Friday, January 30, 2026

Likely the reason diesel Hydraulic locomotives weren't used more here in the U.S. is maintenance costs

When you have hydraulics (especially a train locomotive) it makes sense that the hydaulic lines would be expensive to replace when they blow out from constant pressure at a really large pounds per square inch. Since on Tractors most of these hydraulic lines are made (at least partially of rubber for the flexibility, this could be a problem with the pressure loads regarding the amount of weight a train is needing to pull.

So, unless you really had amazing hydraulic hoses it would be expensive. And since the only hydraulic hoses of this kind would likely be made in Germany or Austria importing these heavy duty hydraulic cables might be very expensive indeed (as well as the time consumed waiting for these items coming all the way from Europe when you have schedules to keep when hydraulic lines blow. 

In some ways it's kind of like when my son totaled his Nissan Truck. The insurance money came and we replaced his truck with a stick shift Diesel VW Rabbit because we didn't want to have it be dangerous with too much power for him because he was a relatively new driver then. However, the first thing was that this was literally the most gutless car I have ever driven and on even a 1% grade you often would have to shift down into 3rd gear at this point which is ridiculous. And on top of this I didn't understand that the single most important thing about owning a diesel engine Vehicle is that you change the oil often because of the Carbonization of the oil in a diesel. I didn't know anything about Diesels and realized we shouldn't own one within 6 months of buying this car with the insurance money so we sold it.

The point is all this hardware was European and if you don't know enough about it it isn't that helpful in keeping it running properly whether it is a 1971 Diesel Rabbit or a Diesel Hydraulic Train built in Europe. 

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