tree68 ATLANTIC CENTRAL There is a reason.... I figure it's because they have to be replaced more often...
ATLANTIC CENTRAL There is a reason....
I figure it's because they have to be replaced more often...
Only because they rack up way more use and miles by people who actually use them for work, not just to drive around town on Saturday afternoon.
Sheldon
mudchickenSheldon: It might be a better built car if they would stop letting beancounters make engineering decisions. FORD still equates to Fix Or Repair Daily
Think what you like, I have been driving them for 25 years with great results.
What do you drive, or more importantly what are your vehicle needs? I need my F250 and my FLEX.
My 2000 F150 went 240,000 miles with minimal repairs, replaced it in 2015 with an F250 which has been trouble free for 95,000 so far.
FORD has one of the lowest warranty costs in the industry, and very high customer satisfaction ratings.
We have also owned two FORD FLEX's, only because the first was totaled in a crash. It's superior design saved my family. No one else in the car business makes a car equal to the FLEX in terms of its combined comfort, utility and performance (eccoboost 3.5 liter twin turbo 365 HP, 360 lb ft torque, 0-60 in 5.5 sec, 15 sec standing 1/4 mile).
My wife has rheumatoid arthritis and the FLEX is very easy to enter and exit. No climbing up, no falling down into. Best car I have owned since my Checker Marathon.
Go on Youtube, look up FORD vs CHEVY, and watch F250 pickups drag bigger CHEVYS around backwards in pulling contests.....
We have also owned a list of other FORD products in the last 25 years, all have been great cars and great values, Crown Vics with police packages, Explorers, etc.
Unlike the Nissan Sentra years ago who's front end was shot at 35,000 miles...yet a FORD FOCUS went 174,000 miles in the hands of my crazy daughter nearly trouble free for 2/3 the price of the Nissan.
oltmannd I get about 2100# TE needed to haul 625 tons over 10 cars at 5 mph. If that F150 weighs 4000 lbs with 60% of the weight on the rear axle (probably where the batteries are...) and tires gripping at 90% adhesion you get 2160# pulling force.
I get about 2100# TE needed to haul 625 tons over 10 cars at 5 mph.
If that F150 weighs 4000 lbs with 60% of the weight on the rear axle (probably where the batteries are...) and tires gripping at 90% adhesion you get 2160# pulling force.
I suspect the electric F-150 may weigh a bit more than that and wouldn't be surprised if it was 4WD. Virtually all electric vehicle motors are some sort of polyphase induction or synchronous motor. I also suspect that a low speeds (i.e. when accelerating from a stop), the motor runs in some sort of torque control that will operate right up to the adhesion limits.
A 3/4 ton 4WD pickup with automatic transmission and running in low range would not have much difficulty in duplicating this stunt.
ATLANTIC CENTRALThere is a reason....
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Murphy Siding CMStPnP Betting big on Ford. Typically when a member of the Ford Family becomes directly involved in a project such as the Electric Program and the Michigan Central Station rehab.......good things happen with the company. I think they are going to out compete GM with their electric trucks. Like that one time, when Edsel Ford got involved?
CMStPnP Betting big on Ford. Typically when a member of the Ford Family becomes directly involved in a project such as the Electric Program and the Michigan Central Station rehab.......good things happen with the company. I think they are going to out compete GM with their electric trucks.
Betting big on Ford. Typically when a member of the Ford Family becomes directly involved in a project such as the Electric Program and the Michigan Central Station rehab.......good things happen with the company. I think they are going to out compete GM with their electric trucks.
Like that one time, when Edsel Ford got involved?
Actually Edsel Ford passed away long before FORD named a car after him that simply missed the style mark. Otherwise it was just like any other FORD, a well built car.
When Edsel Ford was helping run the company, he gave us the 1928 thru 1931 Model A, a car that sold almost 5 million copies dispite a depression.......
Ford builds more trucks in a month for US consumption than TOYOTA builds all year. GM and RAM each only build about two thirds of FORD's numbers.
There is a reason....
Didn’t Charles Atlas pull a streamlined observation car?
I recall David P. Morgan writing that the contact area steel wheel to rail is the size of a dime.
Yeesh. For what I get paid....
Pretty close to the limit.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
oltmannd You all waiting on me?
