[HN Gopher] Union Pacific to buy 20 battery-electric locomotives...
___________________________________________________________________
Union Pacific to buy 20 battery-electric locomotives for yard
service
Author : geox
Score : 75 points
Date : 2022-02-06 15:14 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (railfan.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (railfan.com)
| bobthepanda wrote:
| The lede is a bit buried here:
|
| > Union Pacific plans to purchase 20 battery-electric locomotives
| for _yard service_
|
| If all they're doing is moving around a yard, they're not ever
| very far from a charging station and they're moving at very low
| speeds.
| donarb wrote:
| Yard service is a perfect application for these types of
| locomotives. Diesel fired locomotives tend to sit around idling
| and burning fuel many more hours than they are being used every
| day. Diesel locos also tend to not be very fuel efficient when
| constantly stopping/starting around the yard.
| zeusk wrote:
| AFAIK, most "diesel locos" are really diesel electric, with
| the diesel engine feeding a generator. Hybridization of
| locomotives seems like a no brainer since they can recover so
| much more energy with regenerative braking and can plan for
| braking to be recovery efficient.
| dogsgobork wrote:
| As I understand, braking occurs across the entire train,
| not just via the drive axles, so the hybrid regeneration
| method would be a considerable departure from normal
| operations.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Yes, but diesel-electric locomotives have a brake mode
| where the "regenerative" current is shunted through big
| air-cooled resistors and exhausted as heat. Often used on
| downgrades to control speed without burning up the brake
| shoes. Recovering this into battery charge would be an
| easy win, though you might still need the resistors after
| the batteries are fully charged or if they can't absorb
| the charge fast enough.
| wiredfool wrote:
| This is where overhead electric is great, and why the
| Pennsylvania railroad ran full electric over the
| mountains back in the steam era. A coal train going down
| the mountain could mostly power the one going up.
| NickNameNick wrote:
| I have the impression that engaging the airbrakes is a
| little bit all-or-nothing.
|
| They're great for stopping (relatively) quickly on level
| ground. But not so grest for controlling your speed.
|
| Big diesel-electric locomotives have large, actively
| cooled resistor banks, usually on top of the engine. When
| rolling down hill they run the electric motors as
| generators, and dumping the energy into the resistor
| banks.
|
| The mechanical brakes can't absorb that much energy -
| they'd wear out after a few minutes.
| Animats wrote:
| These new locomotives are from Progress Rail, division of
| Caterpillar, and from Wabtec, which is Westinghouse Air Brake
| Technologies, 150 years old. They're just Diesel-electric
| platforms with batteries replacing the Diesel.
|
| "Replacing" may be just that. Few locomotives are built for
| yard work today. Most US switchers are old road locomotives,
| often half a century old. Sometimes they have a new power
| package. Progress Rail started as a locomotive rebuilder,
| changing out power packages for new ones, usually Caterpillar
| Diesels. Their electric seems to be a repower job of a
| classic General Motors Electro-Motive Division GT. Here's a
| video of their standard new Diesel repower job.[1]
|
| Lithium iron phosphate batteries, at least in the Progress
| Rail version. The heavier weight of lithium iron phosphate is
| a feature, not a bug, in a locomotive. Locomotives are built
| heavy to improve traction.
|
| The end result is not just a yard locomotive. Some of these
| are in test elsewhere for short-haul lines. Range maybe 300
| miles.
|
| Another boring, but useful, technology, from old-line
| industrial companies. This is what makes the world go.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Kth3i2PGE0
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Few locomotives are built for yard work today. Most US
| switchers are old road locomotives, often half a century
| old.
|
| Here in Germany, we still build new models of railway
| shunting engines such as the Voith Gravita [1], and we have
| nearly a thousand (!) of the old V60 in service [2]. Normal
| open-track models may have superior fuel efficiency at
| higher speeds, but commonly lack the from-zero traction
| capability of a specialized shunting engine.
|
| [1]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voith_Gravita
|
| [2]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB-Baureihe_V_60
| algo_trader wrote:
| Is the "electric" part of the diesel electric a
| commoditized technology? Is it a single motor or one per
| axis?
|
| How expensive is a 10MW electric motor? Asking for a friend
|
| Edit: for context - Tesla Semi is just 4x 250kw motors
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Is the "electric" part of the diesel electric a
| commoditized technology?
