HS2

A powerful history, a high speed future

For many decades, MTU engines have been providing reliable railway drive systems. As early as 1924, serial engines developed and manufactured by Maybach Motorenbau - MTU Friedrichshafen’s predecessor - have been put into service on a regular basis. In 1933, Maybach diesel engines powered the legendary “Flying Hamburger” with a top speed of 160 km/h on the Berlin/Hamburg service. At the time this was the world record for a regular train service

With more than 4,000 diesel engines delivered, MTU Friedrichshafen has been a major partner of Deutsche Bahn in their new procurement and repowering programmes since the early 50s.

Around the globe, MTU has supplied more than 17,000 diesel drive systems for rail vehicles and is one of the world’s leading system partners for locomotive and railcar manufacturers.

Modern high speed trains such as those popular in Britain are equipped with reliable and consistently powerful MTU Series 16V 4000 R41 diesel engines.

On 12 July 2002, a Talgo XXI high speed train in service with Spanish national train operator Renfe which is furnished with an MTU diesel power car achieved the current world speed record of 256 km/h for diesel-hydraulic rail vehicles.

Full load or low load operation, MTU drive systems for regular service and multi-purpose locomotives are designed to meet the requirements of a wide variety of operating conditions. They prove their worth in heavy duty freight train operations, in industrial locomotives or in shunting operations as well as high speed passenger transport.

Reliability, economic viability and environmental friendliness are the factors which contribute to MTU drive systems reaching peak performances in local and regional rail traffic.

Continuous operation is very demanding. Rain or shine, sometimes covering 24-hours service, regional trains must provide steady, punctual and reliable service connecting towns, cities and regions. Stop & go operation, typical for regional traffic, with its continuous alternating between acceleration and braking gives rise to a permanent fluctuation in load, with high thermal and mechanic loads for the engine and all other components.

Compact diesel engines from Friedrichshafen are also being utilized in a variety of special rail vehicles. With their low emission rates, they meet the requirements for tunnel rescue locomotives or in locomotives for construction and maintenance work in underground rail systems. Thanks to the different coupling options with electric or hydraulic systems, these engines can also be utilized in special vehicles with extremely low operational speeds such as railcar loaders.

Reduced consumption, reduced emissions: the Series 4000 diesel engine

MTU rail engines are put into service in a huge variety of vehicles. However, they all have one thing in common - powerful performance requirements coupled with low emissions and low fuel consumption.

The maintenance-friendly, economic and low-emission MTU Series 4000 engines with eight, twelve, 16 or 20 cylinders cover a power output range from 1,000 kW to 3,000 kW (from 1300 HP to 4080 HP). For more than a decade, they have been the preferred drive systems for modern locomotives of all kinds.

For this reason, the Series RH 2016 EuroRunner Siemens freight and universal locomotives - known in Austria as “Hercules”- are also equipped with a Series 4000 MTU engine, just like the powerful “work horses” of the Deutsche Bundesbahn, Series DB 218.

The Series 4000 engines are characterized by their high performance density, their low-noise operation, low exhaust gas emission readings and low maintenance effort. This is facilitated by state of the art technologies such as common-rail injection, powerful turbo charging as well as the perfectly matched control and monitoring electronics such as “powerline” with its integrated engine management system ADEC (advanced diesel engine control).

The Series 4000 engines comply with the increasingly stringent limits imposed by EU tier IIIA emission regulationsstipulating from 2009 a significant reduction of NOx emissions from current levels of 9.5 g/kWh to a projected maximum of 6 g/kWh. MTU-rail drive systems fall below this NOx limit due to the engine internal design and workings, i.e. without exhaust gas after-treatment.

With the so called ‘Miller process’, the inlet valves are closed earlier than usual during the combustion process which leads to lower combustion temperatures and, consequently, to lower engine NOx emissions. Likewise, soot particle emissions significantly decrease thanks to the new harmonized combustion processes of the Series 4000 rail engines.

The engines are also furnished with a two-circuit charge-air cooling system, which increases the amount of oxygen introduced into the combustion process and thereby not only increases performance but simultaneously reduces fuel consumption and noxious substance emissions.

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