Login
or
Register
Home
»
Trains Magazine
»
Forums
»
General Discussion
»
Electricity Shortage/Possible Short Term Help
Electricity Shortage/Possible Short Term Help
2252 views
2 replies
Order Ascending
Order Descending
Anonymous
Member since
April 2003
305,205 posts
Electricity Shortage/Possible Short Term Help
Posted by
Anonymous
on Monday, May 28, 2001 10:39 PM
I've noticed that one of the regional railroads was going to use part of its diesel fleet to generate and sell electricity for consumer use.
If this is possible, and apparently it is, could the Class 1 railroads do the same. Perhaps the
proceeds from the sale of electricity could be used to offset the increased cost of diesel fuel and at the same time create a postive image for the railroads.
Anyone have any comments about this?
Mike Swift
Reply
Edit
thirdrail1
Member since
January 2001
From: Niue
735 posts
Posted by
thirdrail1
on Tuesday, May 29, 2001 9:00 AM
It requires extremely uncommon economic conditions to make the generation of commercial power by locomotive practical. It is being done in Montana, and Montana only, due to the Western electrical problems caused by the drought in the Pacific Northwest and the California power fiasco. The Montana Rail Link also owns the former Northern Pacific locomotive shops at Livingston, MT, and rebuilds locomotives commercially, so is one of the few lines with a surplus of motive power. Rather than paying for the increased cost of Diesel fuel, this increase makes commercial generation of power even less practical.
"The public be ***ed, it's the
Pennsylvania Railroad
I'm competing with." - W.K.Vanderbilt
Reply
Anonymous
Member since
April 2003
305,205 posts
Posted by
Anonymous
on Saturday, June 2, 2001 2:15 PM
just a little tidbit, when they had a big ice storm in Canada a few years back, CN or CP (i think it was CP) donated the use of a few of their engines as generators until the power lines could get put back up.
As far as the class 1's giving up engines to electricty generation goes, most of them don't have enough spare engines around to do much good. The situation out west is far to big for a few engines to have much effect. Also, it probably wouldn't pay to take engines out of service to do this. The economics of the situation probably aren't as good as one might think, otherwise they already would be doing it.
Reply
Edit
Join our Community!
Our community is
FREE
to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.
Login »
Register »
Search the Community
Newsletter Sign-Up
By signing up you may also receive occasional reader surveys and special offers from Trains magazine.Please view our
privacy policy
More great sites from Kalmbach Media
Terms Of Use
|
Privacy Policy
|
Copyright Policy