now picture now and not long term.
That model doesn't work as well in America because we have spawling miles upon miles of track spread everywhere. The county is thousands of miles wide, and nearly as big north to south! The geography is very different in Europe and Asian countries!
India's had no problem running double stacks under wires (even double-stacking high-cubes).
@@Tipman2OOO Indian railways are mostly electrified and are fairly similar in scale to US. If India can do it then the US could. Some stats: India's land area is ~40% that of the lower 48 states and its rail network is ~26% the size of the US's. Currently ~86% of India's rail network is electrified while only about 1% of the US rail network is.
It’s nice to know that someone else thinks like me.
God bless you,,,you science education original ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
I've been waiting for this one 😂
Ironic GE Transportation is owned by GE's other major Competitor Westinghouse XD
I was surprised that there wasn’t further discussion of that. Perhaps we’ll hear more in a video about Wabtec/Morrison-Knudsen.
Thanks cobber.
Great vid! Agree; don’t understand why US railroads don’t electrify at least steep uphill grades as electricity must be cheaper than diesel; Example: Cajón Pass in CA, Rawlings, WY to the Divide, etc., resume diesel on flatter terrain. Battery locomotives would be best if the batteries sat in a dedicated rail car sandwiched between locomotives. Florida East Coast runs a CNG unit with the fuel in a dedicated car between two locos. You stated EMD is owned by Caterpillar, who gave up on commercial (semis, etc) road going Diesel engines over emissions regulations; surely GE/Westinghouse “read the tea leaves”. Just like “no more gas stoves in houses and restaurants”!!
CAT ended over the road engines to expand it product range. There was more profit in building a complete consumer ready product. So buying a locomotive manufacture fits their business model.
Sweet
Did GE ever get into building / supplying electric commuter train/subways/trolly or streetcars?
In case America would electrify their Rail roads the competition from Europe etc, that have a lot experience with that type of locos would be huge.
With the overall "cleanliness" of modern diesels fuels for land based diesels my theory is....
Actually, im pretty sure the whole of diesels compared to the whole of gasoline vehicles on earth, id say the diesels actually pollute less, ESPECIALLY if your using more Biofuels. (Sans ships that still run alot of Bunker-C as far as i am aware.) Also diesel locomotives are INCREDIBLY fuel efficiant.
In highly populated areas thats a different story.... unless your running them on things such a propane or natural gas like alot of the diesel city busses ive seen and ridden do.
AND..... in large cities i doubt theres enough diesel locomotives in the urban envirement to make a real dent in overall pollution levels.
Never thought General Electrics would also manufacture other electronics rather than locomotives
GE is also a big player in the world of passenger aircraft jet engines. And yes since 2015 they also have a Marine division.
GE has its hands in many products most of us are not even aware of, but electric power generation and propulsion engines are its bread and butter.
The cost and maintenance of running wires over top of every foot of railroad track in Americs makes it highly cost prohibitive. Siemens is very interested in entering the class 1 locomotive market and rumor has it they are interested in buying the EMD name and tooling from CAT, this will be huge for American railroading if it happens.
And yet the Milwaukee Road ran a long distance electric track
@@BlueBird1377 and went broke.
So, are we UKIST's going to get English Electric, Brush and Birmingham Railway and Carriage Works videos? (Brush made bus bodies! Good ones!)
70%of the market.95% of the turbo fires😅
🚂🔥
They never did manage to keep those turbos from bursting into flame.
Wabtec shareholders own 50.8%, with GE shareholders owning 24.3% and GE itself owning 24.9%
I feel like railroads should be incentivized to expand and take more freight off the road.
Imagine a battery locomotive fire. There's no way to put it out, just get some popcorn!
Probably have to double up on buffer cars.
I got an ad for Train Sim World.
