TCDD DE 24000 (stylised as DE 24 000 in painted registration numbers) is a type of diesel locomotive built for operations on

Turkish State Railways The State Railways of the Republic of Turkey ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Devlet Demiryolları), abbreviated as TCDD, is a government-owned national railway company responsible with the ownership and maintenance of railway infrastructure in Turkey ...

(TCDD) by Tülomsaş. 218 units were built between 1970 and 1984 under license from Matériel de Traction Electrique (MTE) of France. The DE 24000 formed the backbone of the dieselisation of the Turkish railways during the 1970s. It follows the

hood unit A hood unit, in North American railroad terminology, is a body style for diesel and electric locomotives where the body is less than full-width for most of its length and walkways are on the outside. In contrast, a cab unit has a full-width c ...

road switcher A road switcher is a type of railroad locomotive designed to both haul railcars in mainline service and shunt them in railroad yards. Both type and term are North American in origin, although similar types have been used elsewhere. A road ...

design, like most Turkish mainline locomotives. DE 24 000 is the most commonly found locomotive class in Turkey (418 units produced, more than 100 in usable state). In addition to MTE, diesel parts were supplied by Chantiers de l'Atlantique, electric parts from

Jeumont-Schneider Jeumont-Schneider was a French electric and mechanical engineering group, founded in 1964. History Jeumont-Schneider was formed in 1964 through a merger of FACEJ (''Forges et Ateliers de Construction Electriques de Jeumont'') and ''Matériel Ele ...

, and mechanical parts from Forges et Ateliers du Creusot.

History

During the 1970s the Turkish State Railways decided to replace their 800 steam locomotives with diesel. This quite-delayed task required the delivery of more than 400 diesel units. On February 15, 1968, TCDD and MTE signed an agreement for delivery of the DE 24000 along with the delivery of the smaller DE18000. To build up domestic competence on diesel engines, TCDD decided that the production would be done by Tülomsaş of Turkey. Only Tülomsaş-built units are still operational.

Blue trains (Mavi tren) and DE 24000

Blue trains are express passenger trains with timetable speed. They originally started replacing black trains ( tr, kara tren), which are trains pulled by black steam locomotives with tenders. All cars of the blue trains had blue livery and were pulled by blue DE24000s. They are now pulled by TCDD E68000s and have regular livery but still retain their long-distance national passenger rail network status.

Overspeeding provision

These locomotives had been used over their power and speed ratings until 2004. Delayed trains were "force-fit" into the timetable by overspeeding up to 10% over timetable speeds. This required both overspeeding the prime mover and modifying the traction motors' final drive ratios. This practice was banned after the

Pamukova train derailment The Pamukova train derailment was a fatal railway accident which occurred in 2004 at Pamukova district of Sakarya Province in northwestern Turkey when a higher speed train derailed, at which 41 passengers were killed and 80 injured. Accident In ...

External links

Tülomsaş page on DE 24000
{{reflist, group="note" Tülomsaş locomotives Co-Co locomotives Turkish State Railways diesel locomotives Standard gauge locomotives of Turkey Railway locomotives introduced in 1970