After checking past threads on this topic, and in light of the bloated cost of oil, I am prompted to start this thread: Why not electrify all North American main lines? Electrification would provide independence from reliance on one single primary energy source and would be more environmentally sustainable.
And, since I know that protests will come regarding the questions of costs and clearances under caternary, wouldn't it be cheaper to electrify using 3rd rail technology? Existing locomotive fleets could easily be rebuilt and infrastructure costs would be much lower than stringing up caternary!
Ya gotta make electricity. Oil, coal, natural gas and smashing atoms is the way most of it is made. You could include solar and wind, but not enough of that to go around. Not to mention the cost of third rail. Sorry to sound so downcast.
Isn't the third rail the thing in subways that fries anyone who comes in contact with it? There are good reasons to string power off the ground; liability being only one of them. Even then injuries happen. Don't forget that kid who recently got a settlement after getting zapped (even after ignoring signs and tresspassing.) And in the U.K. just yesterday a boy was shocked through his steel-toed boots by an overhead wire (under him as he stood on a bridge.) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=564383&in_page_id=1770&ito=1490
As for the overall practicality (or impracticality) of electric conversion, I'll let someone more knowledgable than me address that one, as all I can do is speculate.
Most of the fuel sources above - oil, coal, natural gas - are to some degree of flexibility alternatives to each other, and their prices rise and fall more or less together. The Wall Street Journal has had a series of articles in the past couple of weeks to the effect of how each of them is experiencing a price spike due to overall high world-wide demand from other nations, delays and difficulties in discovering and developing new sources, transportation (!) limitations, etc., etc.
However, significantly omitted from the above list is hydro-electric power, too. Here, that's mainly a Pacific Northwest option (i.e., Bonneville Dam and Power Authority , etc.), though there is also some in the southeast (Tennesse Valley Authority. More to the point, the fuel cost for that is exactly zero as long as there has been enough rain and snow to provide sufficient water flows - the cost is mostly the capital constructipon cost, plus some minor operating expenses. Nevertheless, in a competitive market a hydro-power company would tend to price their kilowatts the same as coal-generated kilowatts, so there might not a cost savings to the railroads using a hydro-power source for that reason.
However, recall that in the Rocky Mountains at least the Milwaukee Road - and perhaps others (Great Northern at the Marias Pass tunnel ? the Butte, Anaconda & Pacific, etc.) - actually built and owned their own hydro-generating capacity, at least until the local commercial power grid developed enough to take over that function. If they had retained ownership of that resource, today their "fuel" for the electrified portions of their operations would be nearly free - kind of like Southwest Airlines' cost-saving jet fuel price hedging contracts, but in a different context. Perhaps Michael Sol will agree with me that it is too bad that MILW did not survive long enough to take advantage of this.
I could write a lot more about this, but I don't have the time this morning - maybe later.
- Paul North.
Two things I will offer:
1. Adjusted for inflation, todays gasoline (and diesel) are very close to what they were in 1981; which reinforces the point made above that these can and will adjust.
2. A 3rd rail would endanger most wild life and we all know that is intolerable, perhaps more than the danger to humans in today's world. The permitting process would drag on forever whether catenary or 3rd rail.
The United States, a nation 3,000 miles wide. Lets look at just one Railroad. The Union Pacific was designed to run from the western end of the Union States to the Pacific Ocean during our Civil War.
Today they operate 32,200 ROUTE MILES of track. with 8,700 locomotives.
Options? Third Rail is mostly lower voltage (approx. 600 v) and usually DC. Such lines must be fenced and requires "booster stations". Overhead Wires (Catenary) is usually 25,000 volt AC commerical power.
There isn't enought money in the World to electrify just that one railroad system, build the Power Plants, and replace all the locomotives.
Europe had a head start, the rail system had to be rebuilt after WWII, lots of coal and lots of water power and a large Public Transportation in need of trains.. Why not go electric.
Don U. TCA 73-5735
In the west alone I know of at least twelve incomplete or mothballed Nuclear power plants that could solve much of the coming electricity shortage.
The Great Northern Electrification through the Cascades was obsolete by any modern standards when it was shut down. The same was true of the Milwaukee electrification in the west.
Both the CPR and the UP conducted electrification studies years back and at the time of the studies diesel was under two dollars a gallon. Both concluded at that time that diesel would have to be five dollars a gallon before electrification and the expense of stringing catenary would be economically viable.
