Hello everyone, and welcome to the second part in our look at the new ALC-42 locomotives
that are currently being assembled by Siemens Mobility for the Amtrak Long Distance trains.
Have you ever wondered what the assembly process is like for new locomotive construction?
Well in this video, we are going to return to the Siemens Mobility rail equipment manufacturing
plant, located on the south side of Sacramento, to see how the ALC-42 locomotives are built.
Armin Kick of Siemens Mobility rejoins us to discuss this process and provide additional
background information about the locomotives and how they are assembled.
The Siemens Mobility rolling stock facility here in Sacramento is on 60 acres.
It was established in 1991 and we currently employ about 2000 employees.
Here at the Siemens Mobility rail manufacturing plant, we are really proud of being part of
a skilled, dedicated, and motivated workforce that can build such a fabulous equipment.
People make all the difference.
This is a people business and we are really excited about being able to build a sophisticated
product and to do it, together, with a group of people that is all focused on a quality
end product.
Our facility here in Sacramento is powered by a two megawatts solar facility.
So, that is really good for sustainability and it helps us to put the power of the sun
into the gray energy that’s in the product when it is being built.
Here at the Siemens Mobility rolling stock manufacturing plant in Sacramento, we currently
build light rail vehicles, passenger cars, locomotives, and we also offer train sets,
that’s an end to end solution where we deliver the entire consist for a train set.
We have supplied 20 cities in North America with light rail vehicles.
For locomotives, we have two customers that have purchased our electric locomotives and
we have 10 customers that have bought diesel electric locomotives.
Before a locomotive can be built, it must be designed.
The Charger is a complex locomotive that took thorough research and development over a several
year period.
So the Charger is a specific North American locomotive design, but it is based on our
experience from Europe from the Vectron locomotives and also from the ACS-64 electric locomotives
that run on the Northeast corridor.
Some of the challenges in coming up with a new locomotive design are based in the need
to incorporate as many of the needs of the future users of this locomotive.
In this context, we built this locomotive to the PRIIA specification, which was developed
between multiple users and participants in the process to try to encapsulate as many
of the requirements in the North American market.
And so, in the design process, the big challenge was to make sure that you have a future proof
design that could work for as many customers as possible with a few changes as necessary.
A diesel-electric locomotive works as follows.
You have a primer mover, an engine, and an alternator connected to that.
You can actually see that behind me.
And that produces the electricity.
Downstream from that point, it is actually an electric locomotive, with traction converters
and then driven electric motors that run this locomoitve.
From the time of an order to delivery, that is an approximately 24 to 36 month period.
It depends on whether it’s a rebuild with no engineering changes, or whether there's
changes to consider.
You also have to consider capacities and other orders, but the approximate time frame is
24 to 36 months.
Following the design phase and signing of construction contracts, all necessary parts
for locomotive assembly are ordered from numerous suppliers all over the United States.
The first step in the manufacturing process is the basic locomotive frame and fuel tank
construction.
This first portion is fabricated upside down, the very beginnings of a new locomotive.
Siemens has built up a supplier network in the United States for these locomotives and
all products, we build here in Sacramento.
That supply base has grown over the years and we are very proud of the fact that we
can buy a lot of parts for this locomotive here domestically.
Following frame assembly, the locomotive cab and side walls are added, creating the basic
locomotive car body.
Other components are also fabricated in this building, such as the locomotive nose pieces,
which will be added much later in the assembly process.
We built from the ground up here in Sacramento.
That means we weld the car body, we have a large group of people that is engaged in welding
the car shells for these locomotives, we have training programs to ensure that people have
the skills to do that work, we work with local colleges
to bring people in that are interested in welding, we educate them, and we enable them
to build on very sophisticated products.
While basic locomotive shell assembly occurs, the locomotive trucks or bogies are constructed.
This work includes fabricating the truck frame, installing wheel assemblies, traction motors,
and other components.
On the Charger, we use AC traction motors.
AC traction motors have certain benefits.
They are lower in maintenance compared to DC traction motors.
They are there also highly reliable and have very good performance and the industry has
largely shifted to AC traction systems overall.
Once the locomotive shell assembly is completed, it is sent to the paint shop were the shell
is first sanded down and then painted.
Shells are moved around the plant on these large motorized vehicles.
Following paint work, the locomotive shells are taken to another building for additional
finishing and inspection work.
