CHOICE OF OPTIONS OF LOCOMOTIVE CHARACTERISTICS TAKING INTO ACCOUNT OPTIMUM EFFICIENCY

The saturation of the locomotive park of railways with various series of locomotives does not always correspond to their effective use given their inherent special characteristics. Modern conditions require all participants in design, construction, operation and repair to make correct and well-founded decisions. The variety of series of locomotives, which provide different requirements of economic activity, is not always the basis of their effective operation. This especially  applies to locomotives that are purchased abroad. As the experience of their operation has shown, they are not always  adapted to the real conditions of operation in our country. This is, first of all, their intensive exploitation and the lack of adaptability of the repair base to maintenance and repair of rolling stock. On the other hand, the capacity range, for example, of the freight locomotives that were purchased, does not correspond to the traditional ones, which take into account both the length of the warehouse and the length of the receiving-departing routes, etc. In our country, sufficient experience has been accumulated and there were appropriate conditions for a  comprehensive coverage of the tasks of both design and construction of locomotives for the provision of industrial enterprises in freight transportation, as well as the  population in intercity and suburban transportation. Unfortunately, there are many factors that currently make even the minimal needs for updating both the locomotive fleet and the modernization of the operational and repair activities of railway enterprises impossible. In these conditions, perhaps the most important task is the correct, justified choice of locomotive characteristics, taking into account its technical condition. The article deals with the procedure of forming requirements for the characteristics of locomotives based on the efficiency criterion. Based on the verification of the  conditions of the corresponding substitutions for the dimensionless scales of the pure indicators of the locomotives, an effective set of some solutions is determined, on the basis of which the optimal solution is formed for the selection of locomotive characteristics for specific conditions of use. Based on specific data shown decision-making procedures regarding some characteristics of locomotives.