And another Autonomous railcar appears

[YoHo1975]

Not sure if this was one of the items Euclid was referring to in the other threads, but saw it when looking at the articles on the CP Hydrogen loco

 

https://www.railwayage.com/mechanical/freight-cars/tugvolt-autonomous-plus-standard-interchange/

 

Their initial primary use model seems far more plausible. 

[Euclid]

No I have not seen that particular execution before, but it seems almost identical to the proposal by PARALLEL SYSTEMS, which we have been discussing in the other two threads.  So that one and this new one that you have posted, made by TUG VOLT are both concepts using self-propelled, individual railcars that have traction motors driving their wheels and batteries onboard to power the car. 

 

They are also autonomous so they can run on railroad track, following all of the traffic control criteria without any human operator onboard.  Where the two concepts differ is that Parallel Systems cars do not have couplers. 

 

Instead, they just run them either separated as far apart as called for by the traffic conditions, or very close together as though they were a train of cars but not coupled.  For such close interval running, they rely on the autonomous control to maintain perfect separation, which might be called “platooning.” 

 

The TUG VOLT system does have couplers on the cars and offers them to enable running the cars as conventional rolling stock, I supposed either under their own power or unpowered just as conventional freight cars.  Therefore, like the Parallel Systems concept, this Tug Volt concept is multi-purpose. 

 

With the Parallel systems concept, they offer the concept of preforming short haul drayage that is normally done by trucks or integrating with conventional freight railroading in short to medium hauling distances. 

 

I think both of these systems are creative and workable, but they are searching for a market that needs them.  Integrating operations with the freight railroads would be extremely challenging, because of the disruption it would cause to the many strong, long established paradigms of the railroad industry.  At the very least, most railroads would see the proposal as competing with them. 

 

Both systems have the problem of needing a railroad track to take the drayage work away from trucking.  Interestingly, the basic motive for this function is what the

 

The Green Movement has been championing for the last several years, to get freight off of the highways and onto rail in order to fight climate change.  So they view this as a social cause rather than capitalistic advantage, although it might accomplish that in at least some cases.  Where they have advocated this most is in long haul freight.  They want to get trucking completely out of that business.

 

When you ask if I had been talking about this before, you might be thinking of what I have said about autonomous freight trains.  In my opinion that is the concept that has a huge market ready to adopt it.  It is ready to go to work today, and is the least disruptive to the industry.  It is also far easier technically than either autonomous trucks or autonomous automobiles.  This is because the railroad plant is mechanically self-guiding. So the need for sensing is very limited compared to cars and trucks on the roadways where the need for sensing is almost unlimited.  And it is also necessary for safety.  The railroads are also highly motivated to eliminate labor.  For these reasons, I think that autonomous freight trains are right around the corner. 

 

Also, regarding previous discussions, many have refered to John G. Kneiling's proposal for freight trains of dedicated railcars with traction motors driving all of their wheels.  While this seems comparable to these self-powered railcar concepts, Kneiling was just proposing it as distributed power being fully and evenly distributed for the most efficient operation of trains without slack.  I seem to recall that he was also advocating solid link drawbars rather than automatic couplers.  

 

[Overmod]

TugVolt is completely different from Parallel Systems; all it does is motor existing freight-car trucks to make them self-mobile, and allow 'enough' autonomous or remote control that cars or trains of cars can operate between specific points.

The problem is that there appears to be handwaving going on in their promotional material: they show, and their material describes, trucks that operate 'normally' when the cars are being towed normally by their couplers in ordinary railroad service -- I see fundamentally unmodified three-piece truck sideframes.  You do not casually 'put motors on these' and voila! get self-propelling 283k# cars moving themselves safely, if indeed very far at all.

 

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

It would appear that the designers saw pictures of the truck arrangement on GA8's without being aware of the actual arrangement of the traction motors.

