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Re: Slugs with motors to electrics and diesels
Author: BOB2
Date: 12-05-2017 - 12:02
Or you could just invent a dual mode diesel-electric-using third rail pickup or a pantograph, and the necessary on-board electronics necessary, depending upon voltage, the need to invert AC, and such, to switch back and forth between pure electric power, and on-board diesel generated electric power----
Oh, we already did that about a century ago? Oh well..... Another wheel to be reinvented.....
I would try to get that article into a peer reviewed RR engineering mechanical engineering academic publication.....to shake out some of the questions that need answering about how efficient that really would be.
It doesn't really make much sense to me. But, I guess that maybe with some shorter European distances over electrified and non electrified segments that there might be some application to that operational approach.
Based on the three different RR electrification studies I've personally been involved with, all I can say is that if you've spent the money it takes to electrify the RR, the fully depreciated life cycle cost of the electric choo-choo's are a pretty small part of that cost....
In the distances we cover in North America with diesel locomotive power pools, that mix of electric and diesel makes no economic sense whatsoever. Most freight I've seen in my lifetime, in the electrified NEC has been and is now mostly diesel powered, because the freight RR's don't want to bother with a separate electric freight fleet. This fact is that the cheaper universal utility and range of diesels is what really killed electrified freight lines from Washington and Montana, to Virginia by the early 70's.
Oh, we already did that about a century ago? Oh well..... Another wheel to be reinvented.....
I would try to get that article into a peer reviewed RR engineering mechanical engineering academic publication.....to shake out some of the questions that need answering about how efficient that really would be.
It doesn't really make much sense to me. But, I guess that maybe with some shorter European distances over electrified and non electrified segments that there might be some application to that operational approach.
Based on the three different RR electrification studies I've personally been involved with, all I can say is that if you've spent the money it takes to electrify the RR, the fully depreciated life cycle cost of the electric choo-choo's are a pretty small part of that cost....
In the distances we cover in North America with diesel locomotive power pools, that mix of electric and diesel makes no economic sense whatsoever. Most freight I've seen in my lifetime, in the electrified NEC has been and is now mostly diesel powered, because the freight RR's don't want to bother with a separate electric freight fleet. This fact is that the cheaper universal utility and range of diesels is what really killed electrified freight lines from Washington and Montana, to Virginia by the early 70's.
