Atomic Systems

craigy wrote:Whoever designed that need there eyes and sanity testing, its awful, are we beginning to switch to ugly looking american loco's now?

I think they were on crack.

It can't on my street.

codrivermike wrote:In a world of 'just in time' deliveries that truck can deliver your stuff straight to your door.

{mode=flippant} Not in my road he couldn't, not unless he wants to feature in one of those "Can't read a map or use GPS" news stories where said massive wagon gets jammed up tight country lane

Rik .

EDIT: Darn! Spart beat me to it

For those that are interested...a short 30 second clip of it moving.

http://www.freightliner.co.uk/filelibra ... lTest2.wmv

danielw2599 wrote:For those that are interested...a short 30 second clip of it moving.

http://www.freightliner.co.uk/filelibra ... lTest2.wmv

Waitaminnit... How do we know it's not being propelled by the loco behind it, hmm? hmm?

Thanks for the find, tho

Hehe.

Rik.

I think youd have to be on something stronger than crack. I'm sure someone on crack could tell thats ugly

beastie if thats test 2 wheres test one

Perhaps it was going to the nearest scrap yard to be cut up?

That is one ugly mother.

I wonder how much was invested on designing this lol?

salopiangrowler wrote:beastie if thats test 2 wheres test one

Maybe on test one they couldnt get the engine started

Seriously though, that was the only one listed on the Freightliner website.

The finished article: http://www.freightliner.co.uk/newsdetai ... newsid=173

Personally - I don't see what the fuss is about.

From an engineering perspective it is a tremendous piece of kit. There is a truism in the engineering industry that it is looks right then it probably is right and this looks right to me for a heavy haul diesel engine. If it turned up looking like a sleek racing machine then I would expect the procurement department to start asking questions about cost.

I had most of my engineering training on my apprenticeship from guys who had 30 - 40 years experience in the industry so I have little time for aesthetics. Ergonomic considerations are very important but what something looks like is somewhat immaterial if it does it's job to specification & to price. If it looks elegant then that is a plus but sometimes brute force and construction from the "Queen Mary school of engineering" is the right way to go about things.

I agree with that...about the Class 60. This loco just looks badly styled, trying TOO hard to look unstyled.

Anyone got a nicname for these yet lol.

Ill name these the frog

Predator seems like a good one to me, after the Arnie movie.

Easilyconfused wrote:Personally - I don't see what the fuss is about.

<snip>

Well, it was an aesthetic thread, John and, by your own admission, such things are of little concern to yourself.

I agree with what you say about function before form and it's a line of thinking I generally subscribe to, however, as Spart says, it's almost gone too far the other way.

Funny thing is, I'm a fan of US railroads, too and most all of their home-grown locos are quite easy on the eye by comparison and they're most definitely, functional types.
Thing is, you'd think they'd have learned that by now. I mean, look at ATSF#10 here:


GE themselves have a legacy of what some people seem to view as 'challengingly styled' locos, including the C32 'dash 8'


...but in this case, I see a proper 'function before form' bit of kit.

In the case of the 'Powerhaul', it's almost like there was a conversation along the lines of:
Freightliner: Ooh... looks too American... Can you fix that?
GE design bureau: Uhh...sure... {frantic scribbling}... There y' go, we've added... stuff, to it.
Freightliner: So, what does all this stuff do?
GE design bureau: Umm...

Genuinely, I'm intrigued as to what purpose all that stuff does, the corrugations, etc.

Hey-ho

Rik.