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Jet Turbine Locomotives
An anonymous submitter writes "I saw this article in the paper today. Not only is it lighter than a comparable diesel engine, it should burn the fuel more completely and be a bit better for the environment. Not to mention it is much faster. They should make more of a point that the North American railway system needs a major overhaul in order to support faster trains." The Department of Transportation has some information about next-generation trains, including a design incorporating a flywheel to improve acceleration.
http://www.rtri.or.jp/rd/maglev/html/english/magle v_frame_E.html
This reminds me of the urban legend where a guy attaches a JATO to his Impala and plants himself into the face of a cliff. Apparently the story had truthful elements, the real guy behind it did attach the JATO to an old push railroad car and it worked fairly well. So I can imagine something like that could be commercially viable with a little more advanced developement.
Have you been stalked by Seth today?
Everyone must be getting this at once, because this was featured on TechTV not 5 minutes ago.
"What we have here is a failure to communicate"
The Warden, Cool Hand Luke
If you were willing to foot the extra bill for one of these in new trains that you bought (assuming that you buy trains) it would have more advantages than just efficiency and speed--can you imagine how cool this would look in an advertisement?
Living next to a railway crossing - I wonder how loud it's going to be - Judging from Jet's flying in and out of airports - I'll be moving away from any railroad tracks.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Currently, except for regional trains or overgrown subways, the people moving business for trains in NorAm is pretty dead. Planes and automobiles pretty much dominate the possibilities.
If air travel could be reduced yet again in cost for bulk, it might well finish wiping out the trains altogether.
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
As of right now, most North American railways are used to transport cargo, and the very fact remains that speed isn't really a problem right now, as even though trains are very slow, a speed increase would probably not be necessary, as it would only cost more on shiping. On the other hand, these new technologies could be more useful in other places, such as the Far East, where rail transport is still the primary way to transport both passengers and cargo.
Union Pacific has a jet powered locomotive. They used to have more, but they burn so much fuel that they aren't very economical to operate. Plus, you can't park them underneath overpasses because the exhaust will melt the asphalt. So they just have the one now and it is mainly used for special loads and public relations.
Smeghead every day of the week.
This may be obvious to most people, but this train doesn't actually get thrust from the jet engine. The jet engine is used to power an electric generator, which in turn powers electric motors for the wheels. This is how diesel locomotives work too.
I'd guess the reason they say this locomotive is faster is due to the much lower power to weight ratio of the jet turbine compared to diesel engines. I don't see how this would make any difference on a fully loaded train, however, as the delta in weight between a jet turbine and a diesel engine has to be a small fraction of a percent of the overall weight of the train.
Finally, something mainstream using flywheels. Initially it was believed that the Segway was going to have one built in, but this should be something to see.
So how loud are these trains? Considering that normal trains aren't exactly silent, and that jet engines are extremely noisy, it feels like there could be a heap of lawsuits waiting from people living near railroad tracks...
Turbines for the car have been attempted in the past with lack luster interest. Maybe this will not only garner interest for large engine locomotives, but mayve it will reiterate all the benefits turbine would add to the automobile industry, or even better, mass transportation. Anything to get us away from our car-centric world.
Just because it "burns fuel more completely" doesn't automatically make it safer for the enviroment. Nor did I see any more proof of this in the article. Jet fuel is some pretty nasty stuff, enviromentally speaking. Sounds like a market-droid speak to me.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
UP had a few turbine locos in the 1960's but they didn't do well. In the past, the problem with turbines in locomotives has been low efficiency (especially at part throttle) and low reliability. They are getting better, but I doubt that you'll see them in freight locos in the near future. Their lighter weight is not a big advantage in freight pullers. Sounds good for lightweight passenger travel, though.
Here is Bombardier's own page on it and a photo of the locomotive.
---Mike
It won't get slashdotted. It's a major news site.
Mod this down. If you like the content, GO TO THE SITE.
Take my karma when above comment is lower than mine
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
Spokesman Warren Flatau of the Railroad Administration said the agency has invested $13 million US in developing the turbine-powered locomotive since about 1997. With Bombardier matching that, JetTrain has cost at least $41 million Cdn so far.
Don't they know you have to charge the US Gubmint at least $500 million to get any attention? There's not enough pork in this project for it to go anywhere.
Remain calm! All is well!
If you want stuff like that, turn on TechTV or go to their site. They are running a story on a elevator that travels from surface to the bottom of the ocean.
"What we have here is a failure to communicate"
The Warden, Cool Hand Luke
Faster more fuel efficient railway transportation?! Blame Canada! :)
"Old man yells at systemd"
I hate flying. The cramped seats. The claustrophobia. The ridiculous rules about standing and walking around...
I'd much rather travel by train, but it's always been much too slow. Even though these new trains are still slower than flying, they make up the difference quite a bit.
A smooth, relaxing train ride where all seats are Business class or better? Sign me up.
Gas turbines (perhaps not the exact same thing as the article is talking about) were tested decades ago in cars. While they produced more power and created mostly non-toxic exhaust (i.e. you can live in an atmosphere of gas turbine exhaust for hours or more, but only a few minutes in conventional gas engine exhaust), they fuel efficiency was found to be terrible. 1.5-3MPG. If the two techs are the same, it looks like this problem has been largely solved.
:)
As an added FYI, the Army's M1 tank uses a diesel turbine that produces >1200HP (not that horse power is really a very useful measure of power, but I don't recall the torque numbers), but its gas mileage is... Not that great.
Certain car companies are apparently still interested in the technology though, regardless. (not goatse.*, I promise)
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
Because of Japanese expertise in this area, other countries (other asian states, some european) either licence the technology outright or tap the experts to develop their own technology (recently China and Korea are doing this).
The problems the US faces are known quantities. Why re-invent the (fly-) wheel? The comparative advantage of nations is real. The US should shelve its hubris and buy a proven japanese design rather than investing in more white elephants.
Here's a promo shot from the manufacturer:
Train of the future
I think we'll be seeing more of this in the future. It seems that security on these trains are very tight, but they are remarkably easy to stow-away on. Supposedly they can go on total lockdown in a few seconds, while timers pop up in each car, and they are all flooded with dark red light.
snow
Crystal Meth: Would you ingest somthing made from a poisonous gas and an explosive metal? You do it every day -- Salt!
Few know that the first practical gas turbine was made by a couple gentlemen who weren't even sure that it would actually work.
But, these days it's almost a trivial task to make your own. Jet engines take air in the front at low speed and chuck it out the back at high speed.
So, with that in mind, I could easily throw one of these together over a lunch break. All you need are a propane torch, a ten centimetre square sheet of foil, one of those hole punches, and a five centimetre square of brass metal.
Make the nozzle fairly long for more power. If you want to have a nice methane-excretion sound like some teens' automobiles, poke a few dozen holes on the inside of the nozzle.
Remember that Force = Mass * Acceleration as well as what time your girlfriend will be home so that you don't have to sleep on the couch that night.
Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., Canada, B3H 3J5
Actually the problem is that the big auto companies have paid big bucks to Washington lobbyists to block any such rail travel improvements.
In the 1970s, the first mag-lev trains were designed. (magnetic levitation, using the power of super-cooled hydrogen shot through a jet nozzle to propel a train hovering over a hyper-metallic track). The US Congress nearly passed legislation requiring each state to reserve a percentage of its budget to implement such an infrastructure. Unfortunately, the auto companies (GM/Ford/Dodge) "got to them" (the senators) before the Senate was able to vote on it.
Honestly, I see no fast rail travel in our near future.
there was talk about these new bombardier trains being used to replace the current VIA rail trains that go between montreal and torronto.. i happen to live rather close to the tracks and i dunno if i want to hear a train flying down the tracks at 240kph at 11pm like the current VIA trains do.. :o/
MABASPLOOM!
I would like to see canada.com getting ./'ed. :)
Or I will start copying CNN's articles and expect them to be modded up too
3.243F6A8885A308D313
just ask W.E. Coyote
I guess they could be clearer, but I doubt this locomotive uses the jet engine for propulsion, rather it uses the jet engine to generate electricity that drives the same gigantic electric motor that moves the train today. Although the engine is a much higher-tech device to maintain than a diesel engine, it should be cleaner and possibly quieter as well.
You can go faster because a turbine engine that generates the same kilowatts as a conventional diesel does will be lighter. Less weight can equal more speed.
All that said, I'm not sure that "less weight" is a priority for most locomotives. If I remember correctly, the enormous weight of the locomotives is critical in pulling literally miles of loaded box cars up an incline. Of course, passenger trains are packed with very low density compared to freight, so maybe that's what this is for.
It's not that new an idea. British Rail's experimental APT-E train was gas turbine powered, back in 1972. However the line they were intended to be used on was electrified, and so this part of the project was abandoned.
"God is a being of terrific character...cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust." Thomas Jefferson
For some people time is money.
Oh well
According to the articcle this seems to be mainly applicable to small freight trains and passenger trains. There s a huge valid market for these locomotives. The northeast coordoor would benefit greatly from higher speed trains, and they are a joy to ride on, much less hassle the La Guardia or Logan.
The US rail system. It is a piece of shit. If we had viable transportation, there might be some more money to renovate the trains. They, despite their age, are a viable alternative to air travel. The Northeast coordoor and the SFO-LA routes are ripe for high speed trains. THis would do a lot to alleviate the crowding and security concerns involved with airplanes.
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Europeans have had gas turbine locos for decades.
But the Americans have has gas turbine tanks for decades, so maybe that shows national priorities for technology rather than each continent's ability to impliment.
If you think the roads are bad in your state, you should see some of the rails- sure, the railroads spend money on upkeep, but in many places the parallelness of the rails can deviate as much as 10 degrees and still be within spec.
When trains encounter such areas of track, they simply slow down and take that spot "easy". Not ideal for high speed "bullet" trains.
If the railroads decided to replace all the old section rails with ribbon rails, then you might have a different outlook on such a technology.
Also, without being too much of a know it all, I'd have to point out that harmonic vibration of the railcars moving at such elevated speeds could cause a derailment for no reason other than the train was moving too quickly.
train the song just doesn't sound the same anymore
Just an FYI, in case anyone is interested; the vast majority of commerical locomotives in the USA are already, in fact, electric, and have been since the 1950's. The diesel engines are there, sure, but they are there to generate power to turn electric motors.
This is because electric motors have many degrees more torque at low speeds than any comparable internal combustion engine.
