Diesel Department

5383 electrical cabinet

"GE Quality Builds Jobs" is what was printed on a placard right above the work area on Burlington Northern 5383 this past Sunday, as the reverser was removed to be repaired. Early last year, the reverser failed during a load box test that we normally do after the locomotives inspection. The steel of the top rear of the electrical cabinet had deteriorated, with a change in rpm during the load box test, the intermittent vibration throughout the locomotive caused a large enough piece of rust to drop from the top of the cabinet into the reverser while it was under load.

5383 reverser

The loco was making about 1,800HP at the time based on the calculation done from the meter plugged into the multiplier card. The rust just happened to fall into the reverser on the center two lugs which are the main positive and negative feeds from the diode banks of the alternator. All the diodes were tested and all are in good shape. The damage was on the back side of the reverser as it was mounted and it was quickly determined that a repair wasn't going to be easy and not going to be done in place.

Tagged and disconnected cables and bus bars