Electrification in the U. S.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by daveklepper

You can run heavy ore trains under 1500V DC catenary, if you have the wire diameter and substation capacity to do it. And probably fi you are using only one locomotive, it better have two pantographs contacting the wire. I suspect it was substation capacity that prevented electric locomotives on the ore trains. One ore train probably would draw about ten times the amperage that one typical passenger train draws.

Well - top 1500VDC loco are about 6000 hp. 5500 tonne trains (as those ore train are) need about 10000 hp in european enviroment. Current 1500VDC catenery simply cannot cope with such load. Rebuilding it for just two trains per day is nonsense - so diesels are used.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by mhurley87f
The point of my original respnse was, "What's the benefit of running 1 mile/2 mile long trains through, say Clapham Junction, Willesden Junction, Stratford, Leeeds West?? Any***up and the Fat Controller's blood would be on the moon !!

The point is, that setting any arbitrary limit for train length (or forcing any arbitrary train length) is stupid since then trains lose much of their flexibility.

Ling freights pretty much mean that in the night, when psgr traffic is light, much more capacity could be utilised. This way railroads could recapture some traffic they lost to trucks and ships. The advantage of railroads is quantity, limiting it is at least moronic.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Catenary in the open with third rail in tunnels and other tight clearance areas adds a lot of complexity to locomotive and MU car engineering. You would need multiple voltage capabilities, extra pick-up devices, two different designs of substations, etc.

Tight clearances includes a lot more than tunnels, consider Penn Station in New York, Randolph Street Station in Chicago, any number of bridges, etc.

[daveklepper]

Some European multi-current locomotives have mutlple pantographs. The reason is that DC 1500V catenary is generally more rigid and the pantograph contact exerts greater pressure, whereas high-voltage AC catenary is generally lighter and the pantograph springing somewhat weaker. But it is possible to design single pantographs with variable springing, and this can be arranged automatically to follow the current selection. The Little Joe was a locomotive that had some 8000 horsepower short time ratings and did operate under South Shore's 1500 volt DC catenary, so it can be done, but you have to have the feeder cable, the trolley wire diameter, and the substation capacity to do it.

Recently I asked an important consultat for a successfully complete light rail project why the freight shortline railroad that uses the tracks doesn't have an electric locomotive (could buy a perfectly good speciman from a trolley museum) to reduce noise levels (and pollution) and nights when the freight operates. His answer was that the transit authority asked the freight railroad to contribute to the cost of the substations to build-in the necessary extra capacity, but the freight short line decided there would be no cost savings in their application to use electric power instead of diesel and so the substations are adequate for the light rail cars but not for a freight train.

[Hugh Jampton]

QUOTE: Originally posted by uzurpator

QUOTE: Originally posted by mhurley87f
The point of my original respnse was, "What's the benefit of running 1 mile/2 mile long trains through, say Clapham Junction, Willesden Junction, Stratford, Leeeds West?? Any***up and the Fat Controller's blood would be on the moon !!

The point is, that setting any arbitrary limit for train length (or forcing any arbitrary train length) is stupid since then trains lose much of their flexibility.

Ling freights pretty much mean that in the night, when psgr traffic is light, much more capacity could be utilised. This way railroads could recapture some traffic they lost to trucks and ships. The advantage of railroads is quantity, limiting it is at least moronic.

nothing on a railroad is arbitrary.. The main factor in determining maximum train length is the length of the sidings into which the trains have to fit. Simple as that.

re electrificatoin,, Europe electrified it's railways many years ago when doing so was a lot cheaper than it is now, and because they generally didn't have large domestic coal supplies.

[BaltACD]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Townsend

From what many of you have said is it appears electrification is a non starter. I get the point with double stack, that would be very difficult but not impossible to fit under wire. As to the cost (this is were i make sort of mistage ony a foreigner would make) wouldn't the government shoulder some of the cost to guarantee a morket for publicly owned hydro electric dams and other power plants if there are any. As to having a standard method of electrification, would the Association of American Railroads come up with a standard American electrification system for it's class 1 members.

US Railroads are privately (for the most part) financed and proud of it. Since the US (Florida) has turned thumbs down on financing High Speed Rail, the likelyhood of being able to dole out corporate welfare to electify existing corporate entities is next to non-existant.

[daveklepper]

Two hopes for electrification: 1. USA really serious about energy independence plus acceptance of safe nuclear power. 2. Power and coal companies not wishing to use competitive product but using their own merchandize in producing that merchandize, and thus giving railroads a good deal on their stringing catenary and getting a rebate on the transportation costs. Both are possible, but may require changes in the political and economic climates. I am not holding my breath for either to happen.

[Junctionfan]

I think both Canada in particular and the U.S need to advance technology in the nuclear power field. It is only unsafe and environmentally problematic if you don't know what you are doing. British Energy seems to know what they are doing so they are definately a nation to consult short-term.

There is a kind of reaction I read about; fission-fusion-fission reactor. That would create a tremendous amount of power for the NEC and half of Atlantic Coast probably.

[TH&B]

Another interesting reason for different pantograph design is for example the overhead wire gradualy "zig zags" back and forth from left to right along the right of way because if it was too straight it would wear a groove in the pantograph. So in Germany they have a wide patern to minimize wear but in Switzerland wich otherwise uses the same voltage and freaquency has a narrower patern due to the many more tunnels with less clearance, the higher maintanance to the pantographs is better then the higher costs of making their hundreds of tunnels larger at the top. Well once again almost compatible but incompatable but for each railroads own reasons.