Well diesel is fast approaching that figure and I don't see any renewed talk about electrification. One day we will wake up to the advantages of electrification and wire will be strung on at least the busiest mainlines. I would not be surprised to see the BNSF become the leader in electrification and string wire between Los Angeles and Chicago in the not to distant future. Even with the modern diesels electrification offers so much more, such as more trains per hour in each direction and remember electrics return power to the grid when in dynamic braking whereas diesels just waste this potential power into the atmosphere.
passengerfan wrote: Both the CPR and the UP conducted electrification studies years back and at the time of the studies diesel was under two dollars a gallon. Both concluded at that time that diesel would have to be five dollars a gallon before electrification and the expense of stringing catenary would be economically viable. Well diesel is fast approaching that figure and I don't see any renewed talk about electrification. .
Well diesel is fast approaching that figure and I don't see any renewed talk about electrification. .
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
Personally, I don't see third rail as an option. What happens at road crossings? Most third rail installations I'm familiar with have the rail elevated above the traveled rails. Even if it terminated on both sides of a crossing and trains coasted through, I don't think the on-board computers monitoring the on-board systems will tolerate very well the blinks and surges as the battery back-up comes on-line over the years.
Why are we stuck on copper as the conductor for overhead? If it's too expensive, don't use it. Aluminum, steel, gold, nickel , silver or just about any other conductive metal will work, though not interchangably. They may wear faster or require a different tension and support system, but those are minor engineering considerations.
As for the argument about transmission loses making it necessary for multiple power plants I ask why? Except for a peaking plant that is on a long-distance high-tension transmission line, the closest power plant to my house is around 100 miles and it's owned by another power company. My point is long distance transmission of electrical power happens every day. It's not a show stopper, like it is portrayed on these pages.
diningcar wrote:Two things I will offer:1. Adjusted for inflation, todays gasoline (and diesel) are very close to what they were in 1981; which reinforces the point made above that these can and will adjust.
I have virtually no experience with economics but I've heard this argument before and have never understood it or really believed it. And here's why:
1981 2008
Minimum Wage: $3.35 $6.55
Gallon of Gas: $1.38 $5.00 and rising fast.
% Gas to Wage: 41% 76%
I doubt if an average wage earner would agree with your statement.
Wayne
Modeling HO Freelance Logging Railroad.
sfcouple wrote: diningcar wrote: Two things I will offer:1. Adjusted for inflation, todays gasoline (and diesel) are very close to what they were in 1981; which reinforces the point made above that these can and will adjust.I have virtually no experience with economics but I've heard this argument before and have never understood it or really believed it. And here's why: 1981 2008Minimum Wage: $3.35 $6.55Gallon of Gas: $1.38 $5.00 and rising fast. % Gas to Wage: 41% 76% I doubt if an average wage earner would agree with your statement.Wayne
diningcar wrote: Two things I will offer:1. Adjusted for inflation, todays gasoline (and diesel) are very close to what they were in 1981; which reinforces the point made above that these can and will adjust.
$5.00???? Payed $3.79 today.
An "expensive model collector"
I'm gonna have to display my lack of understanding here, unfortunately my entire working life was spent in a laboratory (Think CSI) and my managerial and economic skills are lacking. I really don't understand your point about $5.00 paying $3.79 today? I have no doubt that you are factually correct, I just don't understand it. I was just thinking of an average wage earner without health insurance, paying rent/mortgage, car insurance, buying food, etc. and now paying $5.00 a gallon for gas and being told that adjusted for inflation he is paying the same for gas today as he was in 1981. I am really not arguing with you or anyone, I just think we are playing games with statistics and while you may be factually correct, the reality appears to be far different.
sfcouple wrote: I have virtually no experience with economics but I've heard this argument before and have never understood it or really believed it. And here's why: 1981 2008Minimum Wage: $3.35 $6.55Gallon of Gas: $1.38 $5.00 and rising fast. % Gas to Wage: 41% 76% I doubt if an average wage earner would agree with your statement.
The reason you don't believe, aside from just making up a gas price number that isn't real, is because you truly don't understand it. Firstly, you are confusing "minimum wage" which is set by politicians in Washington, with "average wage" which has just about nothing to do with minimum wage.
For regular gasoline costing $1.38 in 1981, if it tracked inflation it would cost $3.63 now. Yesterday's average price in the U.S. was $3.38.
The average wage earner in 1981 earned $13,773. If his wages tracked inflation, today the average wage earner would make just about $35,000. Instead, that person is actually earning $38,651.
