On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 03:32:59 GMT, "Snafu"
wrote:

How the heck do they crank it to get it started??
=========================================

We had a discussion about that earlier this year, answered by Rick our
resident LARGE diesel expert. To make a long story short, they use
compressed air stored in large accumulator tanks, and admitted into
the cylinder heads through a special set of valves used only for
starting the engine.

In an emergency you can hand crank...

....but not very much.