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
I was in a secret railroad switch-house last week, and I stumbled upon a locomotive that had been sitting there since 1880. It was fusion powered. The reactor ran on GARBAGE no less! It could levitate and even looked capable of time travel. The security guard who let me in said his only instructions were to wait for a man named "Doc Brown" to show up.
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
There were 3000 new job vacancies in the Manhattan area alone a week later!
I have seen several Freight Trains powered by gas turbines.
t m
http://www.railpower.com/2support/locomotives.h
This adds even more meaning to the Grateful Dead lyrics... "Driving that jet-train, high on cocain, Casey Jones you better, watch your speed!"
Imagine if we could get one of these to power a Beowulf Cluster!
whomever modded this should be able to distinguish negative from troll and offtopic. the train story was retarded, boring, and irrelevant, and should not have been accepted.
Is it too much to ask that submitters read the article they're submitting? The entire reason this train was developed is so it could be used on existing tracks with a minimum of modifications. It's right there in the second paragraph of the article: "Bombardier believes its 240-kilometres-an-hour JetTrain is the answer to providing high-speed rail service throughout North America using existing track and without the prohibitive cost of electrifying rail networks."
I had read about early attempts to use this technology to power trains, but I seem to recall some heat dissapation problems. I believe it was when these locamotives were stationary beneth things like overpasses and tunnels that they had problems with the output from the jets burning/melting things. My guess would be that they solve this using some of the same technologies they use to reduce the heat signature of aircraft.
This isn't the first gas turbine locomotive that Bombardier has built. Back in the 70's and early 80's Via (Canada's Amtrak) had a gas turbine train (called the "Turbo") operating between Montreal and Toronto that was built by Bombardier. It wasn't as reliable as diesel engines and didn't offer any particular advantages. Gas turbine engines are considerably lighter than diesels and perhaps a bit more fuel efficient, but light weight isn't very important for a locomotive. I remember once watching the Turbo getting towed through Belleville ON by a diesel unit because there was a couple of inches of snow over the rails and the Turbo couldn't plough trough it.
Trains are nearly obsolete? Gee, try telling that to the rest of the developed world. Most Japanese people ONLY use trains. The way to get around Europe is on the trains. In fact, it is not TRAINS which are obsolete, but the US and Canada, who still have these ridiculous diesel engines that are just not suited to getting people around (I had the misfortune--or the adventure--of geting around China for a month on diesel trains--30 hours from Canton to Shanghai; ugh). North America needs to jump on the railway bandwagon for a lot of reasons, most importantly to reduce energy consumption and associated air pollution. You may not realize it, but as much as gas costs now, it's STILL far, far less than what the rest of the world pays, thanks to a fossil of a fossil-fuel-hungry government. Unfortunately, this train doesn't really address that issue very well, as it still uses fossil fuel (albeit less than all those passengers driving SUVs). To really clean things up, we need electric trains, like the rest of the developed world. From a convenience standpoint, however, this train--should it be accepted by the public, which it won't be, since we all love our farcical SUVs so damn much--would make life a whole lot easier. Instead driving hours to get up to my meeting in San Francisco next weekend, I could sit on a train, kick back, drink a beer, read some news on my PDA, watch the scenery fly by, take a nap, and wake up refreshed and ready to work. I would not have had to deal with bastard drivers, getting lost, or even paying attention to where I was going. I also would not have had to be security screened, sniffed by drug dogs, had my fingernail clippers taken away, or sit in a cramped, loud seat in a fart-smelling plane. Trains are the way to go for short-to-medium length trips, and people like you, with your 1950's idea of the railroad, are the people who keep it from happening. Go on, spend some time abroad. Take advantage of other countries' great train systems. If you come back still thinking trains are "obsolete," I'll refund you the cost of reading this post. ;)
You know, the state of North American railways is in many ways worse than in some third world countries. Why can't we get proper electic locomotives like everyone else has?
Because North America is very big, and relatively sparsly populated. It is not at all certain, that electrifying the entire grid is an economically optimal solution. In remote areas there are no power plants, so either you have to construct new ones in the middle of nowhere or the power has to go through very long cables (which causes a lot of losses).
Tor
Something I've never understood about plans for building high-speed rail networks: if you're gonna go and build on, then you're allready willing to spend a huge amount of money. Why not spend a bit more and get a system that works; i.e. go to the SNCF office in Paris, throw money at them and say "we'd like to borrow the entire TGV developing team for a few years" and then set them to work. SNCF introduced a whole new high-speed line (the TGV Mediteraniee) about a year and a half ago and it was running right on schedule within a few weeks after launch (or as much of a schedule as the French railway has). Acela's been going for how long without fully working?
If you want a practical high-speed rail network, go get the French or the Japanese and be prepared to spend a huge amount of money, both on initial capital and maintenance. SNCF has like six TGV trains who just drive the rails constantly looking for cracks and fissuers - as a result, every inch of track on the network is rechecked every two months, if my memory severs me correctly.
Cue The Sun...
If you look at the weight of a fully loaded train and the weight of an unloaded one you will see they are very close. A light weight train car will weight in at 50,000 lbs and can carry less than 3 times that. When the average loads these carry are a few pallets and is typicaly less than 10% of the weight of the car. The result is a huge mass that gets moved and that takes energy.
The reason train cars weigh so much is so they don't come off the track when they are pulled around corners. Even with the large radius curves on trainlines, the side forces of a mile long train with a fully loaded car at the back will be quite high. The early solution to that problem was to make the train cars weigh more and the result is now all trains cars fit into a standard weight. This also makes passenger trains weigh far more than they should. The US rail industry could save a major part of its energy bill by introducing a lighter train standard but that would cost a fortune in new rolling stock.
There's a lot of surface area in the US so there's a lot of open space to cover for any rail system.
One reason Japan's rail system is so much better than the United State's is because Japan is just that much smaller of a country. And as for Europe, Texas alone probably equals the space covered by several European countries.
Although many people seem to think of them in the same way. Jet fuel is a very close relative to diesel fuel. . . and kerosene, and in a pinch they can often be substituted for one another, so substituting jet fuel for diesel will have *no* effect on the enviroment, per se. However, burning jet fuel more completely than a diesel engine burns its fuel will, indeed, have a positive effect and is virtually soot free.
You want a nasty fuel enviromentally? Very little is worse than ordinary pump gasoline.
KFG
Trains aren't just for carrying people, you know. The real beauty of a train is its ability to haul very large loads over long distances. It can carry a vast amount of material from one location to another relatively quick.
At around 200mph, easily achievable using current train systems if you got high speed rail all the way, you should be able to go from downtown San Francisco or LA to New York in 15 hours. That is actually not that different from air travel if you take into account all the overhead associated with air travel (security, parking, transportation to/from airport, etc.), and it's a whole lot more pleasant. With improved technology, perhaps one could even get that down by a few more hours. And trains don't fly into buildings either.
A similar article in the San Francisco Chronicle brings light as to why this came out now. A 25 billion dollar project to link San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento by high speed rail is close to becoming a reality. Expect lots of cool new train tech to come out in the next few weeks as train powers that be duke it out for this sizable contract.
so may be it will happen in your life time
Just wait about six months--Slashdot will run your parody as news. They can be so crap-tacularly dumb when it comes to technology!
Most heavily-used mainline railroads in the US do have continuously-welded rail. It's expensive and tricky to build correctly, so they don't bother with it on more lightly-used lines.
Same applies to concrete ties, bi-directional signaling, centralized traffic control, and all the other technologies that make railroads run faster and more efficiently.
Yeah, Amercia big and scarcely populated is always the argument for having shitty train, shitty cellphone, shitty powergrid, basically shitty everything that needs a massive and coherent investment in a networked infrastructure. Wouldn't it rather be the over-decentralization and lack of public funding for anything that is not a weapon that is to blame ? A high speed train from San Diego to Seattle would be profitable within a decade and instantaneously take half the market from airlines (not for going all the way from San Diego to Seattle, but from LA to SF, from SF to Seattle, etc). Scarce population in the rest of the country or not.
Jet powered bikes? No, seriously, turbine generators are efficient and low-maintainence. Too bad all that waste heat can't be used more effectively (its used as a dryer or for general-purpose heating in some industrial applications). Check out this neat brochure.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Atlas Shrugged... here we come.
is that they don't throttle well. They like to rev up, to VERY high speeds, and stay there. When attempts were made to use turbines in racing cars it was found that this made them very effective for oval racing, but nearly useless for road racing. They're even more useless for road driving with it's stop and start patterns.
They are, however, when used at constant rate, far more efficient than piston engines. This makes them good for turning generators.
This would make them good for *hybrid* cars, in which there is renewed interest. In fact, the locomotives that are in question here are conceptually the same as a hybrid car.
KFG
The M1 tank has a turbine engine also. Generally these types of engines are used in applications where a high power-to-weight ratio is required and cost is not the issue.
I'm a firm believer in the philosophy of a ruling class. Especially since I rule. -Randal, Clerks
Here's some information about the jet-powered M-497, tested in 1966 by New York Central. There's an interesting article about it in the Fall 1999 issue of Invention & Technology, if you have access to a copy.
Anyway, you've got to check out the pictures:
http://www.trainweb.org/railpix/ampix/nyc-m497s1.j pg 1 .jpg
http://www.trainweb.org/railpix/ampix/nyc-m497run
I had the chance to cruise on the Millennium last year, which has two gas turbine engines hooked to electrical generators which both supply energy to the ship's power grid and also power the motors driving the propellers. I'm sure kilotonnes of ship will help silence the engines, so I can't speak to noise, but they were amazingly vibration-free, unlike more common deisel engines with a direct physical linkage from engine to drivetrain to prop.
I'm not sure how that translates to train use, but I'm curious to find out. Considering that they'd probably provide electricity to power the wheels, I wonder if a sufficiently sized flywheel arrangement or battery bank could mean that the engine could operate at constant speed, preventing the frequent idleup and idledown which creates a much more distracting noise at a distance than the noise of a constant engine...
Kevin Fox
I doubt it would be Amtrak. I say let Amtrak die.
Let a new company with new vision and an eye towards the future of transportation develop a high tech train system in America. We don't need old companies to make a new train system.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
or they can't pull. Coefficient of friction between steel tires and steel rail is abysnally small, that's why they are so efficient, but also why they can't climb steep grades, and why the loco needs all that weight. Other cars could benefit from less weight, but not the loco. not the driving wheels at least.
