Older Alco's are famous for black smoke caused by turbo lag.

I read the following idea for fixing it:

Quote:

Volvo hopes to cure it [turbo lag] completely with a system called Powerpulse,
featuring a compressor that draws clean air from the airbox and stores it in a
tank. When the driver suddenly accelerates, a valve opens, sending high-pressure
air from the tank into the exhaust stream, quickly spooling up the turbo and
resulting in a pulse of power. Hence the name.

[www.sciencefocus.com]

I was thinking the same could be done to an old ALCO diesel. Run a pipe from the
locomotive air reservoir to the intake side of the turbo. Whenever the throttle
is notched, an actuator opens a valve for several seconds sending a blast of air
into the turbo to assist in spooling it up.

Could work?



Smoking it up ALCo Style
by Douglas Hildebrandt, on Flickr