CMStPnP SD70Dude If you build new catenary it is easy enough to use taller poles in open areas. But in some tunnels and bridges the clearance is already tight enough that you can't add wires without reducing the equipment clearance or enlarging the space. Why can't you switch to third rail for tunnels using shoes? Didn't some of the FL-9's have both pantographs for overhead and shoes for third rail and they could flip between the two as a power source? Is that something that can be done at higher speed or is it limited to lower speeds? From my understanding the shoes were activated at speed via pneumatic cylinders and could run on either over or under rail pickup systems. I read the locomotive could switch between pantograph and shoes while in the trackage of Grand Central Terminal but that is operating at slower than mainline speed not sure how that works at higher speeds or if speed is even an issue.
SD70Dude If you build new catenary it is easy enough to use taller poles in open areas. But in some tunnels and bridges the clearance is already tight enough that you can't add wires without reducing the equipment clearance or enlarging the space.
Why can't you switch to third rail for tunnels using shoes? Didn't some of the FL-9's have both pantographs for overhead and shoes for third rail and they could flip between the two as a power source? Is that something that can be done at higher speed or is it limited to lower speeds? From my understanding the shoes were activated at speed via pneumatic cylinders and could run on either over or under rail pickup systems. I read the locomotive could switch between pantograph and shoes while in the trackage of Grand Central Terminal but that is operating at slower than mainline speed not sure how that works at higher speeds or if speed is even an issue.
The pantographs used in GCT were to contact an overhead 3rd rail, where slip switches put long gaps in regular 3rd rail. FL9s ran on 3rd rail just to get thru the terminal tunnels, and was only for slow speed operation. Of course 3rd rail was only for low voltage operation to limit ground arcing.
Isn't TCI the same outfit that tried and failed to take over CSX 10 or 15 years ago?
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
SD70Dude Isn't TCI the same outfit that tried and failed to take over CSX 10 or 15 years ago?
Yes.
Everybody wants to maximize their income no matter why they want the money. My question is how will the investors maximize their income by adding costs to the industries they invest in?
Has the railroad industry never done a cost/benefit analysis on electrification? Have they just now discovered that electrification is a gold mine that can be used to fund social causes?
Or is the whole publicity for research to reduce carbon just a symbolic public gesture to push back against new regulations that require converting fuels?
EuclidOr is the whole publicity for research to reduce carbon just a symbolic public gesture to push back against new regulations that require converting fuels?
I think you found the answer right there.
Railroads have done enough electrification over the years that they should be able to know where the make or break point is financially.
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...
From the trucking industry:
https://fuelcellsworks.com/news/nacfe-releases-guidance-report-on-hydrogen-fuel-cell-heavy-duty-trucks/
The point that is being danced around here is that nothing about a 'hydrogen locomotive' is a particularly difficult exercise -- I'm sure that there is some recent work on making something like a SOFC with less expensive materials, but even extrapolating the system in a Coradia LINT to required battery-charging scale presents no particular engineering difficulties ... other than intelligent detail design.
Where the real problems lie is in the logistics of onboard fuel storage and delivery, and much, much, much more importantly in the cost-effective logistics of producing and providing the fuel effectively across the portions of the system where these locomotives are to run. I trust you all recall that this last was quite properly noted as the 'thing of greatest importance' in the practicality of the "hydrogen-powered transit" equipment -- everywhere it has now been put into service.
I was amused by a prior post that seemed to indicate that water would be dissociated, the hydrogen stored in some way, and the oxygen discarded. If you are using hydrogen as a carrier fuel, there are better options for all those steps. A major point of hydrogen is that, despite all the drawbacks, it does 'combust' with high energy release to produce only water ... when done with proper heat transfer in the presence of only oxygen as oxidizing agent. A good fuel-cell design does this well, at comparatively low temperature rise -- but more efficiently with oxygen than with air that is about 4/5 nitrogen.
There have been plenty of proposals to use dynamic-braking electricity to electrolyze water, compress the resulting gases, use them in subsequent combustion or fuel cells, etc. None of them has ever advanced to a practical demonstration, let alone a road locomotive useful in general service, to my knowledge. That should tell you that a proper distribution architecture is a far likelier approach than opportunistically making the fuel like a huge defective imitation of the kind of regenerative-braking scheme (itself recognized as false economy on a grand scale) touted for, say, the original Milwaukee electrification.
