Dave Vollmer wrote: MisterBeasley wrote: So, what's next? Will we see fuel-cell technology in railroad engines? They are seriously saying that there will be a few "demonstration" vehicles on the roads within two or three years. For cars, a big part of the changeover to new technology will be the "gas station" problem - right now, you just can't hop down to the neighborhood Sunoco and fill up with high-pressure hydrogen gas. The railroads, on the other hand, have a relatively small and compact fuel distribution system. I would think that a demonstration project using this far cleaner technology would be in the interest of the railroads and the nation.Or, we could burn the hydrogen, heat water up to boiling, and run a big black fire-breathing dragon again. Wouldn't that be more fun?From a greenhouse gas standpoint, fuel cell technology is an incomplete answer. The amount of enerrgy it takes to extract the hydrogen from water is enormous, and will likely come from traditional fossil fuel power plants. So, instead of the CO2 coming from the exhaust of the diesel, it comes from the coal-fired power plants. The situation vastly improves if you can capture and sequester the CO2 at the power plant, something not practical in a vehicle.
MisterBeasley wrote: So, what's next? Will we see fuel-cell technology in railroad engines? They are seriously saying that there will be a few "demonstration" vehicles on the roads within two or three years. For cars, a big part of the changeover to new technology will be the "gas station" problem - right now, you just can't hop down to the neighborhood Sunoco and fill up with high-pressure hydrogen gas. The railroads, on the other hand, have a relatively small and compact fuel distribution system. I would think that a demonstration project using this far cleaner technology would be in the interest of the railroads and the nation.Or, we could burn the hydrogen, heat water up to boiling, and run a big black fire-breathing dragon again. Wouldn't that be more fun?
So, what's next? Will we see fuel-cell technology in railroad engines? They are seriously saying that there will be a few "demonstration" vehicles on the roads within two or three years. For cars, a big part of the changeover to new technology will be the "gas station" problem - right now, you just can't hop down to the neighborhood Sunoco and fill up with high-pressure hydrogen gas. The railroads, on the other hand, have a relatively small and compact fuel distribution system. I would think that a demonstration project using this far cleaner technology would be in the interest of the railroads and the nation.
Or, we could burn the hydrogen, heat water up to boiling, and run a big black fire-breathing dragon again. Wouldn't that be more fun?
From a greenhouse gas standpoint, fuel cell technology is an incomplete answer. The amount of enerrgy it takes to extract the hydrogen from water is enormous, and will likely come from traditional fossil fuel power plants. So, instead of the CO2 coming from the exhaust of the diesel, it comes from the coal-fired power plants. The situation vastly improves if you can capture and sequester the CO2 at the power plant, something not practical in a vehicle.
Hydrogen fuel is not quite as incomplete as you might think, and for different reasons.
As far as creating Hydrogen cheaply and cleanly? That's not the real problem according to some engineer friends of mine who know about this issue. Nuclear power can be employed here, and perhaps solar/wind power once the next generation of technologies get off the drawing board and into production.
The real obstacle is creating a safe and efficient delivery system. Hydrogen is not at all like petroleum. It's far more dangerous to transport and handle. But I'm told that it's being worked on in earnest and a solution is not too far away. Once this occurs, you will see Hydrogen come out in a big way.
I know that here in the UK during the 60's & 70's they used a diesel hydraulic combination would this have over come the back EMF problem? Is there a difference between diesel electric AC & diesel electric DC?
Shaun
tomikawaTT wrote: Still another factor was a characteristic shared by diesel-electric and straight electric locomotives, totally unknown to steam - the ability to deliver full horsepower to the rails at any speed from zero to track (or gearbox) maximum. Steam horsepower output was a humped curve that peaked somewhere above the halfway point of the speed range, while electric traction has a flat horsepower curve with full power available to start, as well as move, a train.Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - burning coal, diesel fuel and kilowatts)
Still another factor was a characteristic shared by diesel-electric and straight electric locomotives, totally unknown to steam - the ability to deliver full horsepower to the rails at any speed from zero to track (or gearbox) maximum. Steam horsepower output was a humped curve that peaked somewhere above the halfway point of the speed range, while electric traction has a flat horsepower curve with full power available to start, as well as move, a train.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - burning coal, diesel fuel and kilowatts)
That is not true. Electric motors have a nasty thing called back EMF. That is whenever they are turning they act as generators to some extent. So the faster an electric or diesel electric travels the more horsepower that must be used to simply overcome the "backfeed" from the traction motors. Thus a diesel electric or straight electric provides the highest horsepower at zero speed and steadily loses usable horsepower as speed increases.
However, many modern locomotives limit the power to the rails at low speeds and increase the permissible horsepower as speed increases. This limits the wheelslip at low speeds and also compensates somewhat for the back EMF.
Some types & classes were scrapped too soon. From a museum/preservation view, Steamtown s/b filled with locos from US railroads. Go down the list. For all the NYC hudsons, etc, to have NONE left is crazy. For too many asteamer is just a picture in a book or video if the origonal film has been preserved. Some RR's donated locos to the towns they served. Others coudn't get them to the scrapper soon enough. Most of the fleet at Steamtown is of Canadian design. THey should represent US railroads! I have nothing against our Canadian friends, but let Canada preserve ther own CN/CP locos.
Also needed is some sort of library like the smithsonian that could assist in preserving the film that is left of the era. Can you imagine doing a Civil War book without Matthew Brady photos? Get some pro's involved with the preservation & conservation of the material. Future generations may want to use it!
I think the real answer for an Al Gore-happy locomotive is some sort of hybrid (like a Prius) whose prime mover runs on renewable biofuels.