Infuriate left and right
More than a hundred french TGV (=> 300 km/h capable) trains are running in Europe. First TGV prototype did run with a jet engine and they switched to electric soon thanks to advances in power electronics and innovative use of alternating current for traction.
During 2003 Madrid - Barcelona (630 km)will be linked with a train at 350 km/h cruise speed (some trains manufactured by german Siemens and others by spanish Talgo)of course they all will be electric.
I think this design based in jet engine power is a step back.
Regards.
California.
Most city buses now use turbines for their engine and they aren't that loud.
Which city? Which buses? Do you have any links? I'm curious.
The ones I've heard lately don't sound like turbines.
A high speed train from San Diego to Seattle would be profitable within a decade and instantaneously take half the market from airlines (not for going all the way from San Diego to Seattle, but from LA to SF, from SF to Seattle, etc).
What do you base this claim on? If it is true, why are not the privately operated train companies constructing such a line?
Tor
The submitter noted that "...the North American railway system needs a major overhaul in order to support faster trains." Frankly, I wonder if that's likely.
Even without regard to the current economic climate, no one (especially the U.S. Federal government) seems too interesting in overhauling the railway system. Rail travel is great, but Amtrak has been begging to cease service on many, many routes because, for the most part, people don't ride trains anymore. Most travellers seem to feel that flying is cheap (enough) and safe (enough), and even with the new airport security measures, flying is faster than train travel.
As for cargo trains, previous posters correctly observed that faster cargo transport is not a compelling need.
Just my 2 cents.
This has already been done BTW. In Canada in the year 1967 they made such a train for Canada's 100th birhday and yes it worked it went right across the country. I think it's been scrapped now.
I don't know if you are familiar with rail service in Europe but it is a good alternative to flying or driving. For example high-speed rail is considered THE way to travel between Paris and Brussels.
.5 hr to get into downtown Portland. 4.5hrs total. .5hr to station, .5hr to .25hr waiting for departure, 2.5hr train ride, .25-.5hr to get to destination in Portland. 3.5hr-4hr total.
There are train corridors that already are quite popular such as Vancouver BC-Seattle-Portland, Boston-NYC-DC, and LA-San Diego. Many areas have corridors they would like to see higher speed, more frequent, and more reliable service. In some cases the states and cities are even willing to invest their own money (YVR-SEA-PDX Talgo service).
If I want to travel between Seattle and Portland (about 200 miles) I have 3 options:
1. Fly, 1hr to get to airport, 2hrs to clear security and check in, 1hr for flight,
2. Drive, about 4 hours, 6 or more during rush hour or if there is an accident.
3. Train,
and trains don't require a body cavity search.
If we were willing to invest even a fraction of the total subsidies given to either the auto industry or air travel industries in passenger rail services people actually wanted to use we could probably achieve ridership rates approching Europe.
Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.
but unfortunately I don't have a link to back that up. In a transportation engineering class we learned about a jet-powered locomotive where the jet engines were mounted vertically and ran generators, the electricity from which was used to power the wheels. Unfortunately, the high-temperature exhaust had a negative impact on overcrossings. It was also extremely loud (you ever hear a jet engine close up?).
This doesn't seem to solve the main problems with trains in the U.S., including track incapable of handling high speeds and poor scheduling (not enough trains running often enough or on time to conveniently get anywhere).
High speed rail is 300+ kph, and has been since 1964 in Japan, and 1981 in europe, and they do in countries much smaller, physically, than North America. Instead of being both late to the party and low performers, we should instead push the envelope. The competition are the shinkansen lines in Japan and the TGV in France:
c ht gv/specs.html
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2018.html
http://www.railway-technology.com/projects/fren
That's just another way of saying "let the bondholders pay for the mess." Which isn't necessarily a bad idea, but someone ultimately is going to have to pay.
Let a new company with new vision and an eye towards the future of transportation develop a high tech train system in America.
There's not a single passenger train system in the world that isn't subsidised by some government. Cut the funding and you can expect ticket prices to rise and the number of passengers to drop sharply.
Of course in todays low interest rate environment maybe the system could be sustained, at least until interest rates start going up again.
We don't need old companies to make a new train system.
Considering that it's only old companies that have the capital to make a new train system, yes we do.
Fascinating - Bombardier has unearthed the Turbo Train. Back in the late 60's - early 70's United Aircraft built and maintained a number of Pratt and Whitney turbine powered train sets. These operated between Boston and New York - Where you could connect with the high speed Metroliner Electric MU cars running New York to Washington.
They were kind of cool. The trainset was semi-permanently arranged with 1 wheelseet between cars. They employed the same tilt-technology pioneered by Talgo years before in Europe (and still used today) that allowed their operation at higher speeds through curves superelevated for lower speeds. If you were riding in one of the dome seating areas in the propulsion unit you had a good view. If you were riding at night and had a smart conductor that knew enough to turn off the station stop lighting in the dome you had a spectacular view ahead - if you had one that was lazy and left the lights on you couldn't see out and the lighting was too bright to sleep.
BTW - Regular riders knew the seat pads unsnapped (a design for easy maintenance/cleaning) and could be repositioned for greater comfort during the long trip.
Ah, technology - the more it changes the more it stays the same.
I'll have grounds
More relative than this: the play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
Hamlet. Act ii. Scene 2
and know why it died? JETS ARE F(*&^ING LOUD!. How many of you live near a railroad? imagine every one of the trains that passes being a jet instead! doh! ;)
And who was President for the years Enron (and MCI and...) needed to restate their earning for? i.e., when did they lie?
And who left Bin Laden alone for eight years to fester, only pausing to flip a few cruise missiles in a wag-the-dog situation?
Are you suggesting that they aren't going to receive any federal funds for this project? If not, then I guess I don't care, since I don't live in Calfornia, but somehow I doubt it.
Don't get too excited by any speed improvements. In France for example, bullet trains are not allowed to go at their optimal speeds because some of the rail tracks might have some people walking on them.
I remember one time I rode a train from D.C. to Hartford. I mean, trains are so *bumpy* ...I'd rather take a car. Plus, cars are a better way to pick up the chicks at bars and stuff.
Btw: I am looking for a girlfriend. See my guidelines here
Authentic post by NaveWeiss
but the US and Canada, who still have these ridiculous diesel engines that are just not suited to getting people around
Umm...why not? The engine is locomotion unit, and whether it uses diesel, gerbils, or a squadron of nerds, it simply needs to move some cars. I use Go Transit to get to work, and they utilize diesel engines fabulously in a light rail system: Works superbly.
Want to know why those immigrant's bodies were found in a grain hopper? Because the largest grain crop in the world moves to market by train.
That computer your sitting at probably came across the Pacific (probably as parts) in a 20- or 40-foot container that was loaded onto a train at some time.
Do you send packages cross-country by parcel post or UPS ground? They probably go most of the way by train.
The problem with shutting down the system is the loss of right-of-way. IF you loose that the game is over forever due to cost of replacing the land as well as NIMBY issues. There have been some attempts at rail banking (saving the right-of-way after the rails are pulled out. As much as I would like to see rail upgraded "distroying the line to save the line" just won't work.
Five hundred miles gets you across most of Europe and bounces you back and forth across Japan like a ping pong ball.
Five hundred miles gets you about halfway between New York and Miami. And maybe 15% of the way from New York to Los Angeles.
Actually there already is an electric train from LA to San Diego and one in the NE. Florida is looking at one from Tampa to Orlando as well.
But because everything's so sparse in the US we've come to use cars a lot more than other countries. So any people-moving rail system has to compete with automobiles, which everyone in the US over the age of 16 owns.
The US is a lot different than Japan or Europe. You can't directly compare infrastructures.
"Unfortunately, this train doesn't really address that issue very well, as it still uses fossil fuel"
Actually, it addresses it very well. With the JetTrain, you have a fossil-fuel turbine generating electricity which turn electric motors on the train wheels. With an electric train, you probably have a fossil-fuel turbine generating electricity which turn electric motors on the train wheels.
The JetTrain would use slightly more energy because it has to push a large engine and a big tank of fuel around. It's minimal compared to the weight of the load, though.
An electric train would use massive amounts of energy and resources to build out electric tracks over thousands of miles.
it's a one time versus an ongoing cost.
Compared to SUV's, the savings are fricking massive.
Bryan
Power isn't the issue, folks. Not when it comes to speed. A war-veteran GM E7 can exceed a safe speed on most track in the US. The problem is the track. And track is devastatingly, mind-bogglingly expensive. As a power-of-ten estimate, figure new track is going to cost around 1-10 million dollars per mile. I know that sounds absurd, but it's true. It's an engineering acomplishment along the lines of a major urban interstate highway, except it's like that everywhere. Not just the urban parts.
The big problem with rail is the same problem as the big problem with air: operators offer a product that the market will only pay the marginal cost for. The fixed cost (building either rails and trains or airports and planes) cannot be recovered. It's a guaranteed losing game.
But it's not all bad news. The attractive part is that the turbine may save fuel costs (modern aeroderivative turbines are fairly good, with net thermodynamic efficiencies in the 40% range) and it could burn a range of cleaner and more energy-independent fuels (the US at least *could* quickly become self-sufficient in natural gas production, for instance).
And yes, it does seem odd: it's being touted as a passenger solution when Amtrak is broke, and yet the interesting application is freight.
To quickly address a previous posting about weight: low weight isn't exactly an advantage for locomotives. The ability to climb grades is essentially a linear function of the locomotive weight. Steel wheels on steel track, non-spinning, is close to ideal newtonian friction. You need more downward force to make more tractive force. It's unavoidable. And stopping ability does, in practice, degrade with reductions in locomotive weight. The reason is that train operators love to use "dynamic braking." This is using the electric traction motor to make electricity, hence slowing the train. It's not regenerative... the electric power is used to heat resistor banks on top of the locomotive. This is why you see "heat waves" rising off of locomotives at urban stations: they spend much of their operating life slowing down. The friction brakes are used every so many minutes (because the FRA rules require it, so they don't rust up or even freeze in cold weather) but they're train brake shoes are expensive so you try to minimize their use. Besides, dynamic braking gives really smooth stops, and passengers appreciate that.
But I bet it sounds cool.
We also have a Congress who feels that Amtrak should be paying its own way, and not requiring federal subsidies.
Meanwhile, just how big is the tax infrastructure that's already in place supporting our road and highway system? Road traffic is really *heavily* subsidized by our taxes, and not just the ones at the pump, tires, and vehicle registration.
