Electric Microshunter Tractionmotor blowout.

[Mittens]

Was towing the EMS behind the utility railbus making my way from Goods Factory to Harbour when suddenly lightning struck in broad daylight with no clouds.. Naturally I pulled the train to a stop to look around and checked on the Micro. I found the Traction motor had blown.

Why is this weird to me? The EMS was fully powered down, break lever disconnected, TM and Electronics switches set to off and handbreak in the fully released position.

I had planned to make a little career out of taking this little electric demon with me from A to B doing shunting jobs on my own resources to sidestep fees and get access to bigger equipment quicker. Whats confusing me now though is at around 50kmh the EMS blows its traction motor regardless of if its turned on or not.

So my question is this, since it seems like the EMS traction motor doesnt disconnect on shutoff, it obviously means I cant exceed 50kmh while towing it. Could we maybe get some kind of wagon that can haul the EMS without the wheels touching the rails? I dont mind going slow between jobs if needs be but I also dont like having to spend 2,500 every time I wana call up the EMS.

[GHKtruc]

Yes. Max safe speed is like 40km/h. It's how it is apparently IRL traction motor still spin even when unpowered

[AoFA | FightDrug *-* [GER]]

thats like with the DH3 when you pull it to fast with you you damage mechanical parts have nothing to do with power

[Dozer]

Real rolling stock usually has a placard somewhere indicating the max speed - perhaps that could be added to the data panel?

Also re hauling shunters - IRL they'd unbolt the coupling rods if they wanted to haul them faster than a snail's pace.

[schutt]

We need a transport car that we can load the micro shunter onto....

[Schlappspaten]

Originally posted by Dozer:

Real rolling stock usually has a placard somewhere indicating the max speed - perhaps that could be added to the data panel?

Also re hauling shunters - IRL they'd unbolt the coupling rods if they wanted to haul them faster than a snail's pace.

Removing the rods is done in most cases only to avoid (further) damage to rods or their bearings. In normal towing operations the gearbox is set to neutral by a lever to disconnect it from the drive train. and the towing limit then is usually the operational speed limit.

You can't gain much higher speed limits by removing the rods though. That is because the rod counterweights are part of the wheels and without the rods you get a big unbalance due to the big off center masses. If the wheels aren't connected by rods anymore they are free to desynchronize their rotations (due to wheelslip in curves or different braking power for example). This makes for "interesting" rolling behaviour and will shake the engine literally apart if you run for a while with high speed.

I once pulled a german V60 series (3-axle rod driven with hydraulic gearbox, 60kmh vmax.) without rods. The limit was set to 65kmh w/o the rods (had suffered from a glowing hot rod bearing). I had a 128t 150-series electric and felt the vibrations from the V60 already at 50kmh. And those heavy 6-axle 150-series weren't known for easy mechanical agitation, so the thing behind had to do some really serious shaking and vibrating. I've chosen to play it save and top out at 45kmh.

[Randknu]

Same thing happens to the DE6 if you overspeed. Found that out with my museum piece.