The approximate time for production of a locomotive is 8 to 9 months.
It breaks down into different production
steps.
So, we built the car shells here, then we build electrical subassemblies and
then we do the final assembly, which you can see behind me.
The overall process takes around
8 to 9 months, but it is staggered into different phases and there’s also some buffers in
between to make up for things that go faster or slower.
And in final assembly, as an example,
we have approximately eight locomotive in that production the stage at any one time.
While work on the shell continues, many of the electrical components are put together
in the electrical subassembly building.
This includes everything from locomotive control stands to electrical racks and other computer
systems, such as the diesel emissions control system.
Modern locomotives are very complex in terms of onboard electronics, so while this step
in the manufacturing process may seem smaller in scale than carboy assembly, it is nonetheless
critically important in the process of building a properly functioning locomotive.
Individual components will be tested before installation into the locomotive shell.
There’s 26 miles of wires and cables on a Charger locomotive.
All of that has to
come from somewhere.
So, we do the electrical subassemblies here in a separate building
where we have people working on electrical racks consoles, wire trays, and they build
all of the electrical components and wiring that’s needed to power this locomotive.
That’s a very sophisticated part of the locomotive
build.
Following the painting and simultaneous separate electrical component assembly, the shell is
then moved into the large final assembly building.
It is here where all the various components that have been worked on for the last several
months all come together to make a completed railway locomotive.
This includes the installation of all electronics systems and wires, the locomotive prime mover,
Diesel Exhaust Fluid tank, various roof panels, and completed trucks and traction motors.
The nose piece of the locomotive is also installed here along with the side see-through panels.
The Charger uses a QSK95 Cummins engine coupled with a sophisticated after-treatment system.
That works very well for passenger locomotives.
So, it’s a high revving engine design.
The see through grills that you see on the Charger are used for air to be pulled in to
cool down the locomotive through the engine coolant unit.
With assembly complete, the locomotive is moved over to the test track and test shed
building for more inspections and then some test runs.
This process can take several weeks, while all systems are gone over thoroughly.
During this period, any final decal and paint work that needs to be done is completed.
Here is locomotive 301, which is set to become one of Amtrak’s 50th Anniversary locomotives.
As you can see, the locomotive has received a solid coat of gloss black paint, but has
yet to have any additional markings applied.
After rigorous testing and inspection, the locomotive is finally complete and ready
for shipment.
Once a locomotive is fully assembled, it goes out to our test department and they test the
locomotive for all the functionalities, and it gets operated on a test track.
After that
is done, the locomotives ship to the end customers and we do do the commissioning on
the customers' property.
And that is also very important because some of the aspects can
only be tested against the installed signaling systems, and other aspects that we need
to recognize.
So, that testing then occurs before a locomotive can go into revenue service at
the customers' sites and on their lines.
Once locomotives are in revenue service, Siemens continues to monitor the units to make sure
everything is working properly.
We monitor around 800 data points, continuously, on this locomotive, and that really helps
Amtrak by being able to see
this information in real time, what is going on on each one of these locomotives.
It helps
with preparations for maintenance, troubleshooting, helping the engineers if they have issues.
And
that’s a real new development that is making the product better.
There is a lot of very interesting aspects involved in manufacturing.
When people get a chance to tour this facility, they always
come away
with amazement on how many different aspects have to be done in order to put a sophisticated
rail product together.
And that is what’s really fun at this facility.
There’s a lot
of dedication and skill required and a lot of
experience needed to be able to build such a
product.
And that’s it!
That’s how you build a locomotive, start to finish.
Of course, this was a very simplified version and there is so much more detail you could
go into in terms of the construction of each individual component, but I hope this gives
you at least a rough idea of how these complex machines are put together.
Once again, a big thank you to Siemens Mobility and Amtrak for giving me the opportunity to
share with you the manufacturing process for these new ALC-42 locomotives as well as Armin
Kick for the interview.
As always, if you have any questions or comments for me, leave those down in the comments section
below.
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There’s even more train and railroad themed content on my other social media pages, and
remember to check back soon for Part 3 of our first look at the ALC-42 as we follow
locomotive 300 on its trek over the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
I’ll be back next Friday at 9 AM Pacific Time for an all new railroading adventure
right here on the YouTube channel.
That’s it for now.
Until next time, I’m Mike Armstrong.
I’ll see you down the line!
Thanks for watching.