When were Diesel locomotive first used?

Question

When were Diesel locomotive first used?

Answer 1

Diesel locomotives first came to American railroads in the 1920s, They were  only  used in switch engines, and later in passenger train locomotives. Then around 1940, Electro Motive Division of General Motors (EMD) showed that diesels could effectively replace steam locomotives in rail service

Answer 2

in the US the first widespread usage was by Union Pacific railroad in the 1930's ( they were the first company to use them and only for passenger service mostly due to comfort and safety )

Answer 3

On the railroad tracks.

Answer 4

My husband says in the 1890's. Hope that helps.

Answer 5

in about 1956

Answer 6

1918 as it will tell you below it was a diesel and electric.

Rudolf Diesel himself suggested that his engines could be put to railroad use, and in 1909 helped construct an experimental locomotive.

In 1918 diesel electric switching engines were put in service in the United States. Sixteen years later, mainline engines began to be produced, at first for passenger service. Custom units were produced at at first for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad's Pioneer Zephyr and as a single unit for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Mass produced passenger and freight units soon followed. By 1960 diesels had displaced steam locomotives on every Class I railroad in the United States of America.

In the 1970s British Rail developed a high-speed diesel-electric train called the High Speed Train or HST. This train consists of two Class 43 locomotives (also known as power cars), one at each end, and a number of "Mark 3" carriages (usually 8). A complete HST set was originally designated as a Class 253 or 254 diesel multiple unit (DMU), but due to the frequent exchanges between sets the power cars were reclassified as locomotives and given class number 43. The unpowered carriages were simultaneously reclassified as individual coaches; the number of a DMU set should identify all its associated carriages as well.

The HST holds the world speed record for diesel traction, having reached a speed of 148 mph, although the operating speed in service is 125 mph (200 km/h), hence the name "Inter-City 125".

Answer 7

The first gas-powered railcar was built in 1910 by General Electric. The first commercial diesel locomotive was built, also by GE, in 1918 for the Jay Street Connecting Railroad in New York. Although not particularly successful, it sparked further interest that led to the construction of a diesel locomotive demonstrator in 1924. Later that year, GE, in cooperation with the American locomotive Company(Alco), began marketing diesel yard switchers to the railroads. Thus, quietly and with little fanfare, the diesel locomotive made its first appearance on the nation's railroads. Who could have guessed that those little switchers would start a revolution that would forever change the face of railroading?

Answer 8

The first diesel locomotive was English.  The diesel engine is merely a version of what was once called the oil engine, so the first 'diesel' engine predated that invented by Rudolf Diesel.  The Yorkshireman Priestman's 12hp four-wheeled dockyard locomotive of 1894 is generally regarded as the first oil-engined locomotive.

Another Yorkshireman, Stuart, developed an engine which was used by the English firm of Richard Hornsby between 1894 and 1903.

In the US a gasoline-electric self powered car was demonstrated in Chicago in 1880.  William McKeen, ex-superintendent of motive power for the Union Pacific Railroad left that company to found the McKeen Railcar Co., and had sold over one hundred units by 1914.

The diesel-electric, as a well running and viable engine, came into being in 1922, as a joint venture by the Electro-Motive Corporation and General Electric, a vast improvement over earlier models that didn't make the grade.