Quote:
Originally Posted by S3RI35
holy moly, this is impressive! Will have to read up more before I can make more of an educated contribution here, but how rapidly is power delivered from these engines? I assume that 4400hp supplied to the driving wheels all at once wouldn't work so well?
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Locomotives use a throttle lever to control power. It ranges from idle to "8th notch" with 8th notch being wide open. Normally a locomotive on its own, or when coupled to one other locomotive/empty freight cars, will start from a dead stop in 1st notch. As speed increases you begin notching up the throttle.
Really, the engine is there just to turn the alternator to power the traction motors. In 8th notch it puts out about 2,400 amps and 1,200 volts.