|
| Not really. You can't use the electric side of a
| locomotive drive train anywhere else than in a
| locomotive, and for fully electric locomotives you can't
| even use the transformers in any non-railway setting
| simply because the frequencies used are generally
| incompatible with usage on the normal power grid. Old
| electric locos sometimes are used to provide auxiliary
| power for parked cars [1], though that has fallen out of
| fashion here.
|
| What _is_ commoditized is the engine side of a diesel
| locomotive, that 's your run-off-the-mill CAT, MTU or
| whatever industrial diesel engine. As long as it fits
| into the locomotive body and accepts a hydraulic or
| electric generator at the output, it can be used. IIRC
| there even were some experiments with gas turbines on
| French high-speed locomotives, but these had atrocious
| fuel economy.
|
| > Is it a single motor or one per axis?
|
| That _entirely_ depends on the engine model, and can be
| inferred from the wheel arrangement code [2].
|
| [1]:
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trafostation_(Elektrolok)
|
| [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel_arrangement
| api wrote:
| Put overhead lines on even sections of long range rail lines
| and you could use it for long haul. Battery could be used to
| bridge between sections with power.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| Then generate power at a coal or natural gas power plant.
| Until we get further along with renewables, the total
| environmental impact of replacing everything with electric
| today probably isn't worth it.
|
| Example: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-
| transportation/when-d...
|
| I remember having a heated discussion with someone about this
| at work, and it came down to where you were charging that
| Tesla and if you had rooftop solar (not even discussing the
| environmental impact of mfg + shipping + installation +
| support + useable lifetime of the solar panels, home
| batteries, and support accessories).
|
| And at the end of the day, moving around a 5000# Tesla or
| 6500# F150 Lightning takes a lot more power in any form than
| a 3400# Civic / Camry.
| shagmin wrote:
| In addition to the other comments, buyers aren't generally
| deciding between a 1/2 ton pickup and mid-size sedan
| anyway, or a luxury car and a small compact sedan.
|
| And I agree it really varies where you live and other
| variables, but that to me doesn't matter when 1) ICE
| vehicles aren't really that efficient anyway. 2) Even
| ignoring the first point, it's possible electric vehicle
| owners are more likely to get much of their electricity
| from greener sources than non-electric vehicle owners, and
| the extra demand on the grid requires more energy
| production to be built, and new energy production is
| probably going to be a lot greener than old sources. 3) A
| lot of people are somewhat environmentally conscious but
| only as convenience and their current lifestyle allow.
| People know a Civic is probably more environmentally
| friendly than 99% of cars, and don't care.
|
| Then you can get in how many oil spills have been
| prevented, etc.,
| callalex wrote:
| Even the most perfect internal combustion engine only
| manages to turn 20% of burned energy into motion. You can
| understand this intuitively by realizing every gas car has
| a big radiator whose sole job is to dump energy into the
| atmosphere quickly.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Two-stroke Diesel engines used in ships have an
| efficiency well over 50%, up to 59% for those with waste
| heat recovery systems.
|
| High-temperature gas turbines can also have efficiencies
| over 50%.
|
| Modern four-stroke internal combustion engines used in
| cars and trucks can have an efficiency over 40%, up to
| 45%.
|
| That said, such efficiencies remain low compared to
| electric motors with efficiencies over 95% and with
| combined cycle power plants which can reach an efficiency
| of 65% (while power plants with heat cogeneration may
| reach efficiencies around 80%).
| ummonk wrote:
| Pretty sure Skyactiv-X gets 40%+ peak thermal efficiency.
| As do diesel engines. Toyota's dynamic force engine is up
| there too.
| mlyle wrote:
| > I remember having a heated discussion with someone about
| this at work, and it came down to where you were charging
| that Tesla
|
| This sounds like a faulty analysis.
|
| Generally even if 100% of your electricity is something
| moderately bad, like natural gas, end-to-end power use is
| better than an ICE with gasoline.
|
| Figure an electric car is 150 watt-hours per mile, and
| charging is 94% efficient (pessimistic, but makes the
| numbers round). Natural gas is 0.4 kilograms/(KWhr), so
| about 65 grams of CO2 emitted for that mile. Compare to 8.5
| kilograms of CO2 emitted from burning a gallon of gas, so
| you'd need to get 130 miles to the gallon to be equivalent.
