Railroad Locomotive ??

Factual Questions
1

My semi-educated guess is that the diesel engine powers a generator and a generator powers an electric motor. True? Assuming it is:

  1. Operation at full power, what is the RPM level of the diesel?
  2. What is the amperage and voltage output of the generator?
  3. Horsepower and torque of the electric motor?
  4. How about gallons of diesel fuel consumed per mile (with 100 cars being pulled).

I’d love to get a close-up look at one of these with an engineer.

2

Can be true. The text and graph on that page will answer many of your questions, although not all.

3

Yahoo Answers has a page that answers the fuel consumption questions; fuel is measured in gallons per hour. The “best” answer is poorly formatted – it really needs a fixed width font. The columns are from left to right Model, Horsepower, GPH consumption at N(otch)8 thru N1, the eight throttle positions from highest to just above idle. What kind of speed you’ll be doing at a particular throttle setting depends on how many cars you’re pulling and what the grade is; the GPH will remain pretty constant.

HowStuffWorks has several pages on Diesel locomotives. Page 8 has most of the specs on the prime mover (the diesel engine).