Prior to Y2K CP modified several SD40-2's for standby power hook up and had them stationed at various points around the system in case things did not go smoothly after 0001 on 1/1/2000.
These units have a metal cabinet mounted behind the upright air filter behind the cab on fireman side.
Read the bit at the far right of the page.
To translate from UK to US, bogies are trucks.
http://www.class47.co.uk/c47_numbers.php?s_loco=D1748
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tdmidget wrote:ndbprr I hate to call you again on the same post but they do NOT have JET engines that "spin generators". These are gas turbines and they have about the same relationship to jet engines as a water wheel does to a garden hose nozzle. A jet engine produces thrust due to the reaction to the action of gas passing at high speed through a jet or orifice. A gas turbine produces torgue through the pressure on blades(also known as buckets) as the expanding gases pass through the turbine, at each stage pressing on another set of blades as the gases expand. their velocity at the exit is low and you would not hear one at all at 200 yds.
You are correct about how a turbogenerator works as opposed to an aircraft jet engine but many power gas turbine designs have been adapted from aircraft engines. If you look on General Electric's website there are a number of "aeroderivative" turbines. The most common propulsion turbine used on U.S Navy ships is derived from an engine originally designed for the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 (note that the starting point was a turbofan, not a turboprop). The UP's turbine electric locomotives also used aeroderivative engines......
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
Randy Stahl wrote:It's VERY simple to use a modern locomotive for standby electric power. During the rolling blackouts in California a FLEET of SD-40s were used to power vast portions of California. An SD-40 can produce about 2 MW. The AR-10 (alternator rectifier) can easily have the rectifier disconnected and the parellell 3 phase connected to the power gris instead . The AR 10 is a 10 pole machine therefore you will produce 60 hz at about throttle 6 .The voltage regulator is simply the locomotives own exitation system . GE locomotves are even simpler , the rectifier is external .. easier to unhook
That's the answer I was waiting for. Thanks Randy !!!
I wonder if many cities today with RR ROWs in them have any kind of contingency plan for this.
Dan
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
ouengr wrote:Didn't California consider using the old BN B30-7A during the electricty trading crises several yeasrs ago? I do not know if it ever worked but I remember the discussions.
The Sierra Railroad bought a bunch of those locomotives to use for power generation. As far as I know, it never happened. They did have the information on their website. Unfortunately, now it is only about their dinner trains.
"No soup for you!" - Yev Kassem (from Seinfeld)
Hi All
The city in question was Boucherville, Quebec, a south shore suburb of Montreal, during the ice storm of 1997 I believe it was. Emergency power generation systems within the city failed and the electrical distribution system in the area was seriously damaged. The hospital and senior's care facilities were without power and so for 3 weeks, as it turned out. The locomotive ( a yard unit if I recall) was run off the end of an industrial spur onto a city street near these critical care locations, Cables at ground level provided power to these facilites and to other public services until the highlines were restored. It was one of a variety of creative substitutes for the standard electrical supply. The weather problem creating this natural disaster was a ground level temperature inversion (fed by an Arctic cold front) which turned a warm high level flow of moisture from south of the Great Lakes, which would otherwise fall as rain, into freezing rain which fell for several days and created ice as much as 6-8" thick. Havoc was the result. These can occur in this area of southern Ontario and Quebec quite easily so don't be surprised if such an event occurs again. High tension transmission towers were broken like matchsticks for miles and Hydro Quebec imported line crews from as far away as BC and the Central US to clean up the mess. It was one of the most recent natural disasters of such proportions to occur in Canada. The crews worked like Trojans. The response knew no borders.
Charlie
I knew I kept all these magazines for a reason. The news article is in Trains April 1998 page 18.CN MLW M420W 3502 was derailed in the Montreal suburb of Boucherville and moved under its own power 400 feet down the middle of a paved street to serve as a portable generator for the town's civic buildings.
There was a huge ice storm that knocked out the power to 1.35 million customers taking in all of southwest Quebec, plus some adjoining areas of Ontario, New York state and Vermont in January 1998. It took several weeks to get all the power back. Our daughter and her family servived that storm in Ontario.
CN 3508 was going to provide power at a high school turned shelter, but only made it as far as the 3502. Two other locomotives remained on the rails and provided power in the Quebec towns of Richelieu and Coteau.
CP provided SD40 5417 and a container with a generator.
These moves were provided free of charge.
Barry, Regina
Best Regards, Big John
Kiva Valley Railway- Freelanced road in central Arizona. Visit the link to see my MR forum thread on The Building of the Whitton Branch on the Kiva Valley Railway
zardoz wrote: cprted wrote: samfp1943 wrote: Boyd wrote:I remember reading somewhere the President of a railroad saying their engines could be easily converted to emergency generators and make enough electricity to power a small town. I forgot what railroad that was. Wouldn't it have to be an a.c. loco to do this, and what at what hertz (sp?) is an a.c. loco at?Some time back, Trains carried a photo of a CN unit that was being used as a power supply in some Canadian city; the unit had apparently been run down a track in a city street, and then drug some distance further off the rails to a point where its generating capacity could be used...The details are pretty sketchy,in my memory,but I think the details are still pretty accurate.I believe the town is Stewart, BC. I have a friend from Stewart and he told me that the town uses a couple of CN locomotives for power generation. I'm not sure if it is a full time thing, or only as a backup.Not sure about the name of the town, but otherwise you are correct.This was done to supply power to a town that was dark due to an incredible ice storm. The town is in a valley, and the cold air pooled in the valley and when the precipitation began falling, it was rain...but as the rain fell into the cold pool (where everything had already been chilled to many degrees below freezing), all the rain turned to ice on impact. Some places had ice 4" thick!! It took many weeks to restore all of the downed lines.