Patiently.
Owners Manual:
Trailer towing - with class IV hitch:
F150 3.5L V6 Ecoboost 6000#
F150 3.0L diesel 7000#
F150 5.0L V8 8000#
F150 electric 1,250,000# (do not exceed 5mph)
Geez. Nobody "Davised" this? You all waiting on me?
Semper Vaporo I would not be concerned with starting or pulling the train cars, but once at the finish line, I think I'd get out of the truck as quick as a bunny before the 10 auto-carriers crushed it!
I would not be concerned with starting or pulling the train cars, but once at the finish line, I think I'd get out of the truck as quick as a bunny before the 10 auto-carriers crushed it!
Would have been even more impressive had they put another truck on the rear to be used to slow the 'train' using the truck's regenerative braking (dynamics).
jeffhergertMore of a demonstration of roller bearings and steel wheels on steel rails.
And yeah, I'd sure as hell ensure the slack was as bunched as I could get it before starting the cameras rolling. Starting one car at a time, perhaps with progressive gain in momentum, HAS to be much easier than trying to yank a large percentage of the string at one time. Give me one of those 'new' trucks with 1000 nominal hp and 35,000lb towing capacity and I'd bet I could indeed start 'em with plain bearings, getting each one up on the lube-film wedges by the time the next one needs to be hydrodynamically levitated...
CMStPnPSo what I am wondering and I cannot tell from the video. Did they start the train from slack in or slack out? Anyone here that can tell that?
Hard to tell, but at 2:09, it def'n looks like the slack is bunched.
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
Overmod It's the acceleration that's the critical part -- very important to maintain it at just the constant rate, perhaps an inch per second per second or less, that keeps traction maximized without slipping. As previously noted, there is a corollary for braking that most people forget... and conventional antilock-brake systems are the wrong answer. If I'm not mistaken, 4 knots in the carrier Intrepid is 250hp, what a good bass-boat engine will produce. Of course you'd need a comparatively large (and infinitely variable-pitch) prop to get the ship up to that 'balancing speed' without a calendar...
It's the acceleration that's the critical part -- very important to maintain it at just the constant rate, perhaps an inch per second per second or less, that keeps traction maximized without slipping. As previously noted, there is a corollary for braking that most people forget... and conventional antilock-brake systems are the wrong answer.
If I'm not mistaken, 4 knots in the carrier Intrepid is 250hp, what a good bass-boat engine will produce. Of course you'd need a comparatively large (and infinitely variable-pitch) prop to get the ship up to that 'balancing speed' without a calendar...
So what I am wondering and I cannot tell from the video. Did they start the train from slack in or slack out? Anyone here that can tell that?
tree68Briggs and Stratton.
One of my favorite brands for power lawn mowers and line trimmers. Won't buy anything else. Those little engines last forever if you care for them.
mudchicken Overmod It's the acceleration that's the critical part -- very important to maintain it at just the constant rate, perhaps an inch per second per second or less, that keeps traction maximized without slipping. As previously noted, there is a corollary for braking that most people forget... and conventional antilock-brake systems are the wrong answer. If I'm not mistaken, 4 knots in the carrier Intrepid is 250hp, what a good bass-boat engine will produce. Of course you'd need a comparatively large (and infinitely variable-pitch) prop to get the ship up to that 'balancing speed' without a calendar... I don't think that would happen with friction bearings, Ye Olde roadmasters 3/4 ton pick-em-up-truck towed cars frequently at derailment sites or areas around a switch so we could fix track. No big deal, but somebody was manning the railcar brakes.
I don't think that would happen with friction bearings,
Ye Olde roadmasters 3/4 ton pick-em-up-truck towed cars frequently at derailment sites or areas around a switch so we could fix track. No big deal, but somebody was manning the railcar brakes.
More of a demonstration of roller bearings and steel wheels on steel rails.
Jeff
selector would want to have a good handle on the transmission and how it is engagable to the power plant. Imagine the heat produced by a typical automotive clutch trying to lift a train of rolling stock.
In general -- there might not be a clutch at all; the 'first best' salable option in a truck would be a good torque converter setup with VERY good and positive heat exchangers (probably equipped with separate electric fans as found in good diesel pushers or diesel light trucks equipped for heavy trailering.)