|
| Considering lifecycle costs makes things closer, but not
| super close.
|
| > and if you had rooftop solar
|
| Most people charge at night, so your own rooftop doesn't
| help. (Also, most places the renewable mix is worse at
| night, but not in all: in some places wind and
| hydroelectric "win").
|
| > And at the end of the day, moving around a 5000# Tesla or
| 6500# F150 Lightning takes a lot more power in any form
| than a 3400# Civic / Camry.
|
| More mass means slightly more tire friction and means more
| kinetic energy-- a big fraction of which you get back in
| regen.
| lostlogin wrote:
| The equation is so complicated. The petrol burning car has
| to get fuel. You have to drive to a station that had to be
| built, the station has to be staffed and the fuel and staff
| hauled there.
|
| Obviously electric requires infrastructure too, but it
| would be good to see a full breakdown and I can't find one.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| My understanding is that bulk power generation is probably
| more efficient than having the motive power in the
| locomotive itself.
|
| There are also isolated use cases that the US railroads
| have been electrified for in the past (a lot of it was de-
| electrified to artificially boost revenues with asset sales
| in the midcentury). Namely
|
| * mountain tunnels; a fair amount of Western mountain
| tunnels can only accommodate one diesel train at a time due
| to ventilation, and the crews carry respirators and oxygen
| in case the train stalls inside
|
| * any sort of long sustained slope; downhill trains using
| regenerative braking can return electricity for those going
| uphill
| mlyle wrote:
| > My understanding is that bulk power generation is
| probably more efficient than having the motive power in
| the locomotive itself.
|
| Almost certainly. But this probably evaporates once you
| need to pull significant amount of battery.
| ErikCorry wrote:
| Trains are very efficient at carrying weight, especially
| if they can dump power into the grid (or battery) when
| braking. That metal-on-metal wheel has super low rolling
| resistance.
| mlyle wrote:
| > Trains are very efficient at carrying weight
|
| Sure. But you also need a whole lot of them to provide
| sustained power to move a large train for a decent trip
| length.
|
| > especially if they can dump power into the grid (or
| battery) when braking
|
| Smaller benefit here to regen. Sure, a 10000 tonne train
| has a lot of kinetic energy-- maybe 3 gigajoules or
| something. But compare to > 50MW to keep that train
| moving at a decent clip. So a complete stop with 100% of
| the energy recaptured is only about 60 seconds of rolling
| resistance energy use.
| ErikCorry wrote:
| I think the cost of batteries is going to be a bigger
| issue than the weight. Which is why hybrid (battery
| combined with overhead power lines) looks so attractive
| to me.
| mlyle wrote:
| > Which is why hybrid (battery combined with overhead
| power lines) looks so attractive to me.
|
| It may be good for some segments, but consider the number
| of charge cycles and charge/discharge rate, along with
| the peak charging currents on the overhead lines.
|
| For, say, 10000 tonne trains, 15MW sustained is a good
| very optimistic target for how much power you need to put
| out to keep rolling (before you make this any worse with
| adding battery mass and before you consider e.g. slopes,
| braking, etc).
|
| If your goal is a discharge rate of C/1, you're carrying
| 75 tonnes of batteries-so it masses about 1% more.
|
| Then, what duty cycle are you charging at? 100% coverage
| from the overhead power lines means you need to bring
| 15MW into the train. If the goal is a big saving in the
| amount of overhead power lines needed, 10% coverage from
| the overhead power lines means you'll instead need to
| bring 150MW into the train during those spans (and, this
| is a really aggressive 10C charge rate...)
|
| I think C/1 is too aggressive for good cycle service, 10C
| is _waaaay_ too aggressive for charging-- and these are
| best case scenario (flat ground, etc). If you multiply
| the amount of batteries by a big amount, now the mass
| change to the train and the rolling resistance
| contribution to the train from batteries becomes
| significant).
|
| edit: in the end, I think you're _usually_ better off
| just electrifying the portions of the train route where
| it 's easiest, and burning diesel the rest of the way,
| instead of trying to somehow dotted-line-overhead-
| electrify things and limp through with batteries.
| ErikCorry wrote:
| Agree that 10% coverage is too low, but for 50% coverage
| charging speed falls to 1C, which is totally doable (and
| as you say, for diesel-electric hybrid it could start
| making sense at even lower percentages).