I've also heard that there's a heavy federal infrastructure involved in air transport, though I know nothing of the breakdown there between private and public sector. I remember Reagan ordering the air traffic controllers back to work, suggesting public sector, there. (I don't remember Taft Hartley being invoked, though it may have.)
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Okay, modern gas turbines can be silenced and have lower fuel consumption than the gas turbines used on the famous GE Big Blow locomotives.
But we still have one big problem: what we do with that hot exhaust from the gas turbine? One of the biggest banes of the Big Blow locomotives was that the hot exhaust posed a huge fire and high-temperature hazard to anything nearby, especially the undersides of bridges.
GE and GM's EMD better figure out how to cool that gas turbine exhaust in a very small space before we can consider using gas turbine engines on a locomotive again.
which "privately operated train companies" can raise the $5bn to $10bn that it would cost ? How would they obtain to preempt all the land they need to build the rails and stations ? Private funding of modern, major infrastructure has resulted in financial disasters far too often in history, from the Panama Canal to the Chunnel, for any bank to back such an initiative without gov involvement. Why would the states and federal government put billions on highways and nothing on rail ?
A "couple of inches of snow" Canadian is the equivalent of 2-3 feet of snow, 60 mph winds, and hail stones the size of my fist American.
Currently: Diesel > Generator > Electric Motors > Wheels
Turbine A: Turbine > Generator > Electric Motors > Wheels
Turbine B: Turbine > Gears > Wheels
Is Turbine B possible? How do the losses of a generator & electric motors compare to a gear system?
Elijah Chancey www.elijahsadventure.com nomadic IT consultant, bicycling across america "all that you touch / and all
One of the major railroads (I think it was Union Pacific) experimented with turbine-powered locomotives for freight service in the 1960's. One advantage was supposed to be lower fuel cost--the things ran on bunker-C. They eventually, gave up on them, though, because they cost more to maintain than diesels.
Brief response: Gas turbines can be utilized as a power source in automobiles. Turbines have numerous advantages, but using one in an automobile does not work well. Reasons including complex systems support, rotational torque, high RPMs, and not easily throttled. A solution could be accomplished by utilizing numerous smaller turbines. Staging them up and down as needed for the required horsepower. This could be attuned to a car engine turning on and off cylinders, as well as disconnecting them from the drive shaft, that are currently not needed. These small gas turbines could also use transmission fluid as there medium, running it right through there compression blades instead of air, and directing the fluid directly to the torque converter for usage. Timing systems would no longer be required, simplifying the engine. Timing belts, lifters, drive cam, rods, pistons and the drive shaft could all be removed. Small turbines could be modularized for easy insertion and replacement, increasing maximum available horsepower as needed, as well as easier maintenance.
You missed the whole point of the article. All of Japan's (And Europe's) high speed trains are electric powered. For the US to use these technologies would require a huge investment on upgrading the current track to electrified. This engine will work on any track, and will save quite a bit of money in the long run if it actually works as described.
There's one train in the UK which is considered the fastest diesel in the world. The former BR class 253, also known as the HST is a diesel train with two motor 'heads' and 8 cars in between. The HSTs came into service in the mid 1970s and reached the 125 mph in their regular schedule. BR used the in the services on the East Coast main line, the West Coast main line and lines into Cornwall. Although BR doesn't exist anymore and the lines to Edinburgh and Glasgow are electrified these days they are still used by GNER, Virgin and others. I sat in one this spring between Darlington and Inverness.
It felt great to be in a piece of UK railway history.
What ever happened to Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) engines? It seems like they'd be perfect for a locomotive application, inasmuch as they can take fuel directly to electricity with no moving parts. A quick Google search shows one old but promising article on an LMMHD auto engine, and that's about it: comments on the infeasibility of this approach would be appreciated.
I think if we were to design a gas-turbine locomotive in 2002, the worries about fuel consumption, noise levels and exhaust emissions are no longer major issues, thanks to the efforts of GE, Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce in the last 25 years in dramatically reducing fuel consumption, noise levels and harmful exhaust emissions on airliner jet engines. A Turbo Train using a modified version of today's modern jet engines would be quite powerful, generate much less noise, have very low emissions and would be far more efficient than the old GE Big Blows that UP used during the 1950's and 1960's.
However, we still must eliminate a big problem with gas turbines: the hot exhaust from the engine. Both GE Transportation Systems and GM's EMD will have to figure out how to cool that exhaust in a very small space before we can build a modern gas-turbine locomotive. Remember, we're not taking about a ship, where there is plenty of space to either divert the hot exhaust or install various technologies in the exhaust stream to cool the hot exhaust.
>Sheesh, some rails in Europe that have been abandoned since Hitler's day are in better shape than most of our transcontinental rails.
Well, since you started the Godwin's Law fun, I'll help you out:
It's because in North America we haver far fewer people per mile of track than Germany had even just after the holocaust. It just isn't effective.
FYI:
The Boston - New Haven railroad was supposed to be electrified in 1909. It was electrified in 1999.
"Where we're going, we don't *need* roads."
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
>Wouldn't it rather be the over-decentralization and lack of public funding for anything that is not a weapon that is to blame?
:-)
Canada, part of America, might be something you should look at.
We have the same shitty quality services as you do (telco service is a _little_ better), yet most of ours were publically funded, and we (probably) have a smaller military than the Taliban has followers. There's exceptions, I suppose. Ontario & Quebec do generate enough power to sell to you...
And we have the same population to service ratio problems, too (in some [many] areas its worse, but we usually just give up on those areas).
You're just plain wrong there. Sorry.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
We'll go electric once the rails collect solar energy. :)
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Thus US rail passenger vehicles must be built to withstand impact with freight trains. Other nations have a far greater percentage of passenger-only track including many dedicated lines. Also in many nations the rail infrastructure has been continuously modernized resulting in more sophisticated switching and control system.
Amtrak inherited its system after decades of private neglect and was originally a way to prevent the various passenger rail services in the US from individually being shut down or sliding into bankruptcy. That passenger rail still survives in the US at all after decades of far less support then virtually every other transportation medium speaks to its tenacity and durability. Unfortunately Amtrak has always been stuck with conflicting missions and starved for infrastructure (again, much of what it began with was already obsolete or decrepit; upgrades, replacements and refurbishments have always been piecemeal and/or minimal.) That and impressively bad management.
Another problem has been the extraordinarily high strength requirement has been set by the US's Federal Railroad Administration which results in US rail passenger cars being at a minimum of twice as heavy as every other nation's. A result is that there is literally no other market for US vehicles thus tried & proven designs from other nations can't be used in the USA. Spanish, Swedish, German, etc. - none of their highly successful trains can now be imported into the US due to the FRA's unique requirements.
Thus when folks point out the curiosity of Amtrak hiring the consortium of Alstom/Bombardier to design & build the Acela instead of buying a successful somethingelse model they're ignoring that the somethingelses simply aren't allowed to run in the US on an ongoing basis. After license and redesign fees it would have cost more to convert an existing train then to just design & build one to Amtrak's (& the FRA's) unique requirements, which is what was done.
Of course now Amtrak & Alstom/Bombardier are mired in suits and counter-suits, ignoring the mediation structures built into their contracts and publicly blaming each other for the problems the Acela is facing. Amtrak claims the Acela doesn't meet specifications and was delivered late. Alstom/Bombardier claim Amtrak wasn't timely in providing specifications and making design decisions, many of the problems are with features Alstom/Bombardier advised against, and that Amtrak is running the vehicles on substandard track & caternary against Alstom/Bombardier's recommendations.
Of course much of this could have been avoided had the usual process of building a test train, running it ragged for a year, then dissembling it to examine it for understanding of it's rail performance, maintenance characteristics, wear patterns, practical experiance, then refining the design before going into production been followed. Indeed reexamination of the original train's evaluation appears to show the precursors of many of the problems now appearing on the Acela.
Instead however Amtrak ordered 20 trains in one design/build package (and now claims it'll never order another.) Thus as each trainset was built it was manufactured slightly differently from the ones before as experience was applied and improvements made. This now gives Amtrak 20 subtly different trainsets and no further application of the lessons learned nor incentive on the designer/manufacturer to refine the vehicle.
Whatever the case the losers are the citizens of the US & Canada. Why Canada? It turns out the money Amtrak used to purchase Acela Express was from a $1 billion low-interest loan from the Export Development Corp. of Canada. Yep, if Amtrak goes belly-up not only will the US public be out but also the Canadians. As you can imagine the prospect of a US quasi-governmental agency going belly-up and forfeiting on it's debts to Canada doesn't play well north of the border
Ironically there is a widely rumored proposal in Canada for investing CA$3-billion to improve train service in the Quebec City to Windsor corridor (incl. Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, and possibly Kingston). The "VIAFast" upgrade is expected to take advantage of trains like Bombardier's newly (re)announced turbo train as well as track-swapping with CPR & CNR to create a dedicated passenger rail route. Indeed there's even renewed interest in a new high-speed Calgary-Edmonton corridor route to serve that rapidly growing part of the country.
Anyway, now you know why the US is stuck with slow trains: Inheritance, lack of investment, political game playing, lousy management, and extreme requirements. On the other hand neighbors in much the same situation are instead expanding their rail systems in logical yet ambitious ways. Makes me think of the tortiose & the hare...
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
...except maybe in a museum somewhere. The big one they still run is a Centennial, a 6600 HP diesel, not a turbine. All their turbines were retired.
I fail to see how a jet train will make much difference given that passenger rail travel is generally a failure in North America.
There is the immediate issue of population density - it is not high enough to economically justify the huge construction and maintenance costs. Very few passenger routes (mainly between large cities in the North East) actually turn a profit.
Of course, this exact same argument could be levelled against passenger car travel, as the hidden subsidies in the form of public roadworks, tax benefits to car manufacturers and oil companies, etc. all add up to about 4 times as much as the visible cost of owning and operating the average car.
The issue then becomes, at the core, one of culture. We are wedded to our cars, they are ingrained into our very way of life far more than their mere utilitarian purpose entails. Life in America revolves around the car, not the other way around. Given that, passenger rail travel has no hope of succeeding beyond a few niche markets.
Finally, the high-speed rail travel is only moderately successful even in its ideal arenas of rail-crazy Europe and Japan. The Eurostar, Thalys and ICE make a profit (and that's BEFORE accounting for public subsidies) only over middle distances connecting the major hubs, i.e. London, Brussels, Paris. Other routes to Switzerland, Germany and the South of France have always been making huge financial losses, even more so now with the advent of low-cost, low-frills airlines that get there in half the time.
