Outsailing86 Read up on the Airport Connector project in Los Angeles
Read up on the Airport Connector project in Los Angeles
I just flew in and out of LAX a week ago, and the shuttle driver pointed out the elevated track structure under construction. In the meantime there is other public transportation available.
hjQiThis is an interesting topic. In my opnion, passenger trains in the US will never survive in the US, as there is no infractures, such as public transportation in big cities, that can take people after they get off the train. ...
What big US city lacks public transportation?
I'm a practicing civil engineer.
The current funding mechanisms in America cannot and will not support electrified railroading beyond perhaps a few commuter corridors. The cost of installation is too great and there simply is NO funding whatsoever for electrification. The freight railroads own and pay taxes on their right-of-way. As long as a diesel locomotive can work reliably to do the job the freight railroads will continue to use them. They already are paying millions, if not billions, of dollars in unfunded government mandates to clean up diesel emissions. They do not have the money to electrify their systems. It isn't going to happen. Even at Tier 2 or 3 emissions standards, the unfunded government mandated cost (according to Trains Magazine several years ago) is $100,000 (extra) for each engine rebuild to meet the requirements. The average engine gets rebuilt every 10 years. Big railroads like BNSF have almost 9000 locomotives, so they already are paying an awful lot of money to clean up the air quality. Idiots like the brat Gretta Thunberg fail to grasp this when they make their foolish statements that America doesn't do anything to clean up the environment when in fact we are about the only country seriously trying to do anything.
In Pennsylvania, the state government is already robbing a disproportionate share of tax money from gasoline taxes in order to pay for mass transit in Philadelphia and Pittsburg. The state governments do not have the resources to construct electrified railroad districts.
In fact in Pennsylvania the transportation funding is so bad there are existing Interstate bridges that need to be replaced, and the state does not have the money for that work, so the only option is to allow a P3 partnership with a private company to replace those major river bridges while being allowed to charge tolls to all users. Just the I-83 brige over the Susquehanna River at Harrisburg, with all associated ramps nearby, will be 800 million dollars for the entire project. Some communities do not want the tolls on I-83 and other major bridges, and they don't want the traffic during construction running through their community, so they have just sued to STOP the project. (They used a technicality that PennDOT missed as the excuse, but would have sued anyway, it's their only avenue to stop this project that my engineering firm, as part of a team, had won).
What the local yokels do not understand is that when the bridges fail because they are falling apart, they will get that I-83 traffic rolling through their communities anyway. It's toll the bridges and replace them, or let some of the bridges fall down. That's literally where we are in Pennsylvania.
So do not expect to see any state or federal involvement in electrification of railroad lines beyond perhaps a few small corridors.
The real world inflation of heavy construction costs has been averaging about 8% for many years now in America. I know for one recent decade it was 8% for the entire decade. That means in a decade the tax revenue buys half as much construction as previously. With hybrid vehicles, more efficient vehicles etc. the gas tax revenues are plummeting. When you add that to the construction cost inflation, it is easy to see why the states don't have enough money to maintain the roads, bridges, dams, airports, etc. that they already have.
John
gregc PM Railfan Well, as hideous as locomotives look in general now, I imagine a monorail hot dog styled train with 'trailer-tails' on the last car. Its seems ugly is the 'IN' design now.
PM Railfan Well, as hideous as locomotives look in general now, I imagine a monorail hot dog styled train with 'trailer-tails' on the last car. Its seems ugly is the 'IN' design now.
Yep, thats it. Looks like someone cut the wings off Mothra.
This is an interesting topic. In my opnion, passenger trains in the US will never survive in the US, as there is no infractures, such as public transportation in big cities, that can take people after they get off the train. If you want get around the city, you still need cars, which airport has lots of car rental companies. Also, most US cities are so spread, making passenger train economically not viable.
Freight trains will propsper in the US as trains can haul much more load than trucks. Interestingly, I haven't heard any electrical trains (not the conventional elctrical trains that get electricity from overhead lines). Can someone tell me something? But I think trains using fossil fuel may still last a long time...
Jerry
PM RailfanWell, as hideous as locomotives look in general now, I imagine a monorail hot dog styled train with 'trailer-tails' on the last car. Its seems ugly is the 'IN' design now.
greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading
Battery and fuel-cell powered locomotives will do about as well as the much-touted "gen-set" technology did.
That is -- lots of "promise", but in the delivery... not so much.
I see only two possible futures for mainline freight (and long-distance passenger):
Diesel or electric.
Of course, if both diesel and electric get too expensive for the railroads, they could always go back to the steam engines. Plenty of coal that won't be needed elsewhere!
