According to an old newspaper article on the results on their study, it forecasts an ROI of 18.1% over 29 years, an annual operating saving of $84 million for the first 8 years, and a savings of 50 million barrels of oil over 29 years.
This newspaper article also discusses how the government could help make these numbers doable, years before I suspect that the term we've been using in this thread was ever coined.
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1129&dat=19800412&id=TackAAAAIBAJ&sjid=0m0DAAAAIBAJ&pg=3915,2506468&hl=en
The initial capital cost is daunting, but I don't see it as so far fetched as to be considered essentially impossible. Especially with the growing power of the environmental lobby, increasing congestion, traffic forecasts, the financial health of modern Class 1's and their increased borrowing power resulting from it, the thousands of mile of wire going up around the world each year, confidence in the future of American freight railroading, and the general upwards trend on a gallon of diesel fuel.
If it does happen though, I'm sure private enterprise won't be tackling it alone. And I'm also sure that it won't be devoid of its own set of issues past the staggering up front capital cost.
I'm still puzzled why we went down this path, but since it's interesting, I don't see the harm...
And yes, the numbers don't work and traditionally haven't in postwar America. But they're not that far away from being justifiable. It's certainly within the realm of possibilities.
I don't have that recent article in front of me about Conrail's studies as an example, but it certainly wasn't that far fetched and it was forecast to pay for itself and would've been profitable. And the payback period wasn't something extremely long-term like 50 or 60 years, either.
And certainly, run-through power is a major hurdle these days just as the double stack revolution also is, adding modern issues that wouldn't of been a problem back in say 1960 to classical problems like the delimmna of still having to maintain separate facilities for diesels in electrified territory for a variety of reasons.
But I for one wouldn't be as confident as to all but proclaim that it's a virtual impossibility. It's not and even if we ignore things like price forecasts for diesel fuel in the future that enhance the argument for electrification, we've seen evidence of just the sort of assistance that could change these numbers to where they indeed can be justified by private enterprise.
And that's public-private partnerships come in, where the government invests taxpayer earned funds to assist in a major capital project owned by a private company that will not only benefit the shareholders of said company, but the American taxpayer as well thanks to cheaper prices, safer highways, higher taxes, and cleaner air.
Electrification may be practical from an engineering standpoint, but not from an economic standpoint, at least not yet. With run-through operation of motive power being the norm these days, I'm not sure that it's that practical from an operating standpoint, either.
It's still far from an impossibility like he suggests it is.
Things are constantly changing and projects like the Heartland Corridor project, which not long ago would've been viewed as a pipe dream, do happen from time to time (And note the taxpayer's investment in some of these such as this one). And electrification is not only far from being devoid of good reasons for it being undertaken where it makes sense, but also isn't that far from being out of reach even with private capital.
Take that analysis and story in a Trains publication not long ago where Conrail's proposal was shown as having been profitable had it been undertaken. The key was that the rate of return wasn't there to justify it. It still would've more than paid for itself, it just wouldn't of happened fast enough to justify Conrail spending limited capital on it in lieu of other projects.
Electrification is expensive, isn't a perfect solution, and with its history and many a false prediction through the decades, it's a fool's errand to predict that it will happen in the next few decades. But is it virtually an impossibility?
Nope...
ML
What's that have to do with it, though?
It's almost like you're suggesting that their ambitious electrification project is a major contributor to them seeking a merger in the 1960's and the subsquent disaster that was Penn Central and the eventual creation of a federally backed system.
It was anything but. And as seen by thousands of miles of lines under wire around the world that have been built since then, it's hardly an impossibility that major electrification projects may yet return to American freight railroading.
One way that very well could make the numbers work in conjunction with rising fuel prices and increased concern for the environment, is indeed a public-private partnership. We've seen that make several expensive projects possible that didn't project a high enough rate of return for private corporations to allow them to be done exclusively with private capital.
nfotis Why not a PPP scheme, where the federal government helps with the construction of infrastructure? Even the mighty PRR got a federal loan in order to complete their electrification, and look how many years it did last! N.F.
Why not a PPP scheme, where the federal government helps with the construction of infrastructure?
Even the mighty PRR got a federal loan in order to complete their electrification, and look how many years it did last!
N.F.