April 2, 2024:
General Electric shuts down after 132 years
The problem with electrification in the US is that outside of a handful of corridors, they're not only maintenance nightmares but also too expensive. In addition, for a good portion of US history, it had a very diversified field of power companies until the government allowed them to merge (and let's not forget the ungodly mess that Texas is). That would mean paying something along the lines of a _dozen_ different companies to power their lines.
Especially since the car started to explode in the 1920s and the late 1940s onward...
TLDR it's not technical, it's just all about money
It is time
I wonder how much pressure the US oil companies exerted on the railways not to electrify, but go the diesel route. Isnt it amazing that although diesel is a cheaper and easier product to produce, it is still more expensive that gasoline. I wonder why.
On diesel prices: Supply and demand. It's cheaper to produce, but gasoline is a consumer product while diesel practically runs every industry in the country.
The SD90 was only bad because EMD rushed it, there was actually nothing wrong with the 265H
The Upfront cost of electrification what's the great distance of American railroads is prohibitive.
Not to mention the sheer _maintenance_ costs of such work. Good god, the maintenance. The US rail companies keep their lines unelectrified because of maintenance costs. _Cargo-grade_ rail is already expensive in terms of maintenance, and they regularly run them into the ground. Now, imagine the added complication of electrical wiring added into the mix.
Counterpoint: Russia China India and the Milwaukee Road
@@gonzoengineering4894
State sponsored railroads and didn't the Milwaukee road go bankrupt.
@@calvingreene90 The MR's tailspin into bankruptcy had more to do with the fact that they made the bone headed decision to de-electrify in order to skimp on maintenence and cash in on record copper prices. That wasn't really the driving force behind their closure but it certainly accelerated the destruction.
Their example is just one of several case studies proving that private corporations cannot be trusted with a public good like rail infrastructure
Who built the turbine engines in UP's Big Blows?
I can't imagine ALCO building a turbine engine. I would think ALCO probably built the tender engines.
You left out the prototype coal slurry diesel.
Would you be surprised if they somehow bought EMD?
Europe is emd for diesel freight
GE SHOULD get into nationalizing the railroad with electrification! Creating their own generation plants that double to electrify the railroads as well as investing into researching the electrification of highways in conjunction with the electric vehicle industrial complex. This way, they can own and innovate at the same time, taking them to new heights! And why not bring back the E44s and eat everyone's lunch at the diesel table? Or maybe a new class of evolutions and call them ES44AC-E, ES40DC-E, etc...?? Anyone else care to discuss?
... have you seen the US? You'll have to basically get rid of car ownership for rail electrification outside of a handful of corridors in the US. Those electrical lines are going to be car accident magnets at best...
@@TheTrueAdeptputting short gaps over roads with unusually tall vehicles would almost completely solve the collision hazard. The need to average three or four trains per hour to recover the costs would be the bigger obstacle.
@@JohnGeorgeBauerBuis you poor, poor soul, expecting that doing that would help things out, forgetting the average American driver.
If you want to electrify the rails, you'll need to put wire in the country, which means that they're going to be magnets for trouble.
@TheTrueAdept I realize the entire infrastructure is an absolute mess. But if you're thinking what I think you're thinking, it is plausible to (at railroad crossings) have catenary gaps that would allow for the passage of taller vehicles like trucks and busses. That way, when a train does approach, it could temporarily lower its pantagraphs to clear the crossing. The momentum alone could assist in the process.
@TheTrueAdept the average American driver wouldn't be affected, at least not yet. We know there's a finite supply of oil, we just don't know how far into the future fossil fuels can actually carry the world. But how would that affect the railroads? With respect to crossings and overpasses, both road and rail generally don't really interfere with each other. The true issue is land acquisition. With sooooo many nimby's scattered about ( not-in-my-back-yard), the railroads would, in many places, need a secondary paralleling line (where permissible) to offset the areas that have singular trackage.
Siemens anyone?
I hope I'm not the only one looking at the factory pic in the thumbnail & thinking: Modern Marvels Freight Trains episode?! P.S. The EPA clearly have their heads in the clouds because I thought being a car/truck enthusiast was bad right now, but now their trying to ruin the railroads, GREAT!
