1st question:
To the railroads I don't think these were "minor details".
Don't know all the details, I'm not a machinist, although
if you want real facts I could have a machinist answer
this.
I do know that the 567B had problems with the coolant
distribution to the assemblies. The 567BC addressed some
of these issues with extra seals and water lines. The
567C pretty much eliminated the problem.
It is my understanding that a 567B block can not be upgraded
by installing 645 assemblies. A 567BC can be with some kind
of adapter parts and a 567C can be changed to 645C in a fairly
straight forward manner.
[When BN sent GP5's, GP9's, and GP18's to Morrison-Knudsen for
the GP28M portion of their large program of the late 80's there
were four of the GP5's that still had 567B blocks. BN had to
send four 567C blocks to Boise to compensate for that problem]
2nd question:
Probably not. The question is a complicated one and there is
no simple answer. We are talking economics, shop loads, and
the loss of service time in this question.
Early in the process of dieselization units were shopped in a
similar manner to the way they did steam locomotives. Bring it
into a shop, strip it down, and fix everything that needed to
be fixed. This was time consuming because a fair amount of the
shop time was spent with the unit just sitting there while
various components were being refurbished.
The railroads could see this and after a while that practice
was ended or modified. Inventories of blocks, main generators,
traction motors, or whatever started to be maintained at major
shops. Work areas were set up where these components could be
overhauled on an assembly line basis.
With this system in place units coming in for overhaul just got
replacements for whatever component that needed to be fixed, or
would have a general changeout of all major components without
even an assessment of need. This was the fast way to do it but it
did mean that all this stuff did get mixed up and there was not
always any effort made to replace in kind. What made it even more
complicated was that the railroads bought stuff from companies
that scrapped locomotives to fill out the component pool and keep
that overhaul assembly line working as intended.
Since many of these blocks are interchangeable, by the late 70's
just knowing that a unit was a particular model did not always
tell you what block was inside. This was not always a process
of upgrading. About four or five years ago Topeka put a 567D1
block in a GP30 replacing a 645E block.
Could go on and on about this process but I'll shut up now.
Russ
----- Original Message -----
From: wollffee
To: BRHSlist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, 10 November, 2003 19:07
Subject: [BRHSlist] Re:Did they blow up all the 567 turbo motors?
Bill, thanks. I would be interested to know the changes that
occurred when the 567 went from "B" configuration to "C". Were these
just minor details? Did all the 567's get upgraded to whatever the
current model was, when they went in for maintenance?
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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