|
Search
You searched for the word(s): userid:340386
Solar is a well established builder of stationary gas turbine gen sets. The Mercury 50 is such a device. Typical of such applications, it uses a single shaft industrial gas turbine such as those used in the Baldwin Westinghouse Blue Goose and the GE UP gas turbine locomotives back in the 50's. Because weight is not so important as with aero engines, industrial turbines tend to be large and heavy. (The specs on the Mercury 50 that I reviewed don't even mention weight; at least I could not
I was also somewhat underwhelmed by this article, in fact so much so that i fired off a letter to the editor shown below: Good history but you lost me when it was stated that alternative energy would make up for the enormous increase in generating capacity with mass electrification. There is not a prayer of this happening. Nuclear Power on the face of it is a source but Nuclear power plants use gas turbines to produce "peaking" power that railroads will run on at least half of the time
UP's gas turbines were GE single shaft industrial type. The Baldwin-Westinghouse Blue Goose had similar Westinghouse single shaft units. These tend to be large and heavy. The first rail use of lighter aircraft-derivitive gas turbines occured in 1967 and was the 400 hp, dual shaft UAC ST6, six of these being installed in each Turbotrain. (I believe the aircraft version was used for turboprop installations.) . In 1970, ANF industries installed a Turbomeca Turmo 3 dual shaft helicopter type gas
This looks like the vehicle that Rohr Industries developed and built on a contract from the DOT. It was being tested at the Pueblo Test Center in 1976 when the first RTL Turboliner was there for acceptance testing. At the time, the RTL reached 129 mph on a VIP run and the Hovercraft Monorail, which ran on linear induction power, had yet to reach 100 mph (if memory serves me).
Cab Signal Overspeed control is a regulation problem easily solved with money. The real key to high speed on existing rail lies in minimizing unsprung weight which in turn reduces Vertical Dynamic (P2)Track Forces. These are deep disturbances in the substrate that literally distroy the tracks. All European motive power has been designed to Pe Forces for years. None of Amtrak's locomotives, with their axle mounted motors, come anywhere close to being suitable for speeds above 79 mph. The exceptions
In view of this discussion of slack and its effects, some salient points: 1) There are two feet of slack in each car of a train (1 foot at each end). It is there because in the days of friction bearings, a locomotive could not overcome the high breakout friction of all the bearings in the train at once. Slack permittted picking up one car at a time. Roller bearings don't have anywhere near this level of breakout friction but slack has not changed to the best of my knowledge. Some roads have experimented
Some of the reasons, other than the change order restrictions, Rohr lost all that money: 1) The option order for BART had just been completed and it had gone smoothly with all of the growing pains taken care of. (As I recall, they actually made money on this second order but not enough to zero out the losses on the first). The design for the WMATA cars was to be similar so it should have been a piece of cake. However, following aerospace practice, they had let all of the engineers on the BART program
With all the discussion concerning the 1000 series cars in the recent collision, some aspects their aquisition might be interesting. 1) At $92 million, Rohr Industries was the low bidder by a significant margin. Other bidders screamed that aerospace companies always bid low and made their profit on change orders. In that the Rohr bid was fully compliant, the board had no alternative to accepting it. However, to prevent Rohr from making money on changes. the WMATA Consultant, LT Klauder was instructed
Yes, the 1000 series were built in Winder, GA but the the design was by LT Klauder Consultants and the engineering took place in Chula Vista, CA. The body was constructed with long aluminum extrusions manufactured in Switzerland. The extrusions were "Pop Riveted" together to attain the required height dimensions. The result was a very strong and light weight car. Unfortunately, Rohr aerospace engineers designed for stress rather than deflection witrh the result that tests of the first car
My saying LTK designed the cars is misleading. They wrote the specm as did PBQ&D, for Bart but Rohr was responsinble for designing a car that met thoise specs in each case. With respect to the Marta cars, I was involved in that contract only briefly but it could well have been. have been LTK. Jerry Pier
|
By signing up I may also receive reader surveys and occasional special offers from Trains.com. We don't sell,
rent, or trade our e-mail lists.
|