" From: Joe Fulton <piper_pa20@xxxxxxxxxxx> " " I was an engineering officer on two diesel powered ships in the Navy. " I learned to dread the first two or three hours underway. If anything " on an engine was going to fail, it was going to fail in that time " period. Our big diesels could (and ofter did) run for weeks without " ever being shut down, but let them sit in port for a few days, and " almost invevitably you would go through a vulnerable period shortly " after startup. That was the time when we were manuevring in close " quarters too, and it kept the EOW oin his toes. Other parts of the " running gear could have problems any time (hot shaft bearings, loss of " vacuum in evaporators, etc.) but the engines seemed to tell you that " they didn't like sitting idle. yeah, big engines like that are designed to -run-. locomotives are usually left idling when not in service b/c of starting issues like yours. i had a tour of a phone plant years ago. phone switchgear normally runs off -48vdc, with enough battery for 4h w/o external power, but if that wasn't enough this office had an emd 20-645e [that's 20 cyls, 645 cubes each, 3600hp@900rpm] in the basement as its standby generator. it had a 15hp electric motor pumping oil and maintaining oil pressure all the time. iirc it had heaters too. they said it could go from dead stop to full power in less than 5min. at that time they'd never used it. ________________________________________________________________________ Andrew Hay the genius nature internet rambler is to see what all have seen adh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and think what none thought _______________________________________________ AMC-list mailing list AMC-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx http://list.amc-list.com/listinfo.cgi/amc-list-amc-list.com