The average wage earner has beat the inflation rate in wages, and is paying less for gasoline.
This is how people who actually are better off go out of their way to convince themselves they are worse off and then make dumb decisions at the ballot box and not only get the government that they richly deserve but prove why Plato was right.
And, incidentally, the average industrial power cost in 1981 was 4.3 cents per KwHr. If it tracked inflation, it would cost 10.61 cents today, but actually only costs 6.16 cents, a substantially lower rate of increase than either inflation in general or energy costs in general. Indeed, adjusted to 2000 dollars, Industrial power cost 7.3 cents in 1981 and has declined to approximately 5.05 cents in 2006.
I hope this isn't too far off topic, but that gas or oil today is the same as 1981 in inflation-adjusted terms is cold comfort.
Those high gas prices in 1981 came at the end of a pretty vicious inflationary spiral. You could say that gas was high on account of the inflation or that inflation was high on account of the price of gas, but those were days of double-digit inflation.
Some people say that inflation is always the result of too much money in circulation, but throughout history, whenever resources get tight, there is an incentive for the government to inflate the money so people are still able to pay for things.
Back in the late 70s and early 80s there came around a gent by the name of Paul Volcker, who sent the interest rates sky high into double-digit territory to get the double-digit inflation under control. Whatever he did sure did something because it completely changed the game about inflation and eventually oil prices came down, but it sure inflicted a lot of pain on a lot of people.
Another gent by the name of Ronald Reagan got to be President, and while Paul Volcker was bringing interest rates sky high, Mr. Reagan got Congress to enact major tax cuts, the combination of which sent the budget deficit sky high, because the government had to borrow money from real people at sky high interest rates instead of just printing the money. A lot of people said this wouldn't work, and one famous person called this combination "Voodoo Economics."
It also inflicted a lot of pain on a lot of people in terms of job layoffs and increases in pay that didn't keep up with inflation. By 1982, two years into this process, I remember as it were yesterday a report on the TV news about how tough times were for an auto worker in Michigan that he had to shoot and skin a rabbit to have something for his family to eat, and he regretted that his young son had to see him skin that rabbit. Actually, I know a lot of people in rural Michigan who would shoot and skin a rabbit if they had to, and they would want their son to see them to it to learn something and pass the hunting culture on to another generation, but the TV news found someone in rural Michigan who would shoot and skin a rabbit but worry about the effect on his kid.
Eventually prosperity returned, but in 1981 we were in uncharted territory, and there was a lot of doubt as to whether things would work out.
Today, we are at the same record high gas and oil prices, and then as is now, the President wants to keep taxes low, and a fellow by the name of Ben Bernanke wanted to raise interest rates somewhat to control inflation, but a lot of people were not able to keep up their mortgage payments and ended up out on the street, so now Mr. Bernanke is lowering interest rates in the face of sky high oil and gasoline prices. Mr. Bernanke, or should we say Dr. Bernanke, because I believe the man wrote a PhD thesis on what Herbert Hoover and Andrew Mellon and the Federal Reserve did wrong to trigger the Great Depression, so he is doing the opposite of what those men did to avoid their great mistake. Apparently there are computer models telling Ben Bernanke how much to lower interest rates, just like there are computer models telling us we need to burn less fossil fuel to keep from warming up the Earth.
To say that things are no worse than 1981 is not reassuring to me because I remember 1981 as it were yesterday, and people were plenty worried, and what the Federal government and Federal Reserve did was real uncharted territory because neither the liberals nor the traditional conservatives thought any good would come of it, but fortunately they were wrong.
I think today were are equally in uncharted territory. Back then, at least, there was some semblence of wage increases to keep up -- these days it seems that people are borrowing against some unknown future happy times to afford what we want to have. Mr. Bernanke seems to be OK with the mass increase in dollars and the huge hikes in gas prices because that is believed to have averted a bigger crisis.
But back in 1981, enough people were willing to put up with enough pain to allow the high interest rates combined with lowered taxes to do their thing. Back in 1982, Mr. Reagan was famously telling people to "stay the course" while a lot of other people were saying that people were hurting and needed help now.
Maybe Mr. Bernanke is right and one can engineer a "soft landing" instead of putting the economy into a sharp recession to combat the high oil prices. On the other hand, it is not clear that a "hard landing" is even possible given the election year, and maybe Mr. Hoover and Mr. Mellon knew something, that if one tried to borrow and print money to get out of bad times, an even worse thing than the Great Depression may have happened. All I know is if today is like 1981, we are victims of the curse "May you live in interesting times."