And look at today's PRR. Can't see it can you. Electricification may still exist - PRR doesn't.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Considering what the carriers have been forced to invest in PTC, the likelyhood of any further Class 1 electricification within our lifetime or the lifetime of our children has the probability of commercial interstellar space travel being actively marketed to the masses.
Yes, but I've read that they take it into account like he said when something such as a new signal mast is installed.
It doesn't mean that the entire line is ready for catenary, but that they're being proactive with their modern investments on busy routes so that it's one less potential obstacle were electrification to ever occur.
nfotis BaltACD Which will make all the efforts to be double stack clearanced obsolete as there will need to be additional clearance above the boxes to the wire. As far as I know, most western railroads have already made a provision for catenary clearances in things like signal masts, etc. N.F.
BaltACD Which will make all the efforts to be double stack clearanced obsolete as there will need to be additional clearance above the boxes to the wire.
Which will make all the efforts to be double stack clearanced obsolete as there will need to be additional clearance above the boxes to the wire.
There are 19th century tunnels and bridges out West too.
oltmannd Sustained speed is the key to competitive trip times, long crew districts, and high equipment productivity which allows you to provide high value service at low cost. It just might require stringing lots of catenary.
Sustained speed is the key to competitive trip times, long crew districts, and high equipment productivity which allows you to provide high value service at low cost.
It just might require stringing lots of catenary.
LYMAN S DECAMP I view as one of the Greatest American Blunders the FRA allowing freight railroads to "dewire" their already catenery-equipped segments. PRR/Penn Central was the most egregious example. They de-wired the whole Susquehanna divison between Perryman, MD and Harrisburg because it was not supporting any passenger rail service. I believe all/most of the catenary support structure remains in place and could, at least theoretically, support new Constant Tension catenary.
I view as one of the Greatest American Blunders the FRA allowing freight railroads to "dewire" their already catenery-equipped segments. PRR/Penn Central was the most egregious example. They de-wired the whole Susquehanna divison between Perryman, MD and Harrisburg because it was not supporting any passenger rail service. I believe all/most of the catenary support structure remains in place and could, at least theoretically, support new Constant Tension catenary.
Keep in mind a fact regarding Conrail ending it's electrified operations; much of that territory (IINM, all of it except the line from Philadelphia to Harrisburg) was owned by Amtrak which did everything it could to push the freight carrier into not running electric motive power under Amtrak's wire..
Always seemed odd that Amtrak could do that given that both they and Conrail were wards of the Federal government at the time..
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
nfotis Note also that the IORE runs on a mountainous region, and the tonnage ratings are limited by the siding length. If these beasts were running on a more flat territory, I suspect their performance would be on par with the big diesels, plus the benefit of double the available horsepower per unit. A sense of rugged terrain here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGSulGeokUg And the climate conditions are no fun above the Arctic circle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTYxVSgN7Mg N.F.
Note also that the IORE runs on a mountainous region, and the tonnage ratings are limited by the siding length.
If these beasts were running on a more flat territory, I suspect their performance would be on par with the big diesels, plus the benefit of double the available horsepower per unit.
A sense of rugged terrain here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGSulGeokUg
And the climate conditions are no fun above the Arctic circle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTYxVSgN7Mg
Again, I wish I still had the Bombardier powerpoint document that I metioned in my earlier post but one of the points made was that an IORE derived locomotive for North American freight service could be built to have starting tractive effort ratings comparable to what is standard in the industry here. There was a cut away drawing that showed a unit built on a heavy haul road switcher frame with a standard style wide cab. The document mentioned ballasting the unit up (works for CSX increased tractive effort units).
GDRMCoUS RRs don't want to add urea stations to their fueling pads, do you believe they want to add all that overhead wiring?
It all depends on what they decide they want to be when they grow up. If they don't get serious about how to go about transfroming the network into a serious intermodal network, the question is moot. They are just having a big "going out of business" sale.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
It is easy to agree that the IORE motors are very impressive and certainly do their assigned tasks very well indeed.
Less units of motive power - quite possibly.
Miles and miles of catenary to build and maintain with associated overhead costs - definitely. (Sorry, could not resist the pun.)