|
| The Pareto principle means that even if battery capacity
| means you need 80% or 95% coverage you could still see
| large savings over a 100% electrification.
|
| Remember that you can also coast. If it's just about a
| low bridge or short tunnel you might lower the pantograph
| a few 100 metres on either side of the bridge. No need to
| wear the battery at all for such a short stretch - even
| with the brakes fully applied the train takes about a
| mile to stop. Trains don't currently do this because they
| don't have sophisticated position-based pantograph
| control and if they had to do an emergency stop under the
| bridge they would be stuck, but with more advanced
| control computers and battery backup both those problems
| can be solved.
|
| Where I live they are electrifying 150 miles of track.
| This means 85 bridges need to be raised, demolished or
| rebuilt, and it's a big part of the cost. And Denmark is
| pretty flat - there are no tunnels as far as I remember.
| ErikCorry wrote:
| By the way, 50MW seems way high to keep the train moving.
| The locomotives are 3-4MW peak and I rarely see them use
| more than 3 or 4 of them on a train. And I would expect
| them to be using much less than peak when they are not
| accelerating or hauling up a steep grade.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_Dash_9_Series
| [deleted]
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| Yep, battery energy density is still far off from fossil fuels.
|
| This is from 2012 but still relevant and why we don't have
| electric commercial passenger planes, and probably never will
| until we make 10x gains in energy density:
|
| """ Stored energy in fuel is considerable: gasoline is the
| champion at 47.5 MJ/kg and 34.6 MJ/liter; the gasoline in a
| fully fueled car has the same energy content as a thousand
| sticks of dynamite. A lithium-ion battery pack has about 0.3
| MJ/kg and about 0.4 MJ/liter (Chevy VOLT). Gasoline thus has
| about 100 times the energy density of a lithium-ion battery.
| This difference in energy density is partially mitigated by the
| very high efficiency of an electric motor in converting energy
| stored in the battery to making the car move: it is typically
| 60-80 percent efficient. The efficiency of an internal
| combustion engine in converting the energy stored in gasoline
| to making the car move is typically 15 percent (EPA 2012). With
| the ratio about 5, a battery with an energy storage density 1/5
| of that of gasoline would have the same range as a gasoline-
| powered car. We are not even close to this at present. """
|
| https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201208/backpage.cfm
| nradov wrote:
| Eviation is about to start testing a prototype small electric
| commercial passenger airplane. It will only be suitable for
| short flights with a few passengers, and it's not clear
| whether the economics will work out.
|
| https://www.flyingmag.com/alice-electric-commuter-
| airplane-p...
|
| For larger airliners there could eventually be a role for
| plug-in hybrid propulsion systems. Use a fairly small battery
| pack and electric motors to augment the turbines during take-
| off and climb, then switch them off during cruise. There
| would be a weight penalty but it might deliver a net fuel
| savings for shorter flights.
| torginus wrote:
| They won't. If you ever flew in these small aircraft, you
| know that they are extremely susceptible to weather
| conditions, and can be easily grounded due to rain, snow,
| strong winds or extremely hot weather. Even ignoring the
| heavy batteries giving them range that's barely acceptable,
| you'd still need to pay pilot's salaries per every few
| passenger, a major cost even when divided between the far
| larger amount of people flying on an airliner.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| Part of the issue is not just the density of the fuel but
| also the fact that the weight remains the same no matter how
| much of it you use. With gasoline/coal/etc. when you use the
| product it then decreases the weight of the amount of fuel
| stored, you don't get that loss with batteries so while you
| get "additional" gains with e.g. aviation fuel the further
| you are along your trip and the more you've burned, you don't
| get that with batteries.
| snovv_crash wrote:
| That's an issue for planes, but I'm not sure the weight of
| the fuel decrease is really noticeable in a locomotive as a
| percentage of total tonnage.
| Aloha wrote:
| Indeed, switching is a perfect application for this technology.
| dang wrote:
| Ok, we've unearthed the lede in the title above. Thanks!
| rPlayer6554 wrote:
| It's an initial step. I'm not sure if the technology would work
| for their main routes, but this at least is a step to test and
| evaluate how this technology works.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Main routes are better served by combusting manufactured
| carbon neutral fuels airlines (United recently flew a route
| with 1 engine burning this fuel) are testing, using hybrid
| locomotives with smaller batteries for kinetic buffers. A big
| Chevy Volt essentially.