>>maybe that shows national priorities for technology
Yeah we like to defend ourselves rather than rely on another country to do that for us.
Or did you think all those US tanks in Europe were to protect the cities in the US from the USSR?
People seem to have a short memory... does anyone remember the TurboTrain?
This train ran in Canada and the US until the late 70s. In had several problems which made it uneconomical to opperate, these problems were:
High fuel consumption
Noise
Turbines can be a very efficient power source, but only when running at their full RPM. A train such as TurboTrain has to stop at stations, as well as obay signals and speed restrictions. Therefore, because of this stop and go the train has to constantly do, the turbine is actually less efficient than diesel.
The bottom line is that this idea has been tried and it has failed. I'm afraid it's difficult to concider this announcment from Bombardier nothing more than vaporware.
"Entropy is the bad-guy, and he is everywhere"
Sorry, wrong. San Diego-to-LA has train service, but it's not electrified.
Bombardier owns LearJet, Evinrude/Johnson, this train engine business, and who knows what else. So, one would think that Bombardier would want a good web presence, right? Well, their sites are totally Unix/Linux unfriendly and broken in other ways too. Only an idiot who didn't want to sell things would publish his/her website in
Flash only.
P>Let's hope that they design their products better than their website. I'm glad I'm not taking one of their planes, trains, or boats anytime in my lifetime.
The first turbine powered RR engine was build back in 1948. Had some problems, like melting the asphalt when it went under bridges...
The weight of the train and the weight of the car is irrelevant.
Assuming the same CoG the heavy car stays on just as well as the light car.
Mass cancels out.
However none of their vehicles can run in the US. Electrical power isn't the problem, its weight requirements. The US's passenger rails are actually freight rails. Thus passenger vehicles must be contructed to withstand impact with freight vehicles. Japan, Germany, France, Spain, Sweden, none of their vehicles are built to this extraordinary requirement and so it's simply not possible to buy an off-the-shelf design for the US market.
There are a few Spanish Talgos operating under grandfathered dispensations in the PNW but that is it. Even the Swedish X-2000 Amtrak tried out a few years ago was on a limited permit. If there's gonna be a high-speed rail in the US (and Acela isn't most other nations's idea of "high speed") then it's a custom job. Say "they did it" all you want, the requirements are so different it's all apples to oranges. Get the specs changed it'd be a different story, but for now nobody else's trains can be certified for US interstate rail or on US freight rail.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Becuase one of the main advantages America does have is the most liquid capital markets in the world. If by investing $5 bn to $10 billion to build an clean, efficient, fast rail line would make $1-$2 billion a year in profit for investors, we would have one already. Look at all the investment in the long distance phone networks over the past 5 years. Well over $200 billion was invested. Now it will be a few years before the companies will use all of it. But consumers should enjoy cheap long distance for the forseeable future. One problem with private infastructure funding is that it is difficult to capture the gains from infastructure, unless your have a monopoly, as the phone and power grids show, but since not even a monopoly provider of rail service, Amtrak, can make a profit in the US. I doubt private funding would make a profit either.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Why would we want electric locomotives? Fossil fuel is cheaper and more efficient.
Plus the electricity would probaly come from burning more crap at power plants.
The original TGV prototypes used gas turbine engines. See this link.
Research into Turbine/electric locomotives went back to post WWII days when they experimented with a coal fueled turbo/electric. http://www.railpower.com/2support/locomotives.htm
Oh, it packed plenty of power but it's efficiency rating was very poor and it guzzled fuel like a SUV..
The current design fares better but it still does not achieve no higher than 50% efficiency on the bench.
GE just came out with a turbine designed to drive generators for home electric useage that IS the size of a locomotive and achives a whopping 60% efficiency rating.
http://www.fe.doe.gov/techline/tl_ats_ge1.shtml
The major issue with anything thats powered by a gas turbine is gas mileage, hence why diesels have yet to be replaced by a more efficient power plant. Diesels burn all of it's charge with high energy return. This promotes high torque and high horsepower ratings.
Gas turbines have powerful, but thin legs. If they were put on a very high high torque test they would stall and flameout, possibly inducing a burner chamber blowout.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
I'm really not sure why everyone gets down on American railroads. American railroads are completely different beasts from those in Western Europe and Japan. They are geared towards freight, particularly bulk freight. They move huge quantities very cheaply. Do Europeans have anything comparable to the 100+ car long freight trains that are common in the US? (Just drive I-80 west of Iowa. Original transcontinental railroad still handling hugh trains.) Also remember that the US freight equipment tends to be much larger (because of all of the grade separation requirements, railcars in Europe must fit under all of those old underpasses, while upgrading to stacked containers requires many fewer modifications to the road in the US.)
Huge freight trains and fast passenger trains just don't mix well on the same lines. The US could build dedicated passenger lines (like European governments did) in some locations, but a national network just doesn't make much sense. Even the regional networks would require constant subsidies to operate.
I know, its off topic.
Don't compare old-tech, experimental turbines with what's available now. The whole reason for this project is that turbines are *more* efficient than diesels, not less. If diesels were more efficient, they'd be the first choice for electric powerplants, and they're not- turbines are.
Another reason for this project is that the service requirements of a passenger train are different from that of a freight train. Passenger trains pull lighter loads, travel faster, and need to accelerate more rapidly. Most locomotive technology in the US was designed with pulling freight in mind. Even the passenger locomotives are based on freigh-pulling designs. This project is a clean-slate design, with a specific purpose in mind. It should fulfill that purpose much more efficiently.
I knew Slashdotters were just a big bunch of trainspotters, and now they're all coming out of the woodwork. This is amusing...
The original article points to the value of this new train as being partly that current tracks need not be electrified.
Surely the point is that existng tracks cannot handle anything other than the painfully slow vehicles of yester year - take a look at Acela, that barely manages an average of 60MPH for all its hype.
The sad truth is that existing tracks and trains have a lot of derailments; unless the track is replaced there will only be more of the same.
Sorry, but the idea of being in a train pulled by a super fast turbine on ancient tracks is not appealing to me. Does crash, burn seem familiar to anyone?
If it can stop an airplane...
Although this looks promising on paper, one can but wonder if that turbine locomotiveis yet another boondoggle (sp?).
Given that the turbine's fuel appetite does not significantly changes when the turbine goes from idle to warp factor nine (unlike a diesel), one wonder what fuel economy will be with a SINGLE 5000 hp turbine engine. Okay, granted, with hotel power (to light-up the cars and air-condition/heat them), you still suck some power from the engine when the train is stopped.
One would think that a sensible way to address this problem would be to use 10 smal 500 HP engines whose number that kick-in would depend of the power needed at a time. But of course, this would mean higher maintenance costs and more chances for something to go wrong. However, modular design could make it easy to replace a turbine.
Even if we end-up with a super-magical turbine locomotive that runs all the time and doesn't suck fuel all the time as well, we'd face a little problem that is caused by the turbines's very suitableness for powering aircraft: low weight.
Of course, low weight means less power needed to go at high speed. But is means also less weight on drivers. Perhaps railroads will be clipping newspapers coupons looking for sand clerance sales (sand can be injected right in front of driving wheels to boost adhesion if the wheels start to slip Wheels will definitely slip if there isn't enough weight on them)...
So, one wonders of the suitableness of a turbine locomotive-hauled passenger train. Will it slip? Will it haul? I'm afraid that a turbine
engine will have to be weighted up... But that weight need not be always deadweight. Big cities call for big commuter train traffic: the thing electrification is for. So, why not add a pantograph and power transformer allowing for full-power operation under catenary when approaching terminals? At least, this will reduce downtown air pollution.
Wouldn't a better way be to have distributed traction throughout the train? You keep power generation in a lightweight power car (it would hardly be a locomotive anymore), and have traction motors throughout the train itself, so to take advantage of the weight there, too. Smaller traction motors, too, or at least, bigger derated ones. The first french TGVs had powered axles under the passenger coaches, and the Hikari Japanese bullet-trains running on the Shinkansen, as well as the newest german ICE trains have distributed powered axles through the trains (and the ICE-3 trains are real neat, too because the front seats of the first cars look on the track ahead, over the engineer's shoulders).
But of course, one hits other problems, such as safely sending traction power throughout the train. You're talking at something like 1000 amps at 600 volts there. Coupling/uncoupling cars would cause problems, and at each car, you also have connections that can go wrong. 100 years ago, in Paris, a subway train caught fire, killing more than 100 people. The cause: high-intensity traction power sent through flexible cables throughout the train. Such lessons from the past are not easily forgotten...
An lighter articulated train would be better in this respect, but then, you end-up with with an unflexible consist.
But, again, adding cars and removing them is expensive, more expensive than hauling around empty seats (or it seems, looking the way some MBAs with adding machines seem to think in railroad adminive departments). But, after all, the french TGVs are articulated, so this is less a problem it might see.
Aha! Let's compromise on, oh, four car articulated, self-contained (1 first class parlour/club-car, 2 second class coaches, bar car & checked luggage/bicycle space with reversible control cab) units, two of which could be powered by one power car. So a 16 car train could be feasible, and you can retain some flexibility.
And then, do we have a tilt-train ? Tilt-trains are attractive, but is still one more thing that can go wrong. And with motorized trucks, you have less room to put the needed power-banking mechanisms...
It should work politically: engineers looove that kind of contraptions! And politicians looove to be associated with forward-thinking technology... But what kind of engineers? Aircraft engineers are clueless about railroad problems (one should remember the woes suffered by the late UAC turbo train), and railroad engineers are justifiably wary of sleek lightweight technology that falls apart at the slightest rail joint...
I am afraid that having efficient turbine power for high-speed passenger trains would end-up in a costlier, less flexible exercise than using electrified off-the-shelf technology in the long run...
check out this site. It may never happen, but it would be really sweet.
Union Pacific did run about 30 of the GTEL (Gas Turbine Electric Locomotive) 8500 series on their lines in 1949 and they would haul mile-long trains at a swift 70 MPH. Their drivetrains could deliver about 8500SHP at the cars and were later upgraded to 10,000SHP! U.P. calculated that a single unit (thats a rail term for each car in a train, for you new to railroading) could haul 734 fully loaded rail cars at a steady 12 MPH!
o n- 02.htmt ml
BUT for the long hauls, a tender full of Jet-A was needed to quench thirst of the gas guzzlers and were subsequently retired in 1970.