Just as with steam-turbine electric planning -- the important part is to assure joint-venture partners to provide 100% of the fuel and distribution well in advance of even preliminary locomotive testing ... or even development investment. It will be interesting to see how well the Canadians comprehend this over the next few months.
The studies that have been done tend to show that while electrification provides benefits, it will take decades to pay for itself.
SD70DudeThe studies that have been done tend to show that while electrification provides benefits, it will take decades to pay for itself.
The point I keep trying to make is that creeping implementation of catenary is perhaps the only thing that stands a chance of 'private financing' -- and even there, I suspect that lavish "public assistance" of some form or other, most probably taking the form of income-tax credits to railroads (or, much less likely, property-tax abatements based on local or in-state investments) would be an essential part of adoption.
I think two particularly instructive 'case studies' are the Tumbler Ridge electrification and the Conrail 'dual-mode-lite' study that Don Oltmann and others have documented. In my opinion (expressed here perhaps ad nauseam to some by now) updating the latter to current technology and requirements is, or should be, of great interest compared to 'ordinary' kinds of electrification project.
Tumbler Ridge never did make sense on a purely economic basis, it was too short and required locomotives to be changed. That electrification was only built to avoid the problem of diesel exhaust in the long tunnels, and even that turned out to be a non-issue as the line was never operated at the full capacity the designers planned for.
Electrification provides benefits in the form of increased capacity (faster trains with more powerful locomotives for the same fuel cost) and lower locomotive maintenance costs. I recall reading that the Conrail study favoured expanding the electrification as a long term investment, but the high initial cost could not be justified.
SD70DudeI recall reading that the Conrail study favoured expanding the electrification as a long term investment, but the high initial cost could not be justified.
Overmod There have been plenty of proposals to use dynamic-braking electricity to electrolyze water, compress the resulting gases, use them in subsequent combustion or fuel cells, etc.
There have been plenty of proposals to use dynamic-braking electricity to electrolyze water, compress the resulting gases, use them in subsequent combustion or fuel cells, etc.
The energy efficiency of the process makes this a non-started when LI-ion batteries have better than 90% round trip efficiency. The 1939 GE STEL did use dynamic braking heat for heating the boiler.
There was a battery for space applications that electrolyzed water and stored the H2 and O2 for use in a fuel cell. Which reminds me, back in the Gemini days, batteries were considered the minimum weight option for missions less than four days and fuel cells for longer than that. Somewhere past that, solar cells were lower weight than fuel cells.
The point of all of this movement to non-carbon propulsion is clear and serious. And like EVs, it may happen faster than we can imagine. I doubt if CP et al. are considering electrification, cells or batteries just for the heck of it. Ditto with trucks. Ditto with some applications of autonomous.
OvermodI have yet to see a study that actually shows an electrification that will 'pay for itself' without subsidy, perhaps substantial subsidy. Even the electrification west of Harrisburg to Pittsburgh foundered on the absence of continued Government assistance, and it is hard to imagine an electrification project of greater marginal return on investment.
As I recall, the study did show that it will pay for itself in savings with a payback period of about 10 years.
I don't remember anything about government subsidy in the report, but remember that the financial analysis centered around tax credits Conrail was eligible for due to substantial earlier losses. So not too applicable to profitable roads at the time like Union Pacific.
The issue that scuttled it was that the rate of return just wasn't high enough. Conrail had more lucrative (i.e., more important) places to invest capital with higher rates of return than extending electrification would provide, such as continuing to replace the decrepit locomotive fleet and roadbed that they had inherited.
charlie hebdoThe point of all of this movement to non-carbon propulsion is clear and serious.
And that's assuming the distribution architecture is built-out and costed-down. We can joke all we want about reduced cryonic requirements in Canadian climate, but any distribution architecture involving the required mass of fuel required -- and remember the volume associated with that mass -- will be considerable, and substantially more than, say, LNG -- as well as posing ongoing and unavoidable dangers alternatives don't have.
Here is a Government resource on hydrogen costing correctly formulated (as a well-to-wheel cost analysis)
In my opinion, like so much else 'hydrogen-related' -- this is a publicity stunt more than any kind of future optimization.