|
| Electrifying US rail outside of switchyards won't ever be
| practical, unless you could drive down the cost of
| electrified tracks with a third rail (overhead electric at
| this scale would be obscenely expensive).
| jabl wrote:
| > Electrifying US rail outside of switchyards won't ever be
| practical
|
| Why is that? Russia, a considerably poorer country beset by
| endemic corruption and other major issues, has managed to
| electrify the 9000+ km (considerably longer than any coast
| to coast US railway route) Trans-Siberian railway. With
| overhead lines, obviously.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Political and engineering will first, with cost a
| secondary concern (but still wielded as a reason not to).
| It makes sense, with enough clean energy, based on the
| cost of emissions offset by freight rail electrification
| to expend the capital required. Perhaps issue green
| government backed bonds to pay for it or print some more
| money. But we can't build large infra projects in the US
| anymore, for a combination of reasons: nuclear power
| plants, California high speed rail, etc. [1] [2] [3]
|
| Personally, I would prefer electrified freight rail, I'm
| just unsure if the US knows how or can do it. I suggested
| third rail if the cost came down because in America, you
| can usually coax towards the right solution if you can
| show drastic cost savings/reductions (see the rapid
| renewables uptake as costs declined over the last
| decade). At a glance, it seems easier to throw down a
| third rail while doing track work versus the construction
| effort for thousands of miles of overhead gantries and
| 25kv power lines. You could pair this with HVDC
| transmission lines looking to use railroad right of ways
| to avoid NIMBYS (the SOO HVDC line in the Midwest, for
| example [4]), for power accessibility.
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/28/us/infrastructure-
| megapro...
|
| [2]
| https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/mega-
| proj...
|
| [3] https://www.vox.com/22534714/rail-roads-
| infrastructure-costs...
|
| [4] https://www.soogreenrr.com/about/
| jrockway wrote:
| I'm not sure that CAHSR is an example of why we can't
| build infrastructure. They're building it. There are
| YouTubers that have done drone flyovers of most of the
| first construction packages, and progress is being made
| pretty quickly. I have a feeling that too much has been
| done to cancel the project now. The corresponding Bay
| Area projects seem to be proceeding as well (CalMod,
| CalTrain electrification, etc).
|
| Texas Central also seems to be making progress on Dallas-
| Houston high speed rail.
|
| That said, I agree that the taxpayers don't feel like
| giving billions of dollars to BNSF and Union Pacific, so
| they probably won't electrify until there is no other
| option. Fuel costs just aren't high enough to make it
| profitable, and the environmental externalities are still
| free. (But, of course, you'd rather see a 500 car freight
| train burning fossil fuels than 500 tractor trailers
| driving down the interstate burning fossil fuels.)
| ErikCorry wrote:
| It's pretty troubled project. Way over budget and when it
| opens in 2025 you will be able to go only as far as
| Bakersfield. The last section to LA is still in
| "environmental review" (ie fighting the Nimbies).
| jrockway wrote:
| Yeah, that's a good assessment. It is troubled, but I
| don't think you can do big projects without trouble.
| Think about how high tensions can get when planning a two
| week software engineering sprint. Now imagine a project
| that's a million times bigger than that, where people
| will have their houses torn down. There's going to be
| some trouble. What is amazing that despite the trouble,
| some progress is being made.
|
| (There are lots of things working against CAHSR. The
| route has been chosen politically rather than to minimize
| SFO-LAX travel times. Given infinite budget, you
| travelers on that route don't want to go through
| Bakersfield, as it's out of the way. And, the SFO/LAX
| city pair is already not a particularly optimal pair, it
| is kind of reaching the high end of distances that make
| high-speed rail the best travel option. That's why I look
| at Texas Central and Brightline for models of what to do
| in the future. Texas Central is a really good city
| pairing, in a region where their 16 lane highways can't
| handle the traffic volume. But I temper my enthusiasm in
| that not a lot of construction work has been done; I
| can't find any updates newer than September 2021 when the
| CEO said pessimistically that there is only a 50/50
| chance that construction will start in the next 6 months.
| We're near the end of those 6 months.)
| AniseAbyss wrote:
| The US government used to be able to create top notch
| infrastructure but something seemed to just break in the
| 1970s/80s. Unless things get so catastrophically bad (see
| Katrina) it is impossible to convince anyone to spend
| money.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| > it is impossible to convince anyone to spend money.