"What lies ahead for the future of North American trains." ??
Nothing but red over red the way they keep going!
Will GE win the market or will EMD?
Ive always pulled for EMD. However, once the millenials invade those establishments, it'll prolly be iTrains or Tesla trains that always return to the same yard after a run.
(As a longshot, Ive also imagined EMD being sold off to GE. Combining the two to make one outrageous locomotive. EMD handles the prime mover - GE handles the lightbulbs, generator, and traction motors. No clue who should design the body - read on next)
What will trains look like?
Well, as hideous as locomotives look in general now, I imagine a monorail hot dog styled train with 'trailer-tails' on the last car. Its seems ugly is the 'IN' design now. Cars themselves will be generic frames on wheels with 747 cargo containers. Each with a lifting currogated garage door on each side. Long gone are the bulldog faces of EMD's Fs and E's, High nosed EMD GPs and SDs, and the bodacious batwings of the EMD 45 series. Dillworth thought the BL and GP series would be so hideous railroads would relagate them to the far away branchlines and spurs. If he could only see the crapola EMD has been making for the last 30 years hed know his dream finally came to true!
Will electirc trains become the norm?
They have been the norm in my house for 50 years now! In all seriousness, we will see electric trains, but only until we realize weve had teleporters since the 1920s. Then your gonna see a huge surge in salvage yards who will be busy cutting up trains, planes, and automobiles! (And ships too, lets not forget our watery breathren of transportation.)
Respects,
PMR
There is lots of work going on with developing green hydrogen. There are already buses and trains running on H2. Trucks and railroads would be the first to transition. If the hydrogen shot initiative to get the costs near $1/kg is succsessful, it will make it inevitable.
Here is an iteresting graphic showing the area required to run the globe on solar alone. But of course, there are other carbon free power sources.
https://landartgenerator.org/blagi/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/AreaRequired1000.jpg
There are some things that no one is going to be willing to sacrifice at any price and the global trade network is one of them. The two major vehicles for this flow into the hinterlands of North America are hopelessly wedded to fossil fuels. Barring scifi technologies, there may never be a point where good old diesel fuel costs more than the electricity delivered via catenary plus amortized cost of catenary installation. They will ride diesel until it is literally impossible to do so, from a pure availability angle. Perhaps they'll switch to batteries more capable than anything available right now. Or we'll dumb luck into compact fusion by then. Either way, I don't foresee any scenario where North American locomotives stop carrying around their own power plant. Heavy, long range aircraft are in the same pinch. There's not enough surface area for even a perfectly efficient solar array to power an aircraft and batteries will always have dimensional issues.
Hello All,
NittanyLionThe infrastructure costs alone...
Yes, I agree there will be the initial "sticker shock" of electrification in North, Central, and South America.
Continuing the current modes of transportation for people and goods in the Americas might not be sustainable.
I'm sure the residents of NYC, and the outer boroughs, didn't appreciate the inconvenience of building the subway system in the early 1900s.
Now, the NY transit system serves millions of commuters daily.
The efficiency of trains is undeniable.
SeeYou190I believe this is inevitable, unless a new power source is discovered. It will be slow, and probably in none of our lifetimes (maybe Harrison's)
That's why we travel by train when in Europe.
It's happening, now- -within our lifetimes.
The OPs question was...
MaxTheRailfan123Will GE win the market or will EMD? What will trains look like? Will electirc (SIC) trains become the norm?
I can't speculate on the competitive forces in a given market, I can postulate on the direction of the technology and current solutions, which includes trains.
Hope this helps.
"Uhh...I didn’t know it was 'impossible' I just made it work...sorry"
The infrastructure costs alone, let alone everything else that comes along, mean that you're likely never seeing another major electrified line in North America.
OvermodWell, while you're having fun being a crayonista...
Overmod...explain why, once North America is 'weaned off fossil fuels', your switchers are partly diesel-electric...
As an old man Diesel- -with his intellect superior to yours- -made it abundantly clear, his type of engines can run off non-petroleum based fuels- -recycled fryer oil (plant-based) comes to mind- -as a modern example.
SeeYou190You know I cannot participate in this thread any further, sorry.
"Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience"- -Mark Twain.
OvermodKevin, I concur that eventual extensive electrification will occur (and distributed power to supply it), but do you see it developing the same way I do, or via some sort of mandate?
You know I cannot participate in this thread any further, sorry.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
what would happen if fusion power becomes a reality. when i graduated college ('85') they said it was 50 years away.
fusion generators could be built on any coast and could dramtically change world economics.
imagine, no need for solar, wind farms, ... no more coal, oil or natural gas power generators.
how expensive would diesel or aviation fuel become if the market for oil power generators disappears?
