How much power does the generator from the diesel need to produce in order to bring the train up to running speed?
That all depends upon a number of things. First is the type of traction motor that is driving the wheels. Next is the weight of the entire load to be moved by the traction motors. Also is the grade the load is being moved upon. When a locomotive gets up to speed it might not be using many amps by the traction motors to maintain the speed. However, to start from a dead stop on flat track with a very heavy load it could run as high as 200 or more amps. Again, it also would depend upon the number of engines driving the number of generators driving the number of traction motors. A single locomotive might need to use more amps to get up to speed than a combination of locomotives hauling the same load. There are many variables to this question. Given a particular locomotive, types of traction motors, the load weight, it would be easier to calculate what would be needed in amperage. Everything depends upon all of these things. An engineer can burn up a traction motor(s) by exceeding the amount of amps maximum that the motor can handle. The generators don't care, nor do they figure into the problem. The diesels don't care either. They will just turn the generators faster with more RPM's, and the faster they run, the more the generators will produce, but will the traction motors handle what is given them?? It just depends .