GDRMCo Using the LKAB IORE as a example of something useful to US RRs, let's consider not it's HP figure (7200hp according to wikipedia) but it's tractive effort figures.... From what I understand from the wikipedia listing is that in boost mode at 6mph they're producing 700kN (155,000lbs) and in normal model at 20mph it's only 600kN (135000lbs). Apparently each unit is 180t?
Using the LKAB IORE as a example of something useful to US RRs, let's consider not it's HP figure (7200hp according to wikipedia) but it's tractive effort figures....
From what I understand from the wikipedia listing is that in boost mode at 6mph they're producing 700kN (155,000lbs) and in normal model at 20mph it's only 600kN (135000lbs). Apparently each unit is 180t?
Be careful, this amount is 180 *metric* tonnes.
This translates to 198 short tons.
Compare that to say the CSX CW44AH (196t) that has a continuous tractive effort of 645kN (145,000lbs) at 9.8mph. For the extra weight you've got a far more sure footed locomotive (as CSX has found) but what has been discovered by the US RRs is that 4000hp gets the job done just as well in heavy mineral service as 6000hp did when CSX was testing it's AC6000CWs in coal service. Also appears the average CSX coal train is 2000t heavier than the LKAB trains with the average Powder River Basin coal train being 6000t heavier. Both use 3-4 4000-4400hp locomotives.....
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iore , the tractive effort for each section is:
starting: 700 kN (boost mode), up to 6 mph
sustained: 600 kN, up to 20 mph (what is the tractive effort for a CSX unit at 20 mph?)
The LKAB ore trains are 8.600 metric tonnes (or 9.500 short tons) per dual section locomotive, which looks respectable to me.
Would 7200hp per unit be more effective in coal service? Likely not. Intermodal, you'd certainly be able to get up to track speed faster but on a system not designed for high speed rail operation would it really be needed? Maybe not.
Having 5.5-6.5 MW installed power (basically, a transformer) costs you nothing, and gives you immense flexibility. The same locomotives can haul coal at higher speed than in the past, and intermodal the next day.
Paul:
I would not question your knowledge of power transmission systems, but perhaps everyone following this discussion would benefit from a look at the Wikipedia site covering modern tractive power in Russia. We may disagree with the Russians philosophically, but they have been way out in front of the curve as what railroading might look like 50-100 years ahead. They made an early and deep commitment to electrification, and most of their system sits under 25Kv 50 Hz wire. Their original installations were 3 KV DC and gradually are being replaced/upgraded. They have in excess of 20,000 Km under wire and their system is expanding. They also have more than 20,000 motors, with power from a single articulated "two drawbar-connected unit shell" motor up into the 12,000 Hp range, with as many as 12 driving axles.''
I am, as I said before, no Russian apologist, but I suggest they are way ahead of most of the West [excepting Europe] in setting railroad parameters for the distant future. Diesel, be it Tier Zero or Tier 4, can never survive as long as those railroads which can tap renewable power sources.
At the risk of people's eyes glazing over (or maybe some fellow Forum participants rolling their eyes), I have made scholarly contributions to theory of constant-velocity (CV) couplings and considered different possibilities of their use in railroad drive trains. My father V. Milenkovic contributed the constant-velocity power coupling for the rail vehicle roller test stand at Pueblo, Colorado, and I have studied that particular contribution.
The idea vehicle power coupling allows the wheel to articulate in all 5 axes relative to the motor -- up-down, right-left, pitch, yaw, and in-out. It supplies 1 degree of constraint in roll -- this is what transmits the torque. Finally, it has the desirable property of a given angle of rotation of the motor produces an equal angle of wheel rotation -- this is the constant-velocity property. In a car, it prevents vibration or the wheels from squealing or chirping as they are driven to turn.
Your car, if it has front-wheel drive, has this ideal 5-axis constant-velocity power coupling. It actually has 2 such couplings, one to each fron wheel. And each coupling consists of a pair of 2-axis (pitch-yaw) CV joints connected through a spline shaft (giving the in-out articulation). And the roller test stand at Pueblo, Colorado has just such an automotive half-shaft drive train connected to each roller supporting a pair of rail wheels on the stand. It was quite the engineering (read, monetary expenditure) to build such an automotive-type drive capable of withstanding the torques and forces of the railroad application along with any conceivable future railroad application.