This all begins and ends before we take up the larger issue of how much rail-related carbon emissions have a real impact on any of the mechanisms of AGW or 'climate change'. It's cute to say 'every little bit helps' but there are far more important places to concentrate efforts on carbon reduction -- better architectural heating and cooling being one major place, although I think money there should be devoted more to efficient ground-source utilization rather than, as Biden is thinking, better insulation and structural retrofit.
At least Mr. Creel didn't mention thorium!
I seriously doubt if this is just some publicity stunt by CP, CN etc. and the truckers as well as some aircraft manufacturers. Times have changed. Sour grapes appears to be the meme du jour.
charlie hebdoTimes have changed.
But the practical future is still going to be in room-temperature, liquid fuel with neutral carbon impact -- and a major contender in that will be properly-treated B100, probably including feedstock from algal sources if you need some forward-looking exotic production setup with large potential atmospheric-CO2-uptake gains. So what if it takes a few years for railroads to understand the definition of operating folly -- they've certainly flirted with worse self-destructive and ultimately wasteful silliness over the past decade!
Blah, blah, blah. Yes, now you are a designer of new designs in transportation. Really? And everyone else, even the company staff that are trained and experienced are just morons now. Your self-styled expertise on everything under and beyond the sun is has become laughable.
Nothing like the old ad hominem, is there?
Ah well, trolls everywhere in this brave new world. No point in trying enlightenment, I guess, especially on the wilfully ignorant.
We'll see what happens, in due time. That won't be affected by anything here. However, for those actually interested in the technology, consider this:
https://www.energy.gov/fe/articles/project-selections-foa-2300
Just don't put the word 'Trump' in any of the ensuing discussions.
Enlighten and troll away guys, this is getting good!
I would hope that any hydrogen fuel cell unit would load as quickly as an SD40-2, and not like a Dash-9.
Euclid Everybody wants to maximize their income no matter why they want the money. My question is how will the investors maximize their income by adding costs to the industries they invest in? Has the railroad industry never done a cost/benefit analysis on electrification? Have they just now discovered that electrification is a gold mine that can be used to fund social causes? Or is the whole publicity for research to reduce carbon just a symbolic public gesture to push back against new regulations that require converting fuels?
Another charity, the Rockefeller Foundation, has just divested itself of all oil stocks. Or course the irony is that Rockefeller was the founder of Standard Oil, which controlled the US oil industry over a century ago. While the stated goal for disinvestment may be social, they are justified by the fact that oil sector investments have had spotty returns over recent years.
Edit: More to your original question as to how increasing a company's cost will increase returns. Apparently the investors think the railroads will face the need to change anyway, and want them to be ahead of the crunch. I wonder if in an earlier generation, there were investors thinking a railroad needed to buy diesels, while the management was still hanging on to steam.
SD70DudeI would hope that any hydrogen fuel cell unit would load as quickly as an SD40-2, and not like a Dash-9.
Most of the 'delay' is involved with pollution control in accelerating the diesel engine (which is ideally done over a comparatively long time at comparatively low imposed load). A famous example of what is required was an experiment -- a very unfortunate experiment -- by Volkswagen, which put a dashpot on the vehicle accelerator so that transition to WOT took ~30sec. Including transitions between transmission shifts. This was an example of a vehicle with 0-60 times that required a calendar.
Even a fuel-cell locomotive without hybrid assist can produce high current as fast as the 'battery' of cells can deliver it -- probably in less time than the resulting power can be communicated to traction motors without producing slip; certainly more quickly than EMDs. The effect is likelier more significant in design of locomotives for more effective flat switching, but I'm sure it promises to be attractive in dedicated 'fuel-cell/battery' consists.
The case for on-board reformers is a bit more complicated, in that response can be rapid if the acceleration can be predicted accurately 'in advance' to let the reformer produce sufficient hydrogen for the fuel cells to use during the initial acceleration profile. Power would be limited by reforming rate if high power were demanded without advance processing, but this may still be quicker than 'clean' diesel-engine acceleration under load.
Overmod Nothing like the old ad hominem, is there? Ah well, trolls everywhere in this brave new world. No point in trying enlightenment, I guess, especially on the wilfully ignorant. We'll see what happens, in due time. That won't be affected by anything here. However, for those actually interested in the technology, consider this: https://www.energy.gov/fe/articles/project-selections-foa-2300 Just don't put the word 'Trump' in any of the ensuing discussions.
