TŽV Gredelj from Croatia in association with American NREC is building modernized locomotives for Israel Railways, based on good old EMD GT26CW-2, with upgraded engines from American SD-40-2. The units are sent for a test run in Croatia to confirm everything is put together properly and that they are ready for export.
These new units have a much lower fuel consumption compared to their older siblings, and are controlled by NRE's on-board NFORCE computer. Full name for them is NGT26CW-3wNFORCE. What is new on these units as well is a full satellite supervision of their current fuel amount, speed, notch, fuel consumption and location, reminding of the supervision that airplanes have. They also feature a new electrodynamic brake which is continuously working until bringing the unit and it's train to as low as 2km/h before shutting down and regular brakes kicking in.
In this video we've followed the two units hauling their test train until the destination station where we took more detailed shots of them before they left. Due to ridiculous demand from Croatian Railway Infrastructure company, the test units had to make a full stop in front of every railway crossing, sound a horn and then continue forwards.
Cover image taken and graciously provided by my friend, Josip. Check out his RailPictures profile: http://www.railpictures.net/members/viewprofile.php?id=55155