When people talk about a "Cardan joint" or a "Cardan shaft", a proper Cardan is not a CV joint as in a front-drive car, rather, it is a universal joint as in a rear-drive car. A rear-drive car has a pair of universal joints (u-joints), one at each end of the drive shaft, and as the rear axle (mostly) is constrained to go up and down, this arrangement forms (an approximate) CV joint from the transmission to the differential feeding torque to the rear wheels.
My understanding is that such a Cardan shaft arrangement is not only the drive on the PCC streetcar, it was also adopted by the Japanese for high-speed Bullet Train MU cars on the New Tokaido Line in the 1960s and by the United Aircraft TurboTrain. A true CV coupling is need on a front drive car on account of the large steering angle on the front wheels, but I have the impression that railroad drives are not fully constant-velocity because the wheel angles and deflections are never that large?
Anyway, full 5-axis CV has always required a pair of 2-axis CV joints separated by a spline shaft giving in-out. Even though you have a total of 2 splines and 4 2-axis CV joints in your car, my impression is that this level of complication is not present in railroad drives on account of 1) not needed, 2) too costly/high maintenance?
I have thought that "what the railroad industry really needs" is a full 5-axis CV linkage connection incorporated into a quill drive. This would solve a whole lot of problems with high-speed rail let alone help bring back long rigid wheel base steam locomotives to a petroleum-short world, but I haven't come up with anything simple and rugged enough.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Wizlish A system called Buchli drive had a pair of links with pin joints that could vary effective length with a pair of mating sector gears -- I will see if I can find a picture, which is worth a thousand words
A system called Buchli drive had a pair of links with pin joints that could vary effective length with a pair of mating sector gears -- I will see if I can find a picture, which is worth a thousand words
Tell me you don't have a copy of C Hamilton Ellis "The Lore of the Train" laying around your house?
Ellis mentions both "quill drive" and the "Buchli drive" without much as understanding either of them. But who among those writing about the history of railroad technology have a glimmer of understand how the Walschaerts valve gear functions, let along the Baker gear?
The "quill" in the quill drive is the hollow tube concentric with the solid axle. The motor is geared to the quill, but the quill is connected to the axle it surrounds with some manner of either articulated or flexible connection. This allows the axle to bounce up and down with bumps in the track without the heavy motor having to bounce up and down the same amount. This was especially a concern in "the early days" when electric motors were way heavy -- this may be less a problem, apart from very high speed trains, with the lighter weight AC traction motors.
The Buchli drive indeed has a flexible, linkage connection between the gear wheel driven by the motor and the train car or locomotive wheel contacting the track.
The Mystery of the Buchli can be resolved by considering 1) that a device called a 4-bar linkage is perhaps the most versatile motion-generating device for motion in the 2D plane, 2) unconstrained motion in the plane has 3 degrees-of-freedom: up-down, right-left, and rotation, 3) a 4-bar linkage affords one 1 degree-of-freedom, 4) that "gear segment pivot on gear wheel" affords a 2nd degree-of-freedom to the four-bar linkage connecting the gear ring to the rail wheel, 5) 2 degrees of freedom is just what you need to allow the rail wheel to bounce up and down for all rotation angles of the gear wheel while at the same time "locking out" the 3rd plane degree of freedom to transmit the torque.
There will be a quiz on this before the bell ends today's class . . .
The Buchli drive is not strictly a "quill drive" in that it lacks the hollow concentric shaft surrounding the rail-wheel axle. Also, it is a kind of bulky and cumbersome arrangement that may not be fully in dynamic balance (rail pounding problem of the rod-driven steamer), and I don't think it was ever applied to very high speed trains. But yes, it does the same thing as the quill drive in separating the motor from the unsprung mass, and yes, it is entirely mechanical.
Well, it is mechanical in its transmission of torque up to the point that it is not. The wheel motion with bumps may not be strictly up-and-down -- the wheel may tilt if one wheel hits a bump and its opposite wheel on the other axle does not. That tilt is not very much, but that tilt makes the motion of the wheel relative to the gear ring take place in 3D. So maybe there are rubber compliances or bearing tolerances to make this 2D Buchli mechanism function in the 3D world.
