Fuel efficiency

[Anonymous]

Hello, I work at a chilean train freight operator (FEPASA). I'm looking for help on: 1) how to measure fuel efficiency (our locomotives works both at yard and on the roads, but I just want to measure the road consumption so as to get a good "gross ton-miles per gallon " indicator). Any products or ideas you know would be appreciated. 2) Any ideas (or plans) for achieving the best fuel efficiency? Thanks!

[kenneo]

The manufacturer of the engine should have all of the information you were asking about. They will have it in each throtle setting.

But you can get "ball park numbers" by fueling before and after each type of service to get an idea of fuel consumption. Not really accurate, but will give you an idea.

[tree68]

QUOTE: Originally posted by kenneo

The manufacturer of the engine should have all of the information you were asking about. They will have it in each throtle setting.

But you can get "ball park numbers" by fueling before and after each type of service to get an idea of fuel consumption. Not really accurate, but will give you an idea.

That's how I check my gas mileage!!! I will say that it needs to be a fair amount of time, though, so you get a decent measure. You can't run the engine for an hour and expect a measureable change in a 1500 gallon fuel tank. You have to have a standard "full" point, too. If I fill my gas tank after every trip, and I'm not careful how full I fill the tank each time, I'll get wild swings in my MPG figures.

[jchnhtfd]

The other trouble with measuring fuel consumption 'on the road' in ordinary service is that, unlike your family car, the load the engine is handling is so variable -- so it is really hard to get a handle on it. Not only the tonnage, but gradient, wind, bad bearings, sticky brakes... still, better than nothing.

[PNWRMNM]

There are two reasonably cheap things you could do.

First put an operating hour meter on loco. We did this on a shortline I worked for and found out fuel consumption on small EMDs in our service was 1% of rated horesepower per hour. If you left a unit in switching service service for a few tanks of fuel you would get similar measure for that service. You could then subtract that from your total fuel consumption over the duty cycle to determine your average fuel consumption in road service and per gross ton mile.

Second approach is computer modeling. Here you model throttle mani[pulations and you get speed and fuel consumption as outputs. Professionsal quality models are available from AAR. You may have to be a member, which may or may not be an issue for you. There are also hobby train simulators that will come close and are simpler to use and certainly available. Most any copy of Trains has ads for them.

Mac

[Anonymous]

Al Krugs site....http://www.vcn.com/~alkrug/rrfacts/fueluse.htm

[Anonymous]

Fill the locomotives up before departure and after arrival, then divide total train tonnage by fuel consumption. If trains are pulled by one locomotive or "pure" locomotive consists, results are fairly easy to analyze (do it several times for reliable results). Otherwise, you would have to make some assumptions or use a lot of statistics.
Anyway, don't mix results from different routes and or services. Fuel consumption depends largely on geography and operational speeds, so get as many indicators of this kind as you can.

[UPTRAIN]

I thought a SD40-2 in like 4th throttle going 30 mph was like 12 gallons of Diesel per mile....it was in TRAINS like 2 years ago.