These monsters of the rail line were the prime moneymakers of UP's lineup and did their duty without complant and with plenty of punch.
http://utahrails.net/all-time/all-time-loco-chr
http://www.riverraisinmodels.com/up8500.h
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
I live about a mile from a rail line and love going to sleep hearing the engines working upgrade.
As an aside, on Sept 11, the train horns seemed to be a little louder, the engines a little more powerful, as if the railroad had given the engineers permission to make a little more noise than regulations usually allowed; just to remind people that, while the airlines might have been grounded, the railroads were still getting their job done (and at less cost per ton than any other means of conveyance.)
But if Slashdot bought it, that doesn't prove much, does it?
I plugged "JetTrain bombardier" into google and got postings on the railroad.net forums. Seems quite a few folks there are pretty skeptical. A good read, in all:
I D=5208
http://www.railroad.net/forums/messages.asp?Topic
just my blog and pix
I'd rather have a jet turbine motorcycle! Act now, before your place in the darwin awards hall of fame is taken.
My patience is infinite, my time is not.
actually popular science quoted average air speed @ 100 mph after you factor in security, time spent on the ground, taking off, travling, landing, ect... of course it skyrockets to i think 250 mph when you take a direct flight
moox. for a new generation.
Finally, the high-speed rail travel is only moderately successful even in its ideal arenas of rail-crazy Europe and Japan
Shinkansens have been racing from one end of Japan to the other since 1964. One train can carry more than 1000 passengers. Business men use it as a fully equipped mobile office while they move around the country in comfort. How anyone can trivialize this as a 'moderate success' amazes me. Lucky for us, the Japanese have happily ignored this kind of short-sighted objectivity and gone about their lives while others wait for traffic to clear and hope the next offramp isn't under construction...
High speed rail in Japan has reduced the need for airports and the infrastructure that goes along with that mode of public transportation. This may be an easy point to miss, since it seems to not be conspicuous in it's absence.
Go to Japan and ride one of these for yourself...it's an 'E' ticket (more fun than you can imagine...).
Turbine engines are nothing new at all. But if you read Popular Science and the mass media you'd think it was a fabulously new idea. In fact, most diesel locomotives today are turbine powered. This is not new at all. It's so not new, it's already standard practice in the industry. Trains are turbine powered, today, now. So are helicopters. Geez.
I rode Amtrak trains across the country and back during the past summer and I swear our average speed was like 42 mph. The train was capable of atleast 80mph (as measured by our GPS reciever onboard) but hardly ever was actually at that speed. Arn't speed limits on tracks the problem anyway?
I think you're basing your assessments on the old United Aircraft Turbotrains and the even older GE Big Blow locomotives that Union Pacific Railroad ran during the 1950's and 1960's.
Fortunately, if you've read Bombardier's web page, JetTrain has been designed with the following in mind:
1. The train is designed to meet the very strict FRA requirements for crash survivability, requirements that are actually stricter than those in much of Europe.
2. The JetTrain locomotive uses far more modern gas turbine engines than the old Turbotrain. Remember, Turbotrain was built during the 1960's; with 30 years of research and development since then derived from developing quieter, more fuel efficient and less-polluting jet engines for the commercial aircraft industry since 1970, Pratt & Whitney today can deliver a gas turbine engine for the JetTrain that will use much less fuel, spew out way less exhaust emissions and generate far less noise than the old Turbotrains.
3. Because JetTrain is a clean sheet design, it won't have to owe anything to current diesel-electric locomotive technology, technology that emphasizes more on initial pulling power for heavy trains. Remember, the entire JetTrain trainset uses the latest in materials technology to keep the weight down while still meeting FRA safety standards.
If Bombardier can demonstrate it can properly cool the hot exhaust from the gas turbine engine so it doesn't become a fire/high-temperature hazard to nearby objects, JetTrain with its potential 155 mph (250 km/h) top speed could be just the train for a number of Amtrak routes here in the USA. Already, Amtrak is in the process of upgrading the Chicago to Detroit corridor to handle trains in excess of 100 mph; JetTrain would be a natural for this route. And since Amtrak's Southwest Chief long-distance train between Chicago and Los Angeles runs mostly on AT&SF railroad trackage (which was rated for 100+ mph operation back in 1937!), imagine a JetTrain variant of the Southwest Chief going between Los Angeles and Chicago in under 36 hours! (That is faster than the record for this route set by the Santa Fe Super C freight train in the late 1960's.)
While having high-speed electric trains with overhead wiring is nice, you're forgetting that setting up all that catenary wiring is exorbitantly expensive, especially when you also have to tie in that wiring into the local electrical grid. And don't forget the NIMBY crowd that might not be too thrilled by the installation of all that wiring for various reasons.
I think if Bombardier can work out the bugs on JetTrain, it may become the primary form of locomotion for high-speed rail in the USA, mostly because you can skip out on the expensive overhead catenary wiring installation.
...It's the switching and signaling. Amtrack's older fleet of Diesel trains have an operating speed of 103mph. The more recent trains introduced in the mid 90s can do 110mph in service. Most of the switching and signaling on Amtrack's thousands of miles of non-electrified track require a human to see and react to the signal. So, with the exception of high-speed electric routes, most Amtrack railways are limited to 79mph for safety reasons. Municipalities also have the power to limit train speeds at a local level, if 79mph is considered too dangerous. Amtrack introduced a computer-based switching system to counter this, but I imagine just like everthing else Amtrack has attempted, it was implemented half-assed at best. http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9610/12/high.speed.trains/
Until a switching system SOMEWHERE NEAR the complexity of the FAA's air-traffic control system is introduced, it doesn't matter how fast you can make the engine go.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
My cock is round,
my cock is square.
My cock is in my underwear.
It likes to fuck,
it likes to grow
It likes to see come camel toe.
My name is Bob
and I'm a snob.
'cause my cock is quite a knob.
I like 'em big
I like 'em fat
I even like to play with scat.
So poop on me.
Poop's for free!
Poop all day then go pee.
Working for the manufacturer (Pratt & Whitney Canada) of the turbine engine for the JetTrain (truly a misleading name, but I'm not in Marketing) I can give you some facts: The turbine is a ST40 that produces about 5000 HP, weighs about 3000 lbs (about 38000 lbs less than a comparable diesel engine). The cyclic power demands are definately a concern for the turbine, but improvements in cooling within the engine remove any worrys. As for the mention of the the train with 10 1960's era PT6's: 10 engines @ ~350HP = 3500HP weight: 10x400lbs = 4000lbs BTW Bombardier has to add about 6000 lbs of dead weight to the locomotive to ensure proper traction...
On the continent, the high speed trains run dozens or hundreds of routes a day, and have no trouble hitting 200mph or more. An average speed on the Paris-Marseille route (computed as time when the train starts until time when the train stops, divided by distance) would typically be about 190mph. So, 125 is nice for a diesel, but it's not competitive with certain electric trains.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
nah, they're just target practice so we can do the real work, like the s.a.s. in afghanistan.
public transportation is for commie pinko liberals anyway!
Sigh,
Time for gas turbines 101. Here's the biggest difference betwen Gas turbines and Diesels. A diesel can idle on almost no fuel whatsoever, that's why you hear them idling all the time. The fuel/wear and tear it takes to start them vastly outweighs the fuel needed to run them for an hour or eight. Because they use a reciprocating compressor, and a reciprocating compressor maintains is efficiency accross its speed and horsepower band (actually dropping off at the top end) you can turn them down to zero HP out and the fuel going in drops to 1-5% of max power.
GT's have a compressor which relies on the velocities of the compressor blades and the air mass flowing through the compressor to make its magic happen. You dump all the vibrating, clanking, and flailing parts of a recip engine and rely on the momentum/dynamics of the working fluid to get a gizmo which takes 14.4 PSI air at the front and shoves 200-300 psi air out the back with one moving part which is in perfect rotary balance.
The problem is: It only performs this miracle in a small RPM range. Slow down by 10% and the efficiency goes to pot. Long story short, GTEs have only one fuel flow setting, ON. that's why the military was working on an APU for the M1 Abrahms tank. IT would keep the housekeeping electrical systes running without throwing all the fuel away!
There have been advancements in GTEs. Variable inlet stators allow them to have a somewhat broader band of acceptable efficiency. I would not be surprised to see that this engine has intercoolers between the compressors stages. This is a BIG help to efficiency (less HP needed to crank the compressor). This is not done in AC engines because intercoolers are bulky, but not heavy. The second thing you COULD do in a train is to use a recuperator. The takes the nice cool compressed air, and heats it with the exhaust air. Saves on fuel big time, reduces the noise and and the thermal plume of the engine. Again bulky but not heavy.
Modern, digitally controlled, intercooled, rucuperated, gas turbine engines are bone head simple to operate and basically have squat for moving parts and maintenance needs. And they're light. Damn light. Mostly air in fact.
Modern Turbochanred intercooled diesels are damn efficient too. Comfortably close to Carnot efficiency. BUT the massize engine block needed to take the reciprocating pistons is god auful heavy. Damn near a solid block of iron.
Modern diesel freight engines need to be heavy because they need lots of traction to get moving. A passenger train hauls mostly air and aluminum. People weigh squat next to 100 ton freights. That's why passenger cars are so long. They're full of air. Its posible for this type of passenger train to weigh 1/20-1/100 of a freight train with the same HP. A lightweight engine will impose much smaller dynamic loads on the track system.
A big limiting factor is the engine weight. Modern high speed/non electric passenger trains have big fat engines up front. In europe, they offload the engine by using overhead electric power.
This is an interesting solution to the speed problem. I hope it works.
gonna go thru Rock Ridge Sherrif?
do we really want to encourage high-speed passenger rail? talk about an inviting terrorist target . . .
there is no way to defend thousands of miles of rail that run through every part of the country
at least with airplanes you only have to defend the airports
This reminds me of the pumping system used on the Trans-Alaska pipeline. 1950's era Rolls-Royce jet engines are used to pump the oil.
A turbofan is bolted down and the hot exhaust is aimed at a rotor. The rotor in turn is used to drive the physical pump that moves the oil. The beauty of this is the incredible range of throttle these engines provide, allowing for exacting adjustment in response to variations in oil viscosity etc. The jet fuel is refined on site from the oil in the pipeline. Each pump station has two engines, allowing for repairs and backup.
The reason for the 1950's engines was reliability. When the system was designed in the early 1970's, the engine with the greatest proven track record was chosen. To their credit, these engines have been operating virtually non-stop 24/7/365 for 25 years. If I remember correctly they have broken several records. I just think it is interesting that over 20% of the United States' oil supply is moved by Eisenhower era engine technology.