cprted wrote: samfp1943 wrote: Boyd wrote:I remember reading somewhere the President of a railroad saying their engines could be easily converted to emergency generators and make enough electricity to power a small town. I forgot what railroad that was. Wouldn't it have to be an a.c. loco to do this, and what at what hertz (sp?) is an a.c. loco at?Some time back, Trains carried a photo of a CN unit that was being used as a power supply in some Canadian city; the unit had apparently been run down a track in a city street, and then drug some distance further off the rails to a point where its generating capacity could be used...The details are pretty sketchy,in my memory,but I think the details are still pretty accurate.I believe the town is Stewart, BC. I have a friend from Stewart and he told me that the town uses a couple of CN locomotives for power generation. I'm not sure if it is a full time thing, or only as a backup.
samfp1943 wrote: Boyd wrote:I remember reading somewhere the President of a railroad saying their engines could be easily converted to emergency generators and make enough electricity to power a small town. I forgot what railroad that was. Wouldn't it have to be an a.c. loco to do this, and what at what hertz (sp?) is an a.c. loco at?Some time back, Trains carried a photo of a CN unit that was being used as a power supply in some Canadian city; the unit had apparently been run down a track in a city street, and then drug some distance further off the rails to a point where its generating capacity could be used...The details are pretty sketchy,in my memory,but I think the details are still pretty accurate.
Boyd wrote:I remember reading somewhere the President of a railroad saying their engines could be easily converted to emergency generators and make enough electricity to power a small town. I forgot what railroad that was. Wouldn't it have to be an a.c. loco to do this, and what at what hertz (sp?) is an a.c. loco at?
Some time back, Trains carried a photo of a CN unit that was being used as a power supply in some Canadian city; the unit had apparently been run down a track in a city street, and then drug some distance further off the rails to a point where its generating capacity could be used...The details are pretty sketchy,in my memory,but I think the details are still pretty accurate.
Not sure about the name of the town, but otherwise you are correct.
This was done to supply power to a town that was dark due to an incredible ice storm. The town is in a valley, and the cold air pooled in the valley and when the precipitation began falling, it was rain...but as the rain fell into the cold pool (where everything had already been chilled to many degrees below freezing), all the rain turned to ice on impact. Some places had ice 4" thick!! It took many weeks to restore all of the downed lines.
I remember seeing a picture of that. The news article made it sound like the engine moved under it's own power down the street tearing up the pavement somewhat. I think they knew they were going to be without power for a couple of weeks so they were willing to trade off the road damage for power.
Enjoy
Paul
ndbprr wrote:I was at a Menards Hardware this morning that has a Generac unit that runs on natural gas and has an alternator. This thing had a 2" gas line and was bigger than a full size van to handle emergency power for the store.
Poor fellows...once up a time I used to work on emergency generators, and I never saw a company that took short-cuts like Generac did. I always liked Onan (now part of Cummins) and Katolight much more. Then again, those days are so far removed that the situation might have changed and Generac is much better. It'd be interesting to see what the industry is like these days.
-ChrisWest Chicago, ILChristopher May Fine Art Photography"In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration." ~Ansel Adams
Safety Valve wrote: You cannot make Inverters big enough to feed a neighborhood, much less a town. We are a group of about 500 homes within reach of the tracks and each home needs 60 hertz at 120 volts AC and who knows how many total Amperage to feed each one. Heck the computer Im using is probably the third biggest electric eater behind the laundry and the home air/heat.There are probably 2000 homes in my town and a few hundred businesses along with phone lines, traffic lights etc etc etc.It is also my opinion that when someone like me uses the words ..."You cannot..." someone else probably found a way to spend the United States Dollar in sufficient amounts to make it happen.
You cannot make Inverters big enough to feed a neighborhood, much less a town. We are a group of about 500 homes within reach of the tracks and each home needs 60 hertz at 120 volts AC and who knows how many total Amperage to feed each one. Heck the computer Im using is probably the third biggest electric eater behind the laundry and the home air/heat.
There are probably 2000 homes in my town and a few hundred businesses along with phone lines, traffic lights etc etc etc.
It is also my opinion that when someone like me uses the words ..."You cannot..." someone else probably found a way to spend the United States Dollar in sufficient amounts to make it happen.
Actually they can have inverters big enough (if it's not already done, look up the Celeo converter station in Sylmar,Ca.), but it takes $$$$ for expensive and large simiconductors. Much easier to use a motor / generator set.
A locomotive can easily produce 4000-6000 amps, pleanty to supply even the largest neighborhood
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