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
rrnut282 wrote: Why are we stuck on copper as the conductor for overhead? If it's too expensive, don't use it. Aluminum, steel, gold, nickel , silver or just about any other conductive metal will work, though not interchangably. They may wear faster or require a different tension and support system, but those are minor engineering considerations.As for the argument about transmission loses making it necessary for multiple power plants I ask why? Except for a peaking plant that is on a long-distance high-tension transmission line, the closest power plant to my house is around 100 miles and it's owned by another power company. My point is long distance transmission of electrical power happens every day. It's not a show stopper, like it is portrayed on these pages.
Copper is usually the best conductor. Aluminum is cheaper, but it is softer and it doesn't conduct as well. Silver is even better than copper, but that has a tendancy to get stolen. What would be a really neat idea is if someone (one hell of a chemist) could make superconductors that could be drawn into a wire and operate at room temperature. Right now, superconductors have to be chilled to a very low temperature (think Kelvin, not Celsius) and when they get down that low they are very brittle - the biggest hindrance to making them in to wires which by their nature must be flexible.
If someone could perfect superconductor technology, the electric grid in this country would see a rebirth and railroads in particular could take a serious look at elctrification. Just think - a Little Joe operating over 1000 miles of electrified railroad on 480V AC motors. Currently this is impossible, but with superconductors they could do all that and more.
For what it's worth, superconductors would also eliminate a large portion of wasted electricity. We have to bump up the voltage to eliminate loss over long distances of wire, and all those transformers chew up a lot of aluminum. They are also filled with an oil that isn't too good for the environment. Although high voltage minimizes loss, there are still losses associate with transformers, line loss, line capacitance, line inductance, all kinds of things.
Could be a good idea, anyway.
MichaelSol wrote: sfcouple wrote: I have virtually no experience with economics but I've heard this argument before and have never understood it or really believed it. And here's why: 1981 2008Minimum Wage: $3.35 $6.55Gallon of Gas: $1.38 $5.00 and rising fast. % Gas to Wage: 41% 76% I doubt if an average wage earner would agree with your statement.The reason you don't believe, aside from just making up a gas price number that isn't real, is because you truly don't understand it. Firstly, you are confusing "minimum wage" which is set by politicians in Washington, with "average wage" which has just about nothing to do with minimum wage.For regular gasoline costing $1.38 in 1981, if it tracked inflation it would cost $3.63 now. Yesterday's average price in the U.S. was $3.38. The average wage earner in 1981 earned $13,773. If his wages tracked inflation, today the average wage earner would make just about $35,000. Instead, that person is actually earning $38,651.The average wage earner has beat the inflation rate in wages, and is paying less for gasoline.This is how people who actually are better off go out of their way to convince themselves they are worse off and then make dumb decisions at the ballot box and not only get the government that they richly deserve but prove why Plato was right.And, incidentally, the average industrial power cost in 1981 was 4.3 cents per KwHr. If it tracked inflation, it would cost 10.61 cents today, but actually only costs 6.16 cents, a substantially lower rate of increase than either inflation in general or energy costs in general. Indeed, adjusted to 2000 dollars, Industrial power cost 7.3 cents in 1981 and has declined to approximately 5.05 cents in 2006.
Michael,
While I did pull $5.00 out of the air, I would like to remind you that today at the Chevron Station at Geary and Arguello (San Francisco) the price of diesel was $4.55/gallon. I'm reasonably confident that by the end of the year gas will be $5.00/gallon in San Francisco. You are correct, I don't understand it, and that was mentioned in my post. I used the minimum wage figure because it was easy to find on the spur of the moment when I replied to the posting; however, if 'average wage' had been used my conclusion would have been the same. (Yes, I know, my conclusion would have been wrong). Since you felt it necessary to inject political issues let's approach this another way. When our current President took office oil was around $25/barrel. What is it 8 years later? And you don't think we are worse off? Maybe you aren't, but millions of others are.
Here's another Plato quote for you: "A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers."
sfcouple wrote:Since you felt it necessary to inject political issues let's approach this another way. When our current President took office oil was around $25/barrel. What is it 8 years later? And you don't think we are worse off? Maybe you aren't, but millions of others are. Here's another Plato quote for you: "A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers."