AUGAUUUGCGCACAUAUCUCAGCGAAUGAAAGGGAUUAA
Tokyo to Hakata/Fukuoka is 4hrs 53 minutes by Shinkansen, not seven hours. There are 12 HS trains daily out of Osaka.
747 HD seating is a recent development in terms of supply demand. Cultural changes that see less working time and more domestic tourism have pushed the limits of all systems. Just because one seems impacted doesn't mean the others have failed.
You're also ignoring the fact that the Shinkansen depot is in the center of Toyko. The nearest air terminal is Narita...another 1.5 hrs away by Shinjuko Express. Your reference to a 180 minute commute being the only commute making sense ignores the fact that air terminals are not downtown. Try calculating door-to-door for a realistic picture.
At 300kph, and stops inside the city limits, high speed trains in Japan have been, and will remain, the foundation of Japan's domestic distance traveler.
Ok, it seems kind of pointless to invest all this new technology when you are forced to use old tracks. The fact is, conventional rail is loud, slow, and dangerous. I say we invest money into building monorail around the country, then we won't to worry about over demanding maintenance, derailments, accidents (at-grade rail at fast speeds = no good at crossings), and overall noise of these "high speed" conventional rail. Monorails are quiet, safe, easy to maintain, and fast (Maglev technologies = 300+ mph).
;)
We need to stop being the dinosaurs of transportation and take on a new technology that will surpass all other countries (if the Japanese don't beat us to it
I guess the security guard was working under the direct orders from NYC deputy mayor Mike Flaherty?
this site, and, more specifically, this page about plans for high speed rail in California. They were considering MagLev for a while, but it looks like electrical traction is what they have decided on if funding is approved.
So, come November 2004 my fellow Californians, remember to vote for the cool trains powered not by diesels or turbines, but honest-to-god caternary action. I, uh, hear they are going to run on Linux. Yeah, that's it. The "Golden State Happy Penguin Express". Yessiree.
> We also have a Congress who feels that Amtrak
> should be paying its own way, and not requiring
> federal subsidies.
I'm all in favor of more travel via train... ESPECIALLY locally, I'd LOVE it if, for example, if BART and MUNI were to dramaticlly expand the areas they cover and reduce my need for a car.
But Amtrack is operated by a bunch of incompetant fucktards. It deserves to die a nasty death.
As an example of the stupidity of Amtrack:
Last time I went to the east coast to visit family, (I'm in San Francisco, they're in West Palm Beach, Florida.), I thought it would be cool to look into taking a train. This was before 9/11. I wasn't scared to fly. It was just for the hell of it; because I thought taking the train would be fun. So I put my origin, destination, and travel dates into Amtrack's online trip planner.
To get myself from San Francisco to West Palm Beach, Amtrack wanted me to:
1) First, take a bus (WTF???) to Emeryville.
2) Take a train From Emeryville to Los Angeles.
(So far, so good, right? But wait.)
3) Then, Amtrack wants me to take another train, LA to Chicago.
4) Change trains, Chicago to New York.
5) Change trains again, and go down the east coast from NY to WPB.
The total round trip time would have eaten up TEN DAYS of my two-week trip! And the bastards were going to charge MORE than it eventually cost me to fly! (six hours each way, with ONE plane change in Philidelphia)
Thanks, Amtrack, but no thanks. I'll keep flying; terrorist risk or no.
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
... Not on your life my Hindu friend!
Thank god for that. You think a 767 moving at high speed carries a lot of energy? The typical long-haul freight train you see crossing the Rockies carries more energy than a large nuclear bomb. You slam on the breaks on a a five mile long double-stacked freight train and it comes to a stop 10 miles down the track.
To see people rush crossings is sad. People have no respect for the power of the train.
is that the exhaust is so hot, it melts the asphalt off of any underpass that it passes under too slowly.
. SLASHDOT: Home of the vicious nerd.
Don't want to get all train-spotty anoraky here, but the Swiss firm of Brown-Boveri produced the world's first gas turbine locomotive during the Second World War ! A project was set up in Great Britian immediately after the end of the Second World War to fund the development of a gas turbine powered locomotive to find a alternative to steam and diesel traction. This was before nationalisation and the two companies jointly behind it were the Great Western Railway and Metropolitan Vickers. The Swiss Locomotive Company produced their loco with a gas turbine built by Brown-Boveri in 1950. It was BR No 18000; one powered by a Metropolitan Vickers engine became 18100 delivered in 1952. The engine underwent testing and trials and went into mainline service on British Rail's Western Region. There were problems and failures and BR 18000 was taken out of service in 1959 :-)
I would prefer that you did some research before you begin spouting off a load of bullshit about a topic you know nothing about. Gone are the days of 40 rail sticks that need to be bolted together by hand. On all the Class 1 railroad main-lines in the United States (Union Pacific, BNSF, etc,) there is a federal mandate for continuously welded rail that will support heavy freight (>10,000 foot trains, several thousand tons) at 79 MPH. The rail that is laid is welded continuously after being extruded in 1000+ foot pieces.
The reason not all rail in the United States is welded is because our railroads need to maintain 100,000+ miles of track. This is an amazing task. Probably 70,000 miles is not welded rail, and was probably built in 40 foot sections. One rail weld cost approximately 600 dollars (US) because of the precision and method necessary to not compromise the integrity of the rail itself. If we assume conservatively that we have 50,000 miles of rail to weld, will 40 foot rails, and at 600 dollars per weld, the total comes to approximately 8 billion dollars. This expense would have minimal benefit because the rail that would be welded does not carry enough traffic to justify the expense.
Finally, the main reason our railroads are not electrified (other than the massive amount of electrification that would have to occur) is the type of cargo we haul on the railroads. European and Japanese railroads are primarily passenger railroads. This function lends itself to high speed and low weight. Our railroads are primarily freight carrying, and long heavy trains at that. Currently, to take a loaded, 10,000 foot train over Cajon Pass in California (approx 2% grade for 20+ miles), 6 6000 horsepower locomotives are required. Each of these locomotives generates approximately 4-5 MegaWatts at peak capacity. That is enough to power a multitude of homes. The logistics of delivering that kind of power is just unreasonable. Some mining railroads use electric locomotives, or used to. Kennecott Copper in Nevada and Utah comes to mind immediately. They had some of the largest electric freight locomotives ever built, and yet they dieselized. Why? because the cost of providing 12,000 volts over a couple hundred miles of rail was prohibitively expensive. Can you imagine the immense cost of doing the same for the entire US rail system? It would be impossible.
Electrification works great on a small scale, for passenger operations. Large scale freight operations do not lend themselves particularly well to electrification.
Please at least have some facts before you make a post bashing the US rail system. The rail system works amazingly well for the scope of the operations it has to carry, and the distances it has to cover. I guarantee you that we would be much less prosperous as a country without them.
They called me crazy, but we showed them didn't we?
As far back as 1972, the UK's Advanced Passenger Train (Experimental) used two power cars running on gas turbine engines. see this for a few more details.
Agrajag: "Oh no, not again!"
Funny nobody mentioned the Canadian turbo trains of years gone by.
Powered by 8 Pratt&Whitney PT-6 ( Huey helicopter
for an idea of the size ) engines.
Problem was they were aircraft engines not specifically designed for service on land.
Diferent dynamic environment so reliability suffered.
Mind you with 8 of them you could lose one or two and still cruise along at 90 mph. Not really all that high speed, conventional just jet powered.
There was a 747 style hump at the front for the driver and s small passenger area so you could sit behind the cab and see what was happening.
A fun ride.
The coolest boat I've ever been on was the HSS Stena Explorer which goes from Harwich (England) to the Hook of Holand. :-)
This thing is a 100 000 horsepower, 126 metre-long catamaran that cruises at about 40kts (IIRC). It takes 120 cars and 50 lorries.
It is totally awesome pounding across the north sea leaving every other vessel standing.
It is powered by two small and two large gas turbines. The small ones are for low speed and the large for high speed. They drive several waterjets wich are steerable, and they're operated at maximum efficiency (hence small and large for different speeds).
There is a plasma display with a map updated by GPS in realtime showing your progress, at the bow.
The second time I crossed the sea in it, it was pretty rough, but I managed not to spill my pint, whereas all the scurvy land-lubbers were decidedly green
Stick Men
In the UK there has been concern over the safety of lightweight diesel trains since the Ladbroke Grove collision which killed 31 people.
A lightweight Thames Turbo train crashed into a high-speed Great Western train, the fuel tank in the Thames Turbo exploded sending fire into the front part of the Great Western train, the front locomotive of which then burned.
One of the recommendations of the Cullen Enquiry into the disaster was that rail companies should look at the safety of diesel trains and either remove the risk entirely, or redesign trains to better withstand a crash. (Although in the case of Ladbroke Grove what could have been done? The trains collided at nearly 200 kph)
Many of our commuter services in London and the big cities are now electrified, but small diesels are used in the regions and across South West England.
Best wishes,
Mike.
The civil engineering rule of thumb for wear and tear on roads is a power of 4 by vehicle weight. This means that a 10 ton truck causes as much road wear as 10000 1 ton cars. That means for every $10 in highway taxes a car pays, a 10 ton truck should pay $100,000 dollars. But they don't. Most of it is subsized by taxpayers. If railroads got even a fraction of that, railroads could burn money for fuel and still be more econimical than trucks.
Unfortunately, because this is a hidden subsidy, it totally distorts the perception of problems with the US rail system.
Thought the 'Big Boy' locos used Gas turbine engines. The exhaust was directed through the roof of the loco.
This really is something that has been done and is well known.
I won't dispute a word you say, since I don't really don't know much about Amtrak. A while back we looked into taking it for a trip, and it just wasn't convenient, largely like you say.
But we seem to have a problem. Here in the good old USA two manifestations are:
Passenger rail travel == Amtrak
Manned space travel == NASA
I'm sure there other examples. Both mentioned entities are troubled, and I'm sure both have good points as well as bad. But the real problem seems to be that we can't get beyond those entities to see beyond them. As Amtrak flounders, nobody else seems willing to go into the field. Most people seem to blame NASA for the lack of anyone else in that field.
Not sure what the solution is, just trying to consolidate the problem.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
The only real advantage apart from infrastructure cost of carrying your own fuel is that you don't have to worry about power transmission over long distances. Track tends to be further away from civilisation in the US.