Touche on the ad hominem, though to be technical, I commented on your behaviors (as several others have privately) while you invoked a name, incorrectly. Why do you invoke the name of our loser and soon to be ex potus? Irrelevant.
charlie hebdoWhy do you invoke the name of our loser and soon to be ex potus?
As this is your thread, I'm keeping discussion focused solely on the tech involved in making the idea work.
Mentioning his name as a preemptory strike? Seriously?
I don't pretend to be an expert on everything. I doubt that you have the actual credentials (including experience) in as many areas as you appear to claim. Even in my own field, I recognize my limitations. That is generally a mark of humility and wisdom. The opposite is a feature of something else.
SD70Dude I would hope that any hydrogen fuel cell unit would load as quickly as an SD40-2, and not like a Dash-9.
As OM said, the fuel cells could be made to laod almost instantly, though I suspect that some auxiliary equipment would be needed to make it so. I know that the original hydrogen fuel cell Toyota Rav4's did have a battery to handle peak demands.
A potential advantage of a hybird diesel electric is that the battery would allow the diesel engine to load at whatever rate is best for emissions, but tractive effort would be available right away. I'd also wonder about squeezing a few more ton miles per gallon by doing the diesel equivalent of the Wright R-3350 turbo compounds, with the exhaust turbines driving alternators and compressors driven by motors, with the alternator output and compressor input power shared with the traction power supply.
Erik_MagI'd also wonder about squeezing a few more ton miles per gallon by doing the diesel equivalent of the Wright R-3350 turbo compounds, with the exhaust turbines driving alternators and compressors driven by motors, with the alternator output and compressor input power shared with the traction power supply.
You could also use the compressor for 'secondary air injection' to reduce emissions on starting, which might allow fairly frequent shutdown to avoid idling the prime mover -- which leads to a discussion of whether the engine prelube ought to be clutched here rather than on the starter where Cat puts it.
Incidentally I think that one of the special requirements on quick fuel-cell response involves rapid effective pressurization of all the tracting to the cells ... which a straight-electric compressor system, or OTS parts therefrom if no compression-ignition engine is present, might easily be made to provide...
As Arte Johnson said: 'Veeeeery interesting!'
caldreamer hydrogen can be made by electrolysis of water. A water tank car behind the locomotive which is equipped with hydrogen fuel cells and batteries. The output is hhydrogen and oxygen which can be released into the atmosphere. Bingo, cheap sustainable power. Hydrogen fuel cells are used on all space craft to produce power. This is a proven technology.
hydrogen can be made by electrolysis of water. A water tank car behind the locomotive which is equipped with hydrogen fuel cells and batteries. The output is hhydrogen and oxygen which can be released into the atmosphere. Bingo, cheap sustainable power. Hydrogen fuel cells are used on all space craft to produce power. This is a proven technology.
Where do you plan to get the onboard energy for this water electrolysis?.. H2 will continue to be reformed from Hydrocarbons. As it's the cheapest process both feedstock side, and energy consumption wise to sequester H2 from HC.. Not only that.. Another massive source of H2 are Coal deposits. Coal beds produce Methane, another large supply of available cheap gas .. Coal is being put out to pasture for power generation.. Though don't be surprised if UGS or CGS systems develop to take advantage of massive cheap coal deposits to produce H2 from Methane reforming.
Personally this is the route that should've been investigated even further. GE had it right with GECX 2010. Capturing DB energy and the ability to reuse it as additional propulsion..
SD60MAC9500Personally this is the route that should've been investigated even further. GE had it right with GECX 2010. Capturing DB energy and the ability to reuse it as additional propulsion..
And yes, hybrid pairs and triples are likely to become a 'next big thing' in practical road power, "at long long last".
Overmodcharlie hebdo Why do you invoke the name of our loser and soon to be ex potus? Because, to judge by so many previous threads, there are people here who will love to 'consider the source' when appraising the technologies and start making this about you-know-who's approaches rather than the merits or potential use. As this is your thread, I'm keeping discussion focused solely on the tech involved in making the idea work.
Why do you invoke the name of our loser and soon to be ex potus?
Because, to judge by so many previous threads, there are people here who will love to 'consider the source' when appraising the technologies and start making this about you-know-who's approaches rather than the merits or potential use.
I thought we were headed toward HARRY POTTER land with Voldamort (He who shall not be named)
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