Mistranslation. The "knowledge" as used in his quote refers to non-experiential belief, founded upon divine principles, and not any tangible experience or understanding whatsoever; which is not how we define the word "knowledge." A more accurate translation would be our concept of "transcendental meditation", "enlightenment" -- in the Bhuddist sense, not the European concept -- or any of a number of New Age kind of mysticisms. Plato's use of "knowledge" -- as improperly translated -- is the exact opposite of the Aristotelian concept that we use. More accurately, Plato stated: "Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil."
As for the "injection of politics" my reference was to developed imaginary sufferings in a prosperous society based upon false history. If you want current history, refer to "Democrats have a plan to lower gas prices...join Democrats who are working to lower gas prices now." - Then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Press Release, April 19, 2006. Are we worse off since that Congress took control of both houses?
The fact that prices have accelerated since that promise was made, reflects the abject failure of the Congress to be able to deliver, or the imagined failure of the Executive to offer "control". How any politician -- or voter -- can think that the "government" can control long term trends in energy prices refers back to my observation that efforts to assign political blame, particularly based upon flawed factual, ideologically-driven, assessments, generally results in misguided voting -- and the resulting government such voters "richly" deserve.
The point was that your assessment of changed energy prices, which had precious enough little to do with the thread, misrepresented energy price changes. Policy decisions -- by corporations as well as government -- are difficult enough when properly informed by facts; but surely can only lead to disaster when improperly informed because of agendas to misrepresent the facts so as to conform with an individual's personalized perceptions rather than an objective record.
diningcar wrote: Two things I will offer:1. Adjusted for inflation, todays gasoline (and diesel) are very close to what they were in 1981; which reinforces the point made above that these can and will adjust.2. A 3rd rail would endanger most wild life and we all know that is intolerable, perhaps more than the danger to humans in today's world. The permitting process would drag on forever whether catenary or 3rd rail.
Third rail operations are common in metropolitan areas, but also extend out into more rural areas to provide commuter service for outlying cummunities. I know this is the case with the MBTA, I don't know if LIRR runs that way out east. Here in Germany, both Hamburg and Berlin have extensive 3rd rail operations that extend well beyond city limits. I know of no danger posed to wildlife, as the electrified rail is only exposed on the bottom side (as opposed to Chicago's El or NYC's subways), against which the pickup shoe slides. I also have not heard of any deaths by electrocution over here.
I am also aware of the high price of copper, which is why I suggested the 3rd rail option. Every railroad has used rail readily available. You don't need to string up anything; you just install J-shaped supports with insulators onto the ties every few yards. If the scrap thieves aren't pulling up track, they probably won't try to steal electrified rail, either.
Perhaps the low-voltage DC might be a problem. Anybody know if higher voltage AC is possible on a 3rd rail? Could this be applied to freight hauling? Grade crossings are no problem on the systems I am familiar with, as the EMUs are electrically connected with one another, so that if one car has no contact with the 3rd rail, it gets its juice from the one behind or in front of it. Since freight operations usually involve (long!) multiple units which are electrically connected, the effect would be the same.
Basically the problem is too much cash outlay for too little immediate return. The railroads would have to invest in buying new fleets of locomotives to run on the electrified trackage in addition to laying the third rail or building the catenary system as well as electric generating systems to power it.
I mentioned earlier that I would not be surprised to see the BNSF electrify their mainline between Los Angeles and Chicago in the not to distant future. Certainly the costs would be astronomical but the returns in efficiency and ability to move more trains in a 24 hour period and the ability on certain divisions to return as much power as they use to the power grid would certainly offset much of the power costs. I'm thinking of the Seligman Sub which is a long hard series of pulls eastbound but at the same time the westbound trains would be returning power to the grid for the eastbound trains. But not only would this be true of the Seligman sub but Cajon comes immediatly to mind. With the tunnels on Cajon a ting of the past now one major obstacle has been removed.
