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.
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
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. .
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. .
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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