In a way you can consider the 750meter max train length in Europe is realy double that at 1.5km ((1.6km = 1 mile)) when compared to the USA because there usualy is only one crewman and one or two units and in USA there is always two men and usualy at least two units for trains that length. So it is only half as "moronic" as was thought.

Those are nice locos used on the Sweden- Denmark- Germany route,but they are very expensive and sometimes this North American made deisel type does the job when they need to save on costs. Alot less horse pwer but only one is required.
http://eriksrailnews.com/stuff/t66big.jpg

[gfjwilmde]

I read some of your threads in this forum and I can't come up with a viable solution. Although most of the Asian and European railroads are electrified, it is true they don't haul the tonnage that North American railroads haul. Most of their engines are great for pulling fast passenger trains, but there too, they are limited by the length of the train. We here in parts of the US and Canada had electric engines that were heavy(heavier than most modern diesels) and had high substainable horsepower ratings. What did the greedy executive do?? Got rid of them!! The GN, NP and Milw had massive electric engines for the purpose of pulling heavy tonnage trains over the Rockies without having to double or triple up on the steam engines. Which by the way was costly(required several engine crews) and dangerous due to smoke conditions in the many tunnels that these mainlines ran through. Amtrak for example, had the E60 electrics before they got the AEM7's to replace the aging GG1's(one of the greatest engines known). Although they had tracking/hunting problems(limited to 90mph max.), at 180 tons and 6000 hp, they were more than able to handle the task of pulling the sometimes long Cresent or florida trains on the short stretch of electrified territory between New York City and Washington, DC. Sadly though, they have all been scrapped and I don't know if any have been saved for preservation. The AEM7's are a powerful engine, with 7000 hp. Yet, at 92 tons, they have difficulty getting up to speed if the train lengths gets over 7 cars and that's just with an Amfleet consist. Not to mention the fact that the auxilliary transformer that supplies the electricity throughout the train, starts to be burdened when the consist exceeds 7 cars. The HHP's fair a little better, with 8000 hp and 100 tons. I've yet to see any HHP's doubled up to handle any of these long trains. I think however, that here in the US, Canada and maybe Mexico, there should have been an extensive network of electric rail lines crossing the landscape, especially in the Midwestern states. Although clearances would have been a problem, just think, that part of the Metra system in Chicago is electrified(the ex IC electric commuter line) and they run full double decker cars(16 ft) there. The MARC cars that someone mentioned are not full double deckers(15 ft or less) and are similiar in design to cars used by VRE, LIRR, MBTA and I think NJT has a batch of cars on order. I'm pretty sure that there could have been adjustments made to pantograph designs, to accommodate any increases in height of catenary wires. What a different railroad world it would have been if these massive electric engines would have been allowed to survive to this day. The electrics of the GN, NP, Milw, PRR, NH, Vgn, NW and maybe some others would have been passed on to the new rail conglomerates, possibly given new paint schemes or new engines(with new technology) would have been built. One can only imagine what it could have been like. Sad, that we can't see beyond our noses or even our wallets.



GLENN
A R E A L RAILROADER!!!!!
A R E A L AMTRAKER!!!!!
A G R E A T L Y DISILLUSIONED AND DISHEARTENED AMERICAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Junctionfan]

What kind of seating arrangement and capacity do the Kawasaki double decker coaches have compared to the Budd Superliner coaches?

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

The Metra/IC bi-levels are 15'10" in height, same as other gallery bi-levels. As I've mentioned elsewhere, clearances are tight in Randolph Street Station and in some other places. Also, the pantographs are mounted in a lower part of the roof over the motorman's cab so the cars would fit in the existing clearances.

As far as the large electrics are concerned, remember that only two resales of electrics occurred when their original electrifications were shut down: GN's Y-1's were sold to PRR as FF-2's for pusher service and VGN's EL-C's were sold to NH as EF-4's for general freight service. Two huge designs that were scrapped were GN's W-1's and VGN's EL-2B's. They were both motor-generator designs and were obsolescent by the late 1950's. Also, they may have been a bit too large for service anywhere else. I won't get into any discussion of MILW's electrics since emotion seems to have won out over objectivity concerning that entire railroad.

[nanaimo73]

One of GN's W class 2-D+D-2 electrics was sold as scrap to Union Pacific. The carbody of 5018 was used to build coal-fired turbine 80. I am not trying to disagree with CSSHEGEWISCH, everything he said is correct. I thought some of you might be interested in what became of the hulk.

[TH&B]

Wheren't the GN Y-1's also motor-generator types? Then only lasted a few short years as FF-2's on the Pennsy, but they were a very nice looking unit. The Penn Central E33's ((ex VGN units)) were a good success overall I beleive, basicaly they were not much more then a standard freight engine with a transformer set up instead of a deisel prime mover.

Imagine if the NEC today was de-electrified and all those passenger trains ran as diesels, that would be a big deisel fuel bill and high mechanical maintance and of course the trains would accelerate slower taking longer to get out of each others way, not to mention the underground stations. But it would maybe cost less overall.

[daveklepper]

Also diesels generally do put more wear on the track. The New Haven, ex N&Wm ex Virginian E-33's/EF-4's were good locomotives and basically very similar to the PRR E-44's. All would be running today if Conrail had not decided to scrap its electrication because of changing traffic patterns. They were not only a good design, but also well-alid out for maintenance, better than the Amtrak E-60's and could have been upgraded with improved electronics to almost equal the AEM-7's, except geared for lower speed and greater tractive effort. I would hope some day the remaining sample at the museum in Connecticut could be put back in operation with the electronics needed for operation on Amtrak's current overhead. Probably also needs a new main transformer, not only because of different frequency characteristics but also to avoid hazadous material. Probably cost a fortune though.