Overview
Early internal combustion engine-powered locomotives used gasoline as their fuel. Soon after Dr. Rudolf Diesel patented his first compression ignition engine in 1892, its application for railway propulsion was considered. Progress was slow, however, because of the poor power-to-weight ratio of the early engines, as well as the difficulty inherent in mechanically applying power to multiple driving wheels on swiveling trucks (bogies).
Steady improvements in the diesel engine's design (many developed by Sulzer Ltd. of Switzerland, with whom Dr. Diesel was associated for a time) gradually reduced its physical size and improved its power-to-weight ratio to a point where one could be mounted in a locomotive. Once the concept of Diesel-electric drive was accepted the pace of development quickened, and by 1925 a small number of diesel locomotives of 600 horsepower were in service in the United States. In 1930, Armstrong Whitworth of the United Kingdom delivered two 1,200 hp locomotives, using engines of Sulzer design, to Buenos Aires Great Southern Railway of Argentina.
By the mid 1950s, with economic recovery from the Second World War, series production of diesel locomotives had begun in many countries and the diesel locomotive was on its way to become the dominant type of locomotive in many countries and regions, offering greater flexibility and performance than the steam locomotive, as well as substantially lower operating and maintenance costs, other than where electric traction was in use due to policy decisions. Currently, almost all diesel locomotives are diesel-electric, although the diesel-hydraulic type was also widely used between the 1950s and 1970s.
The Soviet diesel locomotive TEP80-0002 lays claim to the world speed record for a diesel railed vehicle having reached 271 km/h on 5 October 1993.
Read more about this topic: Diesel Locomotive