|
| They don't need to be convinced to spend money. They are
| spending more than ever. But you're dead on about it all
| being crisis-driven now. Or maybe it always was? WWII was
| clearly that, then the cold war/space race, then Star
| Wars, then GWAT (or GWOT?) -- Global War Against/On
| Terrorism, and now Covid - Build Back Better. Crisis
| spending is perfect cover for pork and grift, because
| anyone who questions it can be painted as unpatriotic.
| jrockway wrote:
| The government is spending money on infrastructure, it's
| just not very good infrastructure. You can open up any
| state's department of transportation website and find
| billions of dollars worth of ongoing projects for
| widening roads. These are not the projects people dream
| about, but they do satisfy the people that are invested
| in the suburbs. A lot of advocacy revolves around "live
| in a dense urban core, work in a dense urban core, and
| travel to other dense urban cores", and people just
| aren't doing that, so it does make some sense that
| politicians with 2 year terms aren't champing at the bit
| to do those projects instead of "widen congested freeway"
| (even though we know that never solves the problem).
| ErikCorry wrote:
| I wonder if they have done studies on what the cost of
| electrification is for hybrid trains. A lot of the
| complication of electrification is that you have to raise
| road bridges to make space for the overhead power lines,
| you have to make tunnels larger and you have to put power
| lines 100s of places where they are really hard to install.
|
| But imagine a train that can go for a kilometre or two
| without power lines, because it's a hybrid. Suddenly every
| low bridge and most tunnels are handled by just lowering
| the pantograph (power pick-up) as you go under them. If
| lines cross in strange ways or go under buildings you just
| don't put power lines there. At level crossings you skip
| the power lines, so no tall trucks will hit them.
|
| I think there are probably huge savings to be made by
| putting the power lines in the easiest places and bridging
| the rest with hybrid. The battery recharges at speed as
| soon as power returns. You can even install a small diesel
| motor on the locomotive that has enough power (with
| gearing?) to creep to the next overhead power line if the
| train is unexpectedly stranded.
|
| When a power line is downed by a tree (or a cable thief),
| the cleanup crew just removes that section. It is put up
| later when the backlog from the storm has been cleared.
|
| Of course you need the train to know its location and have
| an updated list of where to lower the pantograph. That
| seems to me like a totally solvable problem in 2022. It's
| like 100 times easier than a self-driving car or landing a
| rocket with retropropulsion.
| euroderf wrote:
| You say it is necessary to lower the pantograph before
| (and re-raise it after) a gap in the line. Isn't it
| possible to (say) have the line smoothly rise before the
| gap - sort of lift away - high enough to disengage from
| the pantograph before the gap - so that the pantograph
| can be kept in the same position ? I'd think this would
| save on wear & tear and avoid accidents. How much upward
| pressure is applied by a pantograph anyways ?
| ErikCorry wrote:
| A lot of the gaps will be there because there is not
| enough head room for the wires. In that case whatever
| caused the missing head room would rip off the
| pantograph. Since you need the pantograph-lowering
| feature anyway you might as well use it everywhere and
| avoid having to build the smooth-rising smooth-lowering
| cables.
| steve_gh wrote:
| In the UK we are actively planning in battery electric
| hybrid trains. The idea is that you can easily retrofit
| 90-95% of the line with overhead power, and use
| relatively small and cheap battery systems to cover the
| other 5%.
| ErikCorry wrote:
| That's great. I hadn't seen that. For some reason we
| didn't get the memo in Denmark.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Third rails are even more expensive for freight railroads.
|
| * Double stack well cars sit very low. There are currently
| no third rail installations in the US that wouldn't get
| sideswiped by a well car. So their installation would
| basically mean forgoing half of freight revenue.
|
| * Third rails have to operate at lower voltages due to the
| fairly small clearance to the ground, and so they require
| more frequent substations than higher voltage overhead
| wires.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Have any resources you'd recommend for learning more
| about the logistics of third rail power systems? Would
| you happen to know what the clearance is for double stack
| well cars?
|
| Edit: excellent resources, thanks all for replying.
| jabl wrote:
| Third rail systems typically work at 1500V, can't go very
| much higher than that due to risk from arcing. Most
| overhead lines use 25kV, allowing much more power to be
| transferred, over longer distances.