The railroads are ruining the railroads. They need to suck up and get those catenaries built.
Also, railroad managements for Class-1 railroads is trash. All they care about is money rather than stability, and also not knowing how to run railroads, among a ton more stupid issues as to why US railroads will not electrify their lines. I know that deep down, EMD and GE want it to happen so badly and just as much as the other does.
I find it interesting GE’s downfall (kind of) is from two factors, the EPA and PSR.
I’m not going to saying the EPA is destroying Diesels with very strict Tier Emission, they way I look it, they just look too ambitious, once you go beyond Tier 3.
As for PSR, what could I about PSR that already hasn’t been said.
I haven't heard anything about psr. Enlighten me.
What's PSR
@@fanofeverything30465 Precision Scheduled Railroading
@@NitroFury Thanks 😊
@@fanofeverything30465it’s only scheduled with precision in name, and that’s the problem.
Well it's sad That GE gets to dominate the locomotive manufacturering and not our good buddy EMD.
What happened with EMD is reminiscent of what happened with the car/truck divisions of General Motors.
Yeah You're right but someone has to buy EMD from Progress Rail and make EMD great again.
@@NarodowyPolski1864maybe Siemens will buy the whole division.
If you make locomotives, one bad product and you're done. If you make electric guitars on the other hand...
... it becomes iconic for its "tone" and "quirkiness" and guitarists formulate go-arounds to make them usable!
Batteries are for railroads who are too afraid of good ideas
Ge got rid of ge transportation because they were sick of the labor headache in Erie,pa. They essentially pawned the problem off to Wabtec
I think most of this is because of them being pissed off by ALCo in the 40s
GE has never put out competitive or desirable consumer products since I've been around. I was surprised at the huge multi billion dollar annual income you reported for GE. In jet engines they were till recently only known for producing small niche engines mostly for helicopters. The GE ES44AC locomotives are very main stream locomotives that meet tear 4 USA EPA Diesel off-road emission standards. They do a lot right, but the EMD SD70MACs have better performing trucks and are considered better at mountain service than the GEs.
Putting up and maintaining a catenary is very expense and very dangerous to humans. It can be done within safety, but it is defiantly not cheaper than running good diesel electric locomotives. Without having to worry about emissions such as in tunnels even diesel fueled jet turbines might be a better solution than installing HSR catenary for their high power density able to approach the power delivery of a catenary.
Battery boost for all these electric locomotives is very attractive especially when the batteries can be changed from regenerative braking that mostly goes to waist when it it fed into the catenary. Battery boost charged from regenerative breaking could jump a passenger train back up to 120 mph where it is making good time after which the catenary could accelerate it back to HSR speeds of 186 mph - 220 mph or higher. Battery boost hasn't been incorporated yet. Battery boost acceleration would be especially beneficial to ICE Diesel locomotives.
GE is not like FM, because Fairbanks morses' engines actually worked and didn't go up in flames if you looked at them funny
One thing you guys don’t know my family has a oven and a dishwasher made by you knew it
General Electric
Hey Darkness, maybe before you run your mouth about truck emisions you should check your facts. Caterpillar no longer produces a highway truck motor because of emision standards.
Batteries suck.
Watch a lot of your videos but trucks get goods to the customer from the trains and we sure don't have a electric grid for all electric anything they are pushing these days
Right I keep telling this to people but they think technology is going to somehow make a magic leap and get way better way quicker just because they dream it. Sorry, someone has to actually make it, can't just imagine it into existence!
@@Tipman2OOOPrehabs you could do it?
I still prefer coal fired steam locomotives. They’ll outperform your electrics ten to one in any competition.
DOWN WITH THE WIRES, UP WITH THE COAL!!!!!
Now then, who wants some cake?
Cake is good.
The EPA is garbage
I cannot stand the YELLING !!!!!!!! Do NOT DO THAT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!