Sorry, I'm a meteorologist, so climate change is one of my hot buttons. Ironic, too, because on my model railroad, I still run steam and mine coal, representing an era before mainstream science understood the problem of anthropogenic climate forcing.
Modeling the Rio Grande Southern First District circa 1938-1946 in HOn3.
jecorbett wrote:If Al Gore gets his way, the diesel engine might someday give way to a hydrogen powered loco or some other alternative.
If anybody ever invents a locomotive that will run on bovine excrement and exaggerated claims, Al Gore will fuel it. (I used to live in Tennessee.)
Realistically, the reciprocating steam locomotive was a very expensive machine to maintain, both the locomotive itself and the wear and tear on infrastructure. It was a monster man-hour consumer; much more so than diesels. Another factor was the lack of standardization, which made mass production of spares impractical.
Theoretically, a steam-electric should have the same advantages as a diesel-electric. Actually, the high pressure boilers used with steam turbines couldn't take the pounding normal to rail operations. No steam-electric was particularly successful; most were out-and-out failures.
Having said all that, I still run steam on my layout. All that motionwork is beautiful - as long as you don't have to maintain it (and an accompanying boiler) to ICC (now FRA)-mandated standards in 1:1 scale.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I always thought the question should be what if steam engines had been realized much sooner. Most people don't know that the ancient Greeks had a basic steam engine but used it as a toy for amusement and never realized it's mechanical potential. It was a hollow metal ball suspended over a flame with two pipes sticking out on either end. You put water in the ball, the flame heated the water, and steam would come out the two pipes causing the ball to spin round and round. They never figured out to attach it to gears, etc, for mechanical work.
What would the world be like today if the steam engine had been invented thousands of years before it was? It could've been possible.
You may be interested in hearing from a UK perspective.
Here in the UK steam lingered on until 1968. The railways wanted to dispose of steam earlier, as mentioned before it was very labour intensiveand inefficient . Not long after the war a whole new generation of steam locos were designed and built to take steam in to the 1980's but most were scrapped with only a couple of years on the clock. In the early 50's the modernisation plan was born it was a plan to rebuild our rail network ater the destruction of WW2 but the government sort of run out of money (we had to buy in oil as we weren't an oil producing nation at the time) having to rebuild a whole nation and the starting of the welfare state etc, so the railways were low priority as they were state owned. We were one of the last European countries to kill off steam I think the last was Germany in 1977. In addition steam burns fuel when idle it's not a technology you can switch on and off like diesel or electric traction.
Safety Valve wrote: IRONROOSTER wrote: Steam was a 19th century high labor technology. As labor costs went up steam became less feasible. The countries that retained steam after we did, were those with cheap labor like China. Most of those have since scrapped their steam.Actually, the conversion here was delayed by WWII. The resources for locomotives were put into tanks and planes. Otherwise the conversion would have started 5-10 years earlier. EnjoyPaul Not really delayed. I think WW2 called out the best of steam to handle the heaviest traffic the Nation has ever seen.
IRONROOSTER wrote: Steam was a 19th century high labor technology. As labor costs went up steam became less feasible. The countries that retained steam after we did, were those with cheap labor like China. Most of those have since scrapped their steam.Actually, the conversion here was delayed by WWII. The resources for locomotives were put into tanks and planes. Otherwise the conversion would have started 5-10 years earlier. EnjoyPaul
Steam was a 19th century high labor technology. As labor costs went up steam became less feasible. The countries that retained steam after we did, were those with cheap labor like China. Most of those have since scrapped their steam.
Actually, the conversion here was delayed by WWII. The resources for locomotives were put into tanks and planes. Otherwise the conversion would have started 5-10 years earlier.
Enjoy
Paul
Not really delayed. I think WW2 called out the best of steam to handle the heaviest traffic the Nation has ever seen.
Diesels had been around before WWII and most railroads were anxious to transition to them but when the US entered the war, factories were converted to producing war materials so new locomotive production all but stopped. Steam did carry the load during the war but that was because it still made up the largest portion of railroad rosters. As soon as the war ended, the transition to diesels was resumed in earnest.
Yes, it really is a wonder that they were not canned (I use the word advisedly) sooner. CPR used its last steam in '58/'59, if I have that right, and we were flying supersonic jets. Heck, we had detonated one or two atomic bombs by then! What were we doing running these iron dragons?
BTW, I have one token diesel on my layout. The other 8, soon to be 9, are all fire breathers.
No one can doubt the beauty of steam, but from an engineer's perspective, it's a much more dirty, and dangerous environment than the hefty wide-cab diesels of today. You literally had to face the flames every day.
Fortunately, a good deal of the aesthetics of steam lives on today as models, and we run a steam locomotive anytime we want, we could even have it haul Superliners or a stack train if we so choose.
Steam engines and diesel engines both have their place...
Generating electricity for electric locomotives!
-George
"And the sons of Pullman porters and the sons of engineers ride their father's magic carpet made of steel..."
Steam performance was comparable - on an engine to engine basis. The actual efficiency of external cdombustion steam was about 15-20%. It could drop to 5-6% in cold weather(thermal loss from the boiler - reduced steam to the cylinders). This was measured on ex C&O 614 by the ACE 3000 group a number of years ago. An internal combustion diesel is about 30% efficient no matter what the weather is.
The next point is cost of maintainance - this is where the diesels really won out. This number was so out of the ball park that even the low price of new steam(about 1/3 that of a diesel at the time) could not justify the purchase of any more steam. So the bottom line is unless you have very cheap labor, you are going to buy a diesel. That said, I have 5 steamers on my pike(love to see all that 'motion' as they move) and the 'sound' is just great!
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
Ray Breyer
Modeling the NKP's Peoria Division, circa 1943