|
| Which is why third rail systems are usually only seen in
| metro lines and similar. I'd guess in urban environments
| sprinkling more substations around isn't such a huge
| issue, as access to the power grid is seldom an issue.
| Also metro trains need much less power than a high speed
| passenger train or a heavy freight train.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| with metros the additional consideration is tunneling.
|
| generally speaking, third rail allows for a smaller
| tunnel diameter than overhead systems. (third rail is
| located near the wider section of tunnel in the middle
| whereas overhead requires extending the height.)
| danhor wrote:
| Regarding overhead wires for double stacked cars, India
| has a freight corridor with very high overhead wires: htt
| ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedicated_Freight_Corridor_Cor
| ...
|
| This would probably be the way to go if the US would
| introduce electrified rail routes.
|
| An overview of Third rail vs. Overhead Wire from a
| transit perspective, but it's similar with freight
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGI9XuHE3P0
|
| TLDR:
|
| Grade crossings are more complicated, if not impossible
|
| Smaller voltage since it's closer to the ground and the
| grounded rails.
|
| Thus higher current & more losses, needing more power
| stations.
|
| This is probably way worse for freight, since it weighs
| more and there are long gaps between civilization on the
| routes.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| This is also already present in the US: http://2.bp.blogs
| pot.com/-1BbF3QiAd-0/Ui9YbpGk-8I/AAAAAAAACC...
| jcranmer wrote:
| The general clearance envelope you're looking at is AAR
| Plate H: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gabarit_
| AAR_Plate-H....
| dboreham wrote:
| It has been attempted before: https://www.american-
| rails.com/pce.html
| bobthepanda wrote:
| I'm not saying that this isn't a good step, but the headline
| just clipped off a pretty important piece of it.
| scsilver wrote:
| Awesome, love to see this tech develop in these yards and
| expand as viable.
| ethagknight wrote:
| Since current locomotives are diesel electric hybrids anyway,
| seems like US Railroads could electrify certain potions of track,
| maybe steep changes in grade or places where trains frequently
| stop/start, yielding an opportunity to cut diesel consumption 50%
| or more on certain routes, since maintaining speed requires
| modest effort.
|
| Also, while reduced fuel consumption is nice, another major
| beneficiary would be the environment, specifically when operating
| in urban centers. I've lived near heavy-use railways and
| currently a switching yard for most of my life, and some days the
| diesel exhaust is quite strong, depending on the prevailing
| winds. The engines are usually pretty clean burning for the
| amount of work they produce, but not always...
| bell-cot wrote:
| An un-mentioned advantage for battery-electric locomotives,
| especially for yard duty - trains are already composed of many
| heavy modules (locomotives and freight cars) which are pretty
| quick & easy to switch in & out. If (at least to start) you put
| the batteries in old gondola cars (roughly, a flat car with low
| sides, designed to carry heavy scrap metal & such), then it'd be
| easy to have a few "battery cars" charging on a special siding
| somewhere, while the locomotive and currently-in-use battery car
| are working.
|
| Side note on supplying power to battery-electric locomotives from
| overhead wires (via pantographs): The railroad industry has a
| _lot_ of experience with pantographs, overhead wires, and the
| infrastructures needed to power said overhead wires. That stuff
| is _expensive_ to build and maintain. And if your RR depends on
| it, then you can be utterly screwed when a large blackout occurs.
| Or (say) when all the power lines in an area have to be turned
| off, because the wildfire danger level is too high.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I've seen (non-passenger) railroad yards in Switzerland, and
| they seem to get along fine with overhead wires. But the
| infrastructure there is much better in the USA, I get why we
| can't do it here (nor in Canada or in Australia for many
| routes).
| deepsun wrote:
| Locomotives would also have much easier time using hydrogen fuel
| cells. They already have fixed custom gas stations.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Switching to fuel cells would only achieve a slight efficiency
| improvement; large diesels are pretty efficient.
|
| Trying to maintain hydrogen fuel systems in railroad
| environments would be a nightmare; hydrogen leaks out of
| everything. What it doesn't leak out of, it embrittles.
|
| Fuel cells require ultra-pure source gasses, not something you
| really find in railroad environments.
|
| It seemed like the future 2-3 decades ago but it just hasn't
| matured sufficiently, and we'd have to develop an entirely new
| production and distribution chain for it.