These implicitly have TCCs, in the case of some Allisons on all forward speeds, but these only engage when there is no detected mutual slip (and can more importantly be held out of engagement as desired). Presumably the converter(s) would have a stall speed matched to desired engine hp and torque curves, and the clutches would be under some computer/genetic-algorithmic control.
An alternative might be a multiplate wet clutch, but as noted these throw away a great deal of engine output that a TC multiplies into torque. I'd be more inclined to use a magnetorheological clutch (which is fluid-modulated as quickly as needed via either electromagnets or a 'magnetic chuck' kind of arrangement) backed up with an arrangement like a TCC that locks direct drive when shaft-speed match and engine torque curve permit.
There is also the approach taken in the Bowes drive, which becomes attractive if you have, as Ford does here, a substantially parallel-electric-hybrid or BEV. This has the signal advantage of involving no friction media whatsoever, in fact no need for 'shiftable-under-load' metal-to-metal contact over a wide range of output speed, and can benefit from many of the improvements made in traction-motor construction and control over the past couple of decades.
I suspect that what Ford actually has is an inverter-fed three-phase traction motor, with no formal 'clutch' required: the motor can be controlled to have high torque at essentially near-locked-rotor conditions with pretty absolute speed control and inherent protection against excessive slipping without having to use the truck brakes for 'traction control'. Even with copper rather than aluminum armature bars (or other high-temperature equivalent) and good active cooling, I think I'd still want some speed-matching gears for an automotive-size motor in an application like this.
I would want to have a good handle on the transmission and how it is engagable to the power plant. Imagine the heat produced by a typical automotive clutch trying to lift a train of rolling stock. I would think a 20 hp power plant (electric or gas/diesel) would have no trouble getting one or two ore cars underway, but the clutching mechanism would have to be quite robust.
tree68I've heard it said that you can move a fairly large train on level track with a five horsepower Briggs and Stratton. You can't move it very fast, but you can move it. As mentioned, all you need is sufficient traction, plus proper gear reduction.
As mentioned, all you need is sufficient traction, plus proper gear reduction.
I once watched a 600 HP SW-1 move 84 loads of cement from the Clark Avenue Yard in Cleveland to a customers location known as Willow - about 5 miles from the yard - took the crew 4 hours to get there though.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world."
Archimedes
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/archimedes_101761
I've heard it said that you can move a fairly large train on level track with a five horsepower Briggs and Stratton. You can't move it very fast, but you can move it.
Murphy Siding Like that one time, when Edsel Ford got involved?
Edsel Ford began the modernization of the Ford Motor Company in time for the production demands of WW2. Unfortunately, he died in 1941 before he could see the completion of his work.
He obviously had nothing to do with his namesake car, which was primarily a marketing disaster.
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
There's publicity of women pulling a Niagara, too. (I suspect the piston rings and packing were not in full contact)
A Ford commercial from the late '60s or early '70s had a station wagon pulling three hi-cube boxcars, without particular problem. This is really not that surprising, especially at low speed. Cue the Toyota stunt pulling the Space Shuttle.
I'd think the only major issue with starting the 10 cars, empty or loaded, would be ensuring traction, either with weight in the bed or some Trackmobile-style leverage down on the hitch as the pull is started. (Also perhaps some curling-style attention to railhead cleanliness and, perhaps, some careful use of TOR lubricant...)
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Paul_D_North_Jr https://www.autoblog.com/2019/07/23/electric-ford-f-150-tows-1-million-pounds/ 10 auto-rack/ multi-level cars - first empty, then loaded with 42 F-150s. It's late for me tonight, so I'll leave it to someone else to work out the math for the rolling resistance of those cars, the tractive effort of the truck that would be needed, and what the factor of adhesion might be for the truck. Assume the track is level.... - PDN.
https://www.autoblog.com/2019/07/23/electric-ford-f-150-tows-1-million-pounds/
10 auto-rack/ multi-level cars - first empty, then loaded with 42 F-150s.
It's late for me tonight, so I'll leave it to someone else to work out the math for the rolling resistance of those cars, the tractive effort of the truck that would be needed, and what the factor of adhesion might be for the truck. Assume the track is level....
- PDN.
If Ford can do that climbing Sand Patch - they might have something.
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