?? ?
jjdamnitJust my speculation...
Then explain why, once North America is 'weaned off fossil fuels', your switchers are partly diesel-electric, when even the current ATCO plants enable them to be hydrogen...
The European operating model often doesn't work in the North American context, for reasons that have been a timeless topic on the Trains Magazine forum. What I actually expect to happen is that the high-speed passenger network (and some of the long-range regional rail with stops allowing reasonable time at 125mph) will actually be served by the network of autonomous 10-passenger electric aircraft (a much easier technical proposition than autonomous automobiles, let alone railcars!) which themselves would be served by battery-electric bus and jitney (and of course subregional battery-hydrogen equipment like the Coradia iLINT once the infrastructure is built out as it is increasingly occurring in Europe) Had we not been shortsighted in the '70s and after, we well might have had the French-style model where freight and passenger service use two distinct networks. But in between abandonment, single-tracking and "PSR" as so often misapplied, we may not be able to realize this outside a few "select" regions.
Freight locomotive production, too, may be another story. I concur that Siemens components will be used, but I do not see them leading commercialization of hydrogen at the required power density, and I certainly don't see them competing with Cat or Cummins for the liquid-carrier-fuel alternative prime movers for freight power. One potential profit center iis "re-engining" existing road power with something like Ballard/Cummins fuel cells; another is RPS-style provision of battery hybrid capacity... which is the only way to go with batteries in real railroading, imho, except in relatively timy and specialized niche markets where 'failure is an option', for example Californian air-quality management districts.
The thing here is this: Siemens has considerable domestic capacity both for high-speed passenger locomotives and cars. Their AC transmission components are second to none. Where is their factory building large six-motor power, or even rebuilding to distinctive design? (Perhaps this is just Siemens management being cagy, but I'd think as early as a decade ago they'd have been competing actively in the North American power market...)
Incidentally the European freight model has already been demonstrated a whopping failure in North America for at least two principal reasons: we have no interest in running one-speed railroads at passenger-train speed, as in Europe; and we dont' use small freight trains that fit neatly between passenger operations. I recommend that you read and understand about what North American shippers are willing to pay for before you prognosticate further about how actual trains will be run.
Kevin, I concur that eventual extensive electrification will occur (and distributed power to supply it), but do you see it developing the same way I do, or via some sort of mandate?
jjdamnitSiemens will rule the market.
I believe this is correct, unless another company enters the market.
Other than that... NDA!
jjdamnitOnce North America is weaned off fossil fuels, electrification will finally be the norm and not the exception, hopefully.
I believe this is inevitable, unless a new power source is discovered. It will be slow, and probably in none of our lifetimes (maybe Harrison's), but electricity will become the power source.
Great hypothetical question!!!
Siemens will rule the market; in both motive power and componentry supplied to other manufacturers for modern electrification.
Look across the pond- -towards Europe (and the Scandinavian countries)- -as the future of train travel and movement of commodities in North America.
Once North America is weaned off fossil fuels- -please no snarky political comments- -electrification will finally be the norm and not the exception- -hopefully.
In Europe there are four (4) classes of "mainline" rail transport (excluding municipal trains, metro, and trolleys):
Some switchers are electrified while some are still diesel/electric working the same yard.
With the improvement of battery technology, battery-powered/hybrid switchers will become the norm.
Like all fuel injection systems in cars and trucks are based on the Bosch system, modern electrification of North American rail will rely on the proven Siemens electronic components.
Just my speculation...
Won't be GE. Maybe Wabtec.
*Grabs crystal ball* It will be interesting to see what happens with gas prices and inflation skyrocketing. You don't see a lot of discussion about this topic.
MaxTheRailfan123Will GE win the market or will EMD?
Will electric trains become the norm?
My opinion is that the indefinite future belongs to dual-mode-lite AC locomotives equipped to take power from overhead or 'smart third rail' with or without contribution from the prime movers, but with the consist 'diesel sized' even where reasonably 'through' electrification is built. Look for one- or two-locomotive consists 'hybridized' with a FLXdrive or Joule battery locomotive of similar size to carry the train over gaps between electrified grades or segments. If you are following developments in India, consider the necessary height of 50kV catenary above double-stack hi-cube containers. You avoid all the expense of having to raise bridges or obstructions for this if the train can 'pass under the bridges' on stored power and motor/recharge again on the other side.
Will GE win the market or will EMD? What will trains look like? Will electirc trains become the norm?