(Lead photo by Dan Kohler) A runaway diesel is a scary enough situation in a regular motor vehicle, as we’ve shown numerous times before. But a runaway diesel locomotive engine is far and away a much more frightening thought. In order to shut down a runaway diesel, you have to constrict the airflow to cut off the oxygen that is keeping the motor alive…but how do you do that when the air intake is bigger than a queen-sized mattress? The answer, in short, is not easily. That was the situation that faced the engineer of a Norfolk Southern General Electric C44-9W on October 21, 2013.
The train was coming through Dunkirk, New York when the turbo diesel decided to reach for the heavens. It may not sound that high up the tachometer, but for a diesel this big it’s spinning well into the stratosphere. What is surprising is the pace at which the engineer calmly steps out of the nose of the prime mover once the locomotive goes from “smokeshow” to “flamethrower”. Local fire crews monitored the engine and performed fire prevention measures until it burned up all of it’s oil and presumably seized. The next morning the locomotive was towed off by another Norfolk Southern engine. While we cannot find the specific cause of this incident we’re going to speculate that an oil seal on one of the massive turbochargers failed and when that happens the engine runs on the oil that is literally being force fed from the turbo into the intake tract. The fire? Well we’re going to guess that was unburnt oil igniting in the exhaust that was reaching roughly the temperature of the sun by the time this whole thing was over and done with.
As mentioned above, the revs aren’t that high in comparison to a three cylinder Fiesta, but when we’re talking a massive 12/16/24 cylinder diesel with bores large enough to be used for crew sleeping quarters, the scale is completely different. This phone call, while not the fault of the engineer’s must have been rough to make. “Yeah boss…about that vacation time I requested?”
PRESS PLAY BELOW TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A BIG DIESEL GOES HARI-KARI ON THE TRACKS –
Runaway automotive diesels are scary, but this is on another level.
That happened literally minutes from my house. That’s pretty crazy stuff right there…
I bet if the engine were loaded up that thing was cranking out over 10,000HP in run-a-way mode. It was probably a 4,500HP continuous duty diesel.
I had to walk by a 12-645-E6 on a towboat to get
to the overspeed to trip it and shut it down while it was eating itself alive, rods beating holes in the side of the block and plenty of oil and smoke…..
I don’t know anything about this but wouldn’t there be a fuel killswitch for these types of locomotives? What about a choke device that could suffocate the engine?
The problem is a leak is likely providing engine oil as fuel, so its internally supplied fuel.
Reliability’s have increased to the point that commercial diesels stopped having plates that choke off the air supply. In the old days they’d have them when leaking seals were a more common occurrence.
In real time ,after the fuel vavle is closed how long before the end?
I have seen the run away on engine start video’s here on BS , is that the norm , the engine goes into run away at idle un loaded or can this happen under maximum load too ?
Because a diesel is “throttled” by fuel is it posible to load the engine to control RPM or is it just too late?
A diesel motor will on runaway will consume as much fuel as it can be fed from the source of the leak. There’s no way to shut down a runaway unless the air supply is choked off, the internal “fuel” is consumed, or the motor seizes.
Think of holding an impact wrench freewheeling at wide open: so long as there’s enough air to spin it, it will keep going until the air is gone, the wrench itself breaks, or something stops the end of it from turning.
A runaway diesel locomotive is a very,very scary thing indeed.
To snuff out a runaway place a piece of steel plate over the intake. Without air to feed the fire it will stop. I have come across many. And it’s very true. Older engines have a flap in the intake that could be triggered to shut off intake air supply. Turbos fail leaking oil into the combustion chamber through the intake system. If you have a turbo failure where you have a pre-cooler. Make certain the intake system is cleaned prior to re-firing the engine as you could have oil in the system from the failed turbo.
I used to live within 25 feet of a track and got the joy of watching a NS engine on fire, going full speed, carrying nuclear waste (at about 3am). It never slowed down, setting all the weeds along the track on fire. We figured they didn’t want it known they were carrying nuclear waste right past all the homes, so they just let that sucker burn while the other engines kept pulling it along.