| deepsun wrote:
| Leaks -- yes, but it's much easier to maintain in regularly
| professionally maintained commercial-only bulk equipment,
| than in personal cars and garages.
|
| Embrittlement is a known problem, and pretty much any alloy
| of steel helps against it. Various coatings are used as well
| (e.g. organic compounds). It's a well-researched area, so
| it's possible to estimate and engineer around it.
|
| Re. ultra-pure source gasses, I don't know, maybe, but I
| don't see any difference with gasoline or Jet-A fuels.
| Airports aren't ultra-clean environments either.
| csours wrote:
| Disclosure: I work for GM, not on this.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/gm-sup...
| exhilaration wrote:
| Does anyone know who's manufacturing these locomotives? I'm
| surprised they didn't name a manufacturing partner. I have to
| assume it's not a US company.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| > The railroad will spend $100 million on the Progress Rail-
| built locomotives and other infrastructure improvements, the
| largest investment into the technology ever made by a Class I
| railroad.
|
| Progress Rail is at least building them.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| That seems correct. Google also found this:
|
| https://www.progressrail.com/en/Company/News/PressReleases/C.
| ..
|
| > Union Pacific Railroad will purchase 10 battery-electric
| locomotives from Progress Rail, a Caterpillar Company.
| gsnedders wrote:
| Specifically, they are these: https://www.progressrail.com/en
| /Segments/RollingStock/Locomo...
| donarb wrote:
| Progress Rail along with Wabtec (originally Westinghouse).
| Stevvo wrote:
| So ridiculous. Is private rail so dysfunctional that it actually
| makes sense to buy battery-electric locomotives in the US instead
| of installing overhead wires?
| xeromal wrote:
| Not sure if you realize how huge the US is, but overhead wire
| would be a ridiculously expensive effort for not much benefit.
| MisterTea wrote:
| How does the overhead wire adjust height to compensate for
| varying car heights in the case of double stacked intermodal
| cars? An overhead cable is a limiting factor.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| It needs to be high enough to clear the tallest cars (plus
| enough distance to prevent arcing), and then the pantograph
| pickup on the locomotives needs to be tall enough to reach
| the overhead wires.
| jsnodlin wrote:
| Yes. It's much, much cheaper to carry power with you rather
| than electrify hundreds of thousands of miles of rail.
| Aloha wrote:
| Indeed.
|
| Nevermind how vastly more expensive MOW costs are for
| electrified lines.
| gsnedders wrote:
| This depends heavily on the density of operation; globally
| at least for heavily used lines the total cost of operation
| (infrastructure, locomotion, etc.) is much lower for
| electrified lines, in no small part because each locomotive
| needs much less maintenance.
|
| From that regard, it's somewhat surprising that none of the
| busiest lines have been electrified.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| The sheer vastness of rural America does not lend itself to
| using overhead wires. In Europe, a bout of bad weather will
| tear down the wires in multiple places and make the line
| unusable even though the tracks themselves are fine. It is
| always "fun" to commute after a night of heavy wind, but at
| least the countries here are mostly compact and the
| locations that took damage are close to one another, so a
| few crews can fix them in a day or so.
|
| That would be much harder in the flyover country. I am not
| sure how the Russians keep up their Transsib line; it is
| long, electrified and goes straight through thousands of
| miles of wilderness.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Switzerland has some of the most extreme weather around
| and their lines are heavily electrified.
| jsnodlin wrote:
| Switzerland is around 40,000 sq km to the US' 10,000,000
| sq km. I don't think you understand the scale of what
| electrification of lines in the US would mean.
| Aloha wrote:
| It makes sense in Switzerland because of the mountainous
| terrain there.
| mlyle wrote:
| Maybe improving rail emissions should be a very low
| priority, because:
|
| * It's already the most CO2 efficient way to move
| freight.
|
| * It's also one of the things that's going to be hardest
| to improve.
|
| Little steps like considered here: battery-electric
| locomotives for use in rail yards-- make a lot of sense.
| There may be some specific rail lines that lend
| themselves to overhead electrification. And otherwise,
| maybe the focus should be on moving more goods transport
| to rail instead of making rail more CO2 efficient.
| fpoling wrote:
| My father in Belarus in eighties and nineties used to
| travel few times per week about 35 milles in one
| direction by a local electric train with overhead wires
| (called