[Euclid]

 

I doubt that illustration of the TUG VOLT self-powered railcar represents an actual design that will be built, even as a prototype.  It is just a sales pitch to give an idea of what the product will look like. So for the trucks, they just duplicated what they saw in widespread use under freight cars.   

 

In reading the article carefully, it may very well be that they have a market for this machine for private railroads.  So, the market may be highly specialized, but still worth developing this concept to sell to that market. 

 

With a perfect product for the freight railroad industry, the reward would by huge, but a perfect product for that industry is very difficult to find.  It will have to emerge in a much generalized way with lots of research and development cost presenting lots of financial risk. 

 

I would like to learn more about the details in the illustration showing the apparent articulation, the central core feature, and the difference between the ends. 

[tree68]

Steam engines sometimes had "booster engines" on the trailing truck.  It would only engage when the extra power was needed.

A similar arrangement could be done with freight trucks, although this does introduce a measure of mechanical complexity, which will be a maintenance headache.

OTOH, recall that the traction motors on a Diesel-electric are always engaged with the axles.  If they aren't providing power or braking, (ie, if dead-in-tow), they simply free-wheel, which could happen with this particular concept.

[daveklepper]

Please keep in mind that powered railroad rolling-stock of any description requires  roughly five times the out-of-service tine and worker-hours than non-powered rolling-stock for Federal-required inspections and for maintenance.

[Overmod]

I haven't seen anything from Intramotev or Idealab that indicates TugVolt is anything other than converted separate railcars.  No articulation, no stressed containers, no fancy self-aligning modules, no underfloor batteries -- about as far from an 'integral train' as you can get.

I suspect that in practice the fancy 'streamlined' end casing would be replaced by box housings with the control suite and battery banks, with a platform above reachable by ladder or stairs so that someone with a RCO or analogue can securely control movement.  In a hopper I expect a great deal of the machinery to be 'tucked' under the slope sheets.

Intramotev's Web site is still mostly a 'teaser', with no technical discussion at all that I can find.  (Irritation warning: you have to swipe up and down but the pages slide right to left, one of the more irritating IxD fails I have had to encounter...)

Perhaps someone would care to contact Cathcart in Columbus to see if he knows more about the obvious details, including the issue of 92-day for electric vehicles.  My guess would be that if you got any answer it would be to invoke a NDA, but someone like Ron may just have the chutzpah to try...

[daveklepper]

In addition to the time-out-of-service issue, serios enogh, there is a much larger issue.

With the abandonment of much branchline and seciondary track, most shippers and receivers aren't even adjacent to a rail line, let-alone actually have a usable siding.  So autonomous freifgtcars may find a nich market in large intra-plant railroads, but continental or national application is very doubtful.

The two ways railroads can increase business profitably are:

Lower costs and time for truck-train and train-truck transfers

Seamless transfer one railroad to another, even with dIrect competitors working together to realize profitable intermodal lanes  that would not be profitable with either railroad working alone.

[Overmod]

daveklepper

The two ways railroads can increase business profitably are: Lower costs and time for truck-train and train-truck transfers

I think you should look more carefully at TugVolt's premise.  Remember they have Cathcart advising them; this is not just a couple of whiz kids with a bold new method of separating fools from their money a la Holman.

The specific niche is one we've discussed many times here, including with regard to Murphy's lumberyard: bulk or low-volume commodities, where aggregation into locomotive-hauled trains isn't and effective use, or where last-mile switching is difficult or expensive to conduct.  Whether you have a one-to-many or many-to-one situation, it's clear that a cheap method of running cheap railcars either in an ad hoc network arrangement or platooned as necessary will have value.  That value is completely separate from the kind of QoS concerns traditionally involved in intermodal service in the past, or in the current least-least-common-denominator double-stack commodity-priced land bridging we now often see.

I still see major issues with the idea, not least of which is overall system cost -- I presume though that the development team and the prospective customer that has committed to $30M worth of the things have evaluated and understood this well enough to reach an adult decision.  I would be more concerned with incident crime or vandalism, particularly if the designers are naive enough to make or use components with high 'street' demand and resale value...