So your link suggests that the springs of the GG1 quill drive are replaced by rubber thingies in modern high-speed European locomotives and MU cars? I thought I saw some picture of a "modern" Austrian quill drive linkage, but I never saw a schematic of the linkage and whether that linkage afforded the full degrees-of-freedom needed for the bouncing wheel or whether rubber bushings covered for the multitude of mechanical shortcomings.
A steam locomotive rod drive is also famously overconstrained, where things giving, yielding, or having compliance somewhere makes up the difference.
Paul Milenkovic Is there any information to be had on modern quill drive implementations? "Back in the day" of the GG1, the torque was transmitted through springs. The few pictures I have seen of current quill drive appears to show mechanical links, but how these links are arranged and how many degrees-of-freedom are required to allow motion of the suspended axle relative to the quill is not clear to me.
Is there any information to be had on modern quill drive implementations?
"Back in the day" of the GG1, the torque was transmitted through springs. The few pictures I have seen of current quill drive appears to show mechanical links, but how these links are arranged and how many degrees-of-freedom are required to allow motion of the suspended axle relative to the quill is not clear to me.
One of the things that changed was the desire for better control of lateral motion (something the nose-suspended motor does not do very well). If I remember correctly the GG1 handled lateral motion by having the areas of the wheel spokes that the spring 'plungers' bore on able to slide laterally. More modern designs handle this directly with universal joints.
Some interesting discussion (and illustrations) of these systems can be found in this book section.
The Alsthom 'dancing ring' drive had rubber bushings on both the driven and driving joints, so rubber deflection accommodated the lateral motion as well as providing compliance for torque -- this was the system on the locomotives that first exceeded 200 mph.
-- this allowed connection from a fully-suspended 'sprung' quill gear to a relatively light wheel structure, but was able to transmit 1000+ horsepower without damage or binding. In the original version the axleboxes ran in pedestals, and when it became desirable to allow the axle to 'float' laterally, whether on springs or lubricated plates, a two-axis set of joints (in line with the sector arms at the bottom and with properly curved spherical joints at the wheel pins) rather easily accommodated it. Note that the Buchli drive does not involve any rubber pieces or sliding joints that can age or freeze (see the long and somewhat tired history of rubber pieces on railroad vehicles, for example the discussion of rubber springs in White's book on the American passenger car).
The current 'hollow shaft drive' implementations have an elastic connection between the traction motor and the (hollow) axle:
http://s122.photobucket.com/user/Daneelo/media/Occasional%20Train%20Blogging/UniModELoco/E10_hollow_shaftgif.jpg.html
This is an early implementation, from the E10 electric locomotive in the fifties.
An anatomy of this is shown here: http://s122.photobucket.com/user/Daneelo/media/Occasional%20Train%20Blogging/UniModELoco/E10_Gummiringfederantrieb.gif.html
Also, look at http://www.railway-technical.com/Quill-Drive.jpg
This is a more modern implementation, from an Austrian electric locomotive. In German, that method is called Hohlwelle (hollow shaft), and it is representative of bogies/trucks suitable for up to 125 mph operation.
A comparison drawing between a partially hung motor (hollow shaft) and a fully suspended quill drive in the Siemens Vectron is here:
http://www.mobility.siemens.com/mobility/global/en/interurban-mobility/rail-solutions/locomotives/vectron/technology/modular-locomotive-concept/flexible-drive/the-drive-system/pages/the-drive-system.aspx
Hope this helps,
GDRMCoThe video shows how completely different Europe is to the US. While the IOREs weigh 180t they've got more power than would be usable on US sized mineral trains....
Why do you think that extra horsepower is not usable?
Stop for a moment thinking in terms of diesel-electric propulsion, where most railroads are using the minimum horsepower (and the smallest amount of locomotives) needed for the job.
Let's say you are using four 6-axle locomotives in order to get adequate hp/ton when pulling a freight train, but in order to start the train, three units are enough regarding tractive effort.
With straight electric locomotives, you would stay at three units, and you could be more productive, since with double horsepower per unit available you can move the train at track speed. So, with a smaller (and more reliable) fleet you could get higher productivity and more trains on the mainline per day (then you hit yard capacity limits, but that's another story...).
So, the same locomotive would be able to haul ore trains and intermodals - the power would be available. Also, in my country a diesel-hauled train costs nearly three times in fuel costs compared to electric energy costs for an electric locomotive/trainset.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.