A very popular narrow gauge diesel engine, Lxd2, still in wide use at tourist spots around Poland.
The Lxd2 is a narrow gauge diesel hydraulic locomotive produced in Romania for the Polish State Railways (PKP). The Lxd2 is capable of working on rails from 740 mm to 1067 mm.
The picture shows a picture of the Lxd2 from the Sochaczew Narrow Gauge Train Museum.
The Romainian factory Faur, located in Bucharest, began producing the Lxd2 (the factory designation being L45H) in 1964. 166 locomotives were built between 1964 and 1987.
They can operate on rails from 750mm to 785mm and 1000mm.
It is 10.6 meters long, 2.3 meters wide, and 3.1 meters high. Wheel diameter is 750 mm.
It is powered by a diesel engine turbocharged Maybach MB 836Bb inline, 6 cylinder with 450 hp (330.8 kW) at 1450 rpm, displacement 29.6 dm³, cylinder diameter 175 mm, stroke of the piston 205 mm or Henschel Wola H-12 with 505 hp 12-cylinder fork lift (on locomotives modernized in Poland).
It can operate at 36 km per hour.
In 1968, Poland began adding the Lxd2 on the Upper Sileasian Railway to replace narrow gauge locomotives series TW 47 and TW 53.
The Lxd2 is popular at the remaining narrow gauge rail services because of its ease of operation. These tourist lines prefer to run either an Lyd2, or Lxd2, even though a steam locomotive may be more attractive to tourists.
A steam locomotive requires hours of preparation time to get the boiler to temperature. That warm-up must be done by a licensed engineer. Likewise, it takes hours to cool the boiler down. The cooling process must be supervised by a licensed engineer. That is an expensive process.
Operating an Lxd2 to is a simple matter of flipping a few switches. It is a diesel driven engine using a hydrodynamic torque converter with 24 transducers. One operates at startup and low speeds and the other at higher speeds. There are two trucks.
Even though these locomotives have a reputation for a high consumption of fuel, they are much more efficient than steam locomotives.
These locomotives can be seen in many of the train museums and at the operating tourists lines in Poland.
Information about both can be found in this site.
Images Of The LxD2 Operating in Poland
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You find this engine in places such as the Narrow Guage Railroads in Piaseczno, Poland and Sochaczew, Poland.
How To Build A Model Of An Lxd2
Here are pictures of a replica model that you can build.
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You can get a book of plans and information, including specifications, about the engine.
The plans offer modelers and collectors the opportunity to build a highly detailed, museum quality, replica of the original locomotive. The model can be made using 1 mm card stock, styrene, or brass. The basic instructions in the book focus on card stock construction. Just substitute the material of your choice.
The resulting model is a highly detailed 1 to 25 scale replica of the original engine.
Here are images of some of the pages in the book. They show the visual instructions, text information and instructions plus some of the pages with cutouts.
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And here is a video review of this book.
Do watch the video for complete information.
You may purchase these plans at Lxd2