[greyhounds]

daveklepper

even with dorect (direct?) competitors working together to realize profitable intermodal lanes  that would not be profitable with either railroad working alone.

Doing that can get you some time in a prison.

[Euclid]

I can see the benefit of using a self-propelled individual railcar to deliver the last mile over light trackage.  But that obvious advantage seems to evaporate when I look closer.  That single self-propelled railcar may have to travel from the west coast before venturing that last mile on its own.  So for maybe 1,000 miles, the car will just be another freight car in a long train.

 

But even though it is rated for full capacity of ordinary freight cars, won’t it have to divert some of that capacity from the cargo load to transporting the weight of the batteries, motors, gearing, heavier trucks, electrical control equipment, enhanced airbrakes, autonomous running equipment, lighting, fairings, and other technical equipment associated with locomotives?

[York1]

Another big issue -- cost.  How much would a railroad pay for one of these cars to use for several miles?  How many years would it take the cost of one of these cars to break even with a readily available semi?

Edit -- another thought.  With all the news about the train robberies, how vulnerable would these autonomous cars be?  One of these parked on an industrial siding for several nights somewhere would seem to be attractive to a thief looking for certain metals, batteries, and computer systems.

[tree68]

I can see these running in a sort of conveyor system, on a closed system.  Instead of assembling a train of x cars, just load each car and send it on it's way.  If the ROW is double track, great, otherwise, the cars/systems have to be smart enough to hold traffic in sidings while opposing traffic clears.  Not really a challenge.

As part of a long-haul system, not so much.  

OTOH, if it's for dedicated customers on each end, and the cars are aggregated into trains - likely locomotive hauled consists - it could eliminate local switching on each end.  Railroad delivers the cars to a siding from which the cars can be dispatched and returned after which the railroad picks them up again to return.

I'm not going to say it won't work, but it's not any sort of a blanket solution for anything.

[daveklepper]

Greyhounds:  "to prison?"  Hardly.  If the conferences are recorded, reported to the STB, and deal strictly with new interline business development.   Is there an intermodal lane now Texas - Oregon and Washington?  Florida - Michgan?  Should not these exist?

Overmod:  Hardly inexpensive.   

And not only double-track, but also grade-separated.

But I do see a considerable nich market for autonimous freightcars in intra-plant railroads with multiple origine and destination points..

[YoHo1975]

York1

Another big issue -- cost.  How much would a railroad pay for one of these cars to use for several miles?  How many years would it take the cost of one of these cars to break even with a readily available semi?

Edit -- another thought.  With all the news about the train robberies, how vulnerable would these autonomous cars be?  One of these parked on an industrial siding for several nights somewhere would seem to be attractive to a thief looking for certain metals, batteries, and computer systems.

 

 

 

First off, let's laugh at the idea that the railroad would be buying these cars in the first place.

They would be leasing companies or bought by the industries they serve

Second, from a theft perspective, the relative added theft opportunity could be offset by the same types of things that keep thieves away from your car.

Plus, how many sidings are out in the open not hemmed in by a fence. 

 

That fence would seem to be the bigger challenge to automation. Not insurmountable by any means, but the kind of nuts and bolts issue that is oft forgotten about. 

[Overmod]

Here is one view of the type of equipment to be used: not difficult to extrapolate to a small hybrid plant of the scale Kneiling intended his gas turbines to provide articulated sets of skeleton flats...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_h7MAX9Bx0c&feature=emb_logo

[BaltACD]

Overmod

Here is one view of the type of equipment to be used: not difficult to extrapolate to a small hybrid plant of the scale Kneiling intended his gas turbines to provide articulated sets of skeleton flats...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_h7MAX9Bx0c&feature=emb_logo

Haven't seen or heard of anyone adopting this technology since its announcement in 2018.