Railroad Trains for the Soul: GE 7FDL Diesel Engine
This is an ancient-looking projector film promoting the heart of a typical General Electric locomotive: the four-stroke FDL diesel engine (later called the 7FDL). This video probably dated from the 70's because you can see one or two locomotives built for the Burlington Northern Railroad, which was established in 1970. Based on a V-type engine design by Cooper-Bessemer, the 7FDL had been the powerhouse in a majority of GE diesel locomotives from the revolutionary Universal "U-boats" of the 1960's to the mighty AC traction machines of the 1990's. This successful prime mover was available in 8-, 12-, and 16-cylinder configurations, but the most popular was the V16 (designated 7FDL-16), which had been used by lots of locomotive models in North America.
To date, the largest example of the 7FDL family can produce up to 4,400 horsepower with 16 cylinders, as present in such locomotives as the DASH 9-44CW, the AC4400CW, and the convertible AC6000CW. The latter model was initially designed to be converted with the bigger 6,000-hp 7HDL-16 prime mover (another V16), but only the production AC6000 units had that engine and the "convertibles" kept their FDL's. GE continued production of the FDL engines for domestic usage until the early 2000's when it introduced a cleaner and more fuel-efficient design in response to the growing emissions standards in the United States. This successfully resulted in the Evolution Series GEVO-12 diesel engine, which can produce the same 4,400 horsepower from 12 cylinders, compared to 16 in its predecessor. This is a great video explaining the mechanical forces inside most GE locomotives built before the emergence of the environmentally friendly GEVO diesels.
General Electric Introduction to the 7FDL Maintenance Engineering & Education Department