I was in a secret railroad switch-house last week, and I stumbled upon a locomotive that had been sitting there since 1880. It was fusion powered. The reactor ran on GARBAGE no less! It could levitate and even looked capable of time travel. The security guard who let me in said his only instructions were to wait for a man named "Doc Brown" to show up.
Ah, so that's where it ended up.
Ed Wedig
Graphic design services
docbrown.net
They actually did this in the 60's. The out come was they were to noisy. Produced to much heat when in tuunnels, and were'nt as fuel efficient as thought. The first two probably still stand but as for the fuel efficiency engines have come a long way.
> In the railroads' minds, louder is safer. They'll probably take advantage of the jet exhaust by routing it through a huge whistle and horn. It will continuously emit a piercing, deafening alien wail audible dozens of miles away. Railroad crossing accidents will become a thing of the past, because it will be too painful to remain near the tracks as the train approaches.
You're an optimist... I predict lawsuits from grieving parents of Darwinbait.
"B-b-b-but the trains are so loud now, they practically forced Johnny to floor it and drive around the gates at the railroad crossing! When they made new trains that could go twice as fast as the old trains, why couldn't they also make them able to stop faster, too? Waaaah!"
There's a simple solution to that: why not route some of the jet exhaust out of the front of the train. Kind of like a reverse mounted jet engine. Then, when the train needs to stop quickly, the engineer fires up the jet and STOPS.
Ed Wedig
Graphic design services
docbrown.net
Yes, certain of these big engines cannot use antifreeze, they have to use water. I believe it has to do with either the cylinder sleeve or the gaskets/seals in the engine.
A railroader friend of mine said his company had two engine blocks freeze and crack (and almost lost a third one) because of the water. See, the engines his RR uses have a 1500-watt heater and circulating pump that they will plug in when the engine is shut down at a yard or maint. facility. If there is no power for some reason, and it gets close to freezing, there is a safety valve that is supposed to dump the water out of the engine if it is about to freeze. Needless to say, the valve doesn't always work, and that's why they have two blocks to replace. Fun stuff!
Everyone has a car for the 300m trips. After that commuter flights, or flights are real cheap, and faster than rail ever could get. How long does a flight from NY to LA take? How much does it cost? Are you ever going to get that price/performance with rail (and still get some sort of performance)?
That is why there isn't the infrastructure investment. No one rides them. That is why AmTrack, as heavily subsidized as it is, slowly whittles its lines away year after year.
Flights are just too damn cheap, or you have a car (or can rent one). Gas is cheap, cars are cheap, flights are cheap in relation to other areas of the world. No one cares about rail anymore in this area. That is why we don't spend the money.
never heard of the TGV in Europe (especially France) for example? in europe almost any locomotives use electricity, not diesel/fuel that pollute, are slower, etc... the TGV has a top speed more than 500km/h, but it's cruise speed is 360km/h, which would be enough in USA to go from one city to another
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
IANARO, but why can't we just drop a good big-block combustion engine in there and call it a day ? Drop a few if you like. If it can pull a fricking tractor across a mud strip with umpteen pounds up its ass, I don't see why it couldn't pull a train (with a properly adjusted transmission). And since these things practically idle their way from point A to B, you could tune it for low-torque high-economy once you've got the rig up to speed. Trains have a Hoek-load of momentum, well enough to keep this thing rolling for miles with just a trickle of horsepower to keep the speed up.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
What was not mentioned was fuel efficiency and saftey. Higher speeds are great, but not at the expense of more crashes. The entire rail system is out of date. The big problem with the turbines is that they eat expensive fuel like it's going out of style. Ask a tank driver what kind of mileage they get, then add 20,000 tons.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
Union Pacific Railroad did this in 1952. They figured out they were too loud and sucked down too much fuel oil. http://www.uprr.com/aboutup/history/loco/locohs05. shtml
Gas turbines do scale up better, and they are more efficient. Diesels are more efficient in the small ranges, and gas turbines are naturally (think basic cycle definitions) MUCH more efficient, but it is hard to design and manufacture all the parts for small gas turbines without terrible efficiency losses (when the gas path gets that narrow, it is much more important to consider boundary effects, which is difficult to do...). In the power range they are talking about, a gas turbine IS more efficient, but more expensive to maintain.
disclaimer: I work for the company that makes the engine we are discussing, but I deal with military jet engines most of the time...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
WRONG.
It's what's known in the industry as "stringlining." It's why heavier (loaded) cars are switched to the front of a long train, and the "empties" (unloaded cars) are always coupled to the rear when possible.
The flanges on the wheelsets (that little ridge on the inside of the wheel that actually keeps the car on the rails) can only take so much lateral force before jumping the rails.
If a train with empties in the center of the train attempts to pull through a curve (especially while accelerating) the lighter cars in the center will derail and be pulled into a straight line between cars heavy enough to stay on the tracks. This can affect anywhere from 5 to 100 or more cars, and is a REAL BITCH to clean up...especially when it happens on a hill (which is where one generally finds sharper radius curves on a rail line). One would be amazed how far a freight car can roll off the tracks when pointed downhill!
That? That was a pigeon.
Do you work for Ari?
Jet A and diesel ARE almost identicle. AND for not flight aplications you can get a gas turbine to run on just about anything with very slight mods...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Say what?
You'll have to pardon me, I'm from the south, so I wouldn't know about trains running over snowmobiles. Does this happen often?
Need a Linux consultant in New Orleans?
The real NaveWeiss doesn't use the [nvws] tag on AC messages. And also, the link to the "authentic post" should point on another journal entry.
I read something in the National Post in the last week about Via (Canada's equivalent to Amtrak) wanting CDN$3 billion from the goverment. They want a single dedicated track in the Windsor-Montreal corridor so that they can get faster trains. This would increase the max speed from 170 to 240 kph, but there would be fewer stops (eg small stations). I wouldn't be surprised if Jean Cretin approved this money as part of his departing legacy building scheme.
What about bladeless (Tesla) turbines in a hybrid-electric vehicle? It seems using an electric motor for traction and a simple-to-manufacture turbine for power generation might be a good solution.
The American automobile infrastructure has evolved to the point where we are stuck with its success. How? We have problems with raising fuel prices to account for highway deaths and emergency service as well as polution since it would unfairly hit the poor who have no adequate public transit to get to work. We won't see the expansion of a interstate toll system to pay for the maintenance of roads as the trucking industry has a huge sway, despite the fact that road damage comes mostly from higher weight vehicles. So instead we pay for all of it through income taxes regardless of usage patterns. What will a governor do, add another lane to a highway to increase capacity or spend the money on new high speed rails with wider curves and imminent domain purchases and all the legal crap that comes from forcibly getting land from people (remember high-speed needs new rail layout to achieve speed). Having a subsidized transit system is vital since the increase in activity between locations can only strengthen the service industry and economy. But spending the subsidy all in one area provides diminishing returns, and returns on investment should be taken account of. You can have a 10 lane highway, but if it feeds into one lane exits, you still get congestion. This train may address the poor state of American railways, but does nothing to change the political climate that is the real chokepoint.
I work in a plant that manufactures turbine components. We have some land based rings that are so massive (approx. 23 sections per ring, 250 lbs per section) and reach such high RPMs that I'm told it takes over 12 hours for them to come to rest once the fuel is cut off. That's a lot of horsepower. These are used for power generation as well as naval engines. I'm not sure if the marine applications turn generators or a drive shaft, though. With proper gearing, I would think that it would be similar to turbines that drive helicoptor rotors.
If you want efficiency, combined cycle is the way to go. It's used in a lot of stationary power plants. The hot exaust from a gas turbine is used to create steam for a steam turbine. IIRC the total thermodynamic efficency can by close to 80% ! The specific power output would be less and perhaps maintenance would expensive when compared to a diesel, but it would use less fuel.
this one will be able to suck people in, and spit them out whole, ala: Man Sucked Through Jet Intake
?sp
The all time dumbest application of turbine power is undoubtedly the turbine tractor.
"Several factors prevented the HT-340 from reaching commercial production. Gas turbine engines are able to produce great amounts of power from a very small package, but high fuel consumption is their downfall. When added to the difficulty of adequately filtering the massive amounts of air required by the turbine engine, and the noise produced, it was not a practical machine. "
Another photo here
Gee, put a low torque high speed engine with lousy fuel economy and a propensity for very bad things happening when dirt or foreign objects get sucked into in on a slow moving tractor whose main function is to disturb the soil in one way or another.
Something they don't mention is that the IHC Turbine Tractor would flip over backwards because it didn't weigh enough and was too powerful. Airplanes want to be light weight , and tractors want to be heavy. I remember filling the tires of our tractors with powdered lead when I was a kid, (another pretty dumb thing considering you want to keep lead and food well separated. ) and hanging 55 gallon barrels of concrete on the front.
This picture (http://www.railpace.com/turbine/jet3.jpg) of the jet train had me cracking up. As someone how used to take BART trains to a job in Oakland many years ago, I found the potted plants sitting on the platform hysterical. What the heck? That's the best presentation they could make? I guess they spent all their money on the train and couldn't afford anything more festive for the press conference....
*** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
Apparently the story had truthful elements, the real guy behind it did attach the JATO to an old push railroad car and it worked fairly well
This person claims that his adventure is probably the source for the rocket car UL.
It's pretty funny, and worth the (long) read.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Too often people have come to me and said, "If I had just one wish for
anything in all the world, I would wish for more user-defined equations
in the HP-51820A Waveform Generator Software."
-- Instrument News
[Once is too often. Ed.]
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This "brain-damaged" epithet is getting sorely overworked. When we can
speak of someone or something being flawed, impaired, marred, spoiled;
batty, bedlamite, bonkers, buggy, cracked, crazed, cuckoo, daft, demented,
deranged, loco, lunatic, mad, maniac, mindless, non compos mentis, nuts,
Reaganite, screwy, teched, unbalanced, unsound, witless, wrong; senseless,
spastic, spasmodic, convulsive; doped, spaced-out, stoned, zonked; {beef,
beetle,block,dung,thick}headed, dense, doltish, dull, duncical, numskulled,
pinhead; asinine, fatuous, foolish, silly, simple; brute, lumbering, oafish;
half-assed, incompetent; backward, retarded, imbecilic, moronic; when we have
a whole precisely nuanced vocabulary of intellectual abuse to draw upon,
individually and in combination, isn't it a little to be
limited to a single, now quite trite, adjective?
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