I keep hearing about copper theft. I have not heard of this happening in the North East corridor and any fool playing with 25,000 volt transmission wire is probably going to get fried and deservedly so. In the city where I reside they had a large amount of copper wire stolen until anyone trying to sell copper wire to a recyler had to prove where the wire came from and companies like PG&E and the City lighting wire has been clearly tatooed on the wire itself who owned it. Also the recyclers have to make out a report with proper ID of the seller photocopied and the police pick them up each week and go over them. The recyclers have agreed to give law enforcement fuul access to there facilities if they wish to remain in business. Now other counties have followed suit with the recyclers and copper theft has all but disappeared in our area. In Nevada recently they had certain individuals stealing the old telegraph lines along the UP right of way but as these lines were still used they caught three men within hours of the theft at a Reno recycler. They had no idea those wires were still in use.
passengerfan wrote: I mentioned earlier that I would not be surprised to see the BNSF electrify their mainline between Los Angeles and Chicago in the not to distant future. Certainly the costs would be astronomical but the returns in efficiency and ability to move more trains in a 24 hour period and the ability on certain divisions to return as much power as they use to the power grid would certainly offset much of the power costs. I'm thinking of the Seligman Sub which is a long hard series of pulls eastbound but at the same time the westbound trains would be returning power to the grid for the eastbound trains. But not only would this be true of the Seligman sub but Cajon comes immediatly to mind. With the tunnels on Cajon a ting of the past now one major obstacle has been removed.I keep hearing about copper theft. I have not heard of this happening in the North East corridor and any fool playing with 25,000 volt transmission wire is probably going to get fried and deservedly so.
I keep hearing about copper theft. I have not heard of this happening in the North East corridor and any fool playing with 25,000 volt transmission wire is probably going to get fried and deservedly so.
I fully agree that electification is the future for high traffic density main lines and the BNSF Transcon is probably the best candidate. Many of you may be familiar with the "hot topic" thread "Could steam make a comeback" which was prompted by the high cost of diesel fuel and now has over 500 messages posted on it. I am one of several who have posted messages advocating electification of main lines as the best solution to that problem.
I don't think third rail is practicable for two reasons: 1) Safety consdierations and, 2) unless I am mistaken it is limited to fairly low voltage DC which means frequent substations with motor-generators converting high volatge AC to low voltage DC.
I have suggested that the cost of catenary could be minimized by initally supporting it on wood poles as did the Milwaukee Road. Later on as these required replacing steel support structures could be installed. By that time the cost of the initial installation would have been recovered just through fuel savings and the ongoing profits could easily fund the upgrade.
It may be a crazy idea but I wonder if it would be at all feasable to electrify using trolley wire vs catenary and trolley poles vs pantographs. This would certainly minimize the initial cost. I lack the expertise to really evaluate this but I do know that the Illinois Terminal ran 60 car freight trains using such a system so it might be a possibile low cost option.
With respect to copper thefts, I am not aware of anyone attempting much less actually stealing energized high voltage wire. The copper thefts from railroad lines that I know of have been limited to low voltage signal control circuitry.
Mark
I think someone earlier came up with a good portion of the answer -- there is simply a magnitude of difference in the distances involved in Europe and those in the US. To take the distance as the crow flies -- not the most railroad friendly route -- it is 1078 miles (1735 km) from Berlin to Moscow. From New York, that will get you to Chicago (711 miles or 1144 km), but not much further. Chicago is 1739 miles (2799 km) from Los Angeles.
Moreover, although diesel is high, the inflation in the price of some of the commodities needed to electrify is even worse. As an example, spot copper was US$ 90 cents a pound in May of '03, it is now $3.80. That is a 420% increase; the goverment puts the increase in truck diesel for the same period as $1.45 to $4.31 or 297%. Presumably, the railroads have "enjoyed" the same diesel increases.
KCSfan wrote: I have suggested that the cost of catenary could be minimized by initally supporting it on wood poles as did the Milwaukee Road. Later on as these required replacing steel support structures could be installed. By that time the cost of the initial installation would have been recovered just through fuel savings and the ongoing profits could easily fund the upgrade. It may be a crazy idea but I wonder if it would be at all feasable to electrify using trolley wire vs catenary and trolley poles vs pantographs. This would certainly minimize the initial cost. I lack the expertise to really evaluate this but I do know that the Illinois Terminal ran 60 car freight trains using such a system so it might be a possibile low cost option.Mark
I'm not sure that the cost difference of wood vs. steel poles would be a real factor. Direct suspension would use less wire but would not be practicable. Direct suspension wire is more difficult to keep level and is therefore not good at high speed. Catenary is better suited for high speed since the contact wire is supported from more points than direct suspension and is easier to keep level. Compound catenary is even better in this regard.
Trolley pole vs. pantograph is similar. Pantographs have a wider contact shoe and are less prone to dewiring. More current can be drawn through a pantograph than a trolley pole. ITC and CNS&M freight motors had double trolley poles to draw enough current, GN electrics had bus bars to allow one pantograph to feed multiple motors. Pantographs can run in either direction, trolley poles can't.
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