The Train That Drained All Oxygen From Tunnels — America's 20-Cylinder Freight Giant

In 1965, General Motors' Electro-Motive Division built a 3,600-horsepower giant to win the American railroad horsepower race. The EMD SD45 packed a massive 20-cylinder 645E3 two-stroke diesel engine under its flared radiators. That power carried a cost. Stretching the prime mover triggered severe torsional vibration, flexing steel crankcases and snapping twenty-foot crankshafts on mountain grades. Keeping this machine on the rails pushed 1960s metallurgy to its absolute limit. Sources & Further Reading: EMD SD45 Locomotive Specifications and History - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_SD45 EMD 645 Series Two-Stroke Prime Mover Architecture - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_645 Electro-Motive Division Corporate and Engineering History - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electro... Mechanics of Torsional Vibration in Crankshafts - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torsion... Santa Fe's High-Speed Super C Intermodal Freight Service - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_C...) Donner Pass Mainline Operations Over the Sierra Nevada - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_... Development of the EMD SD40-2 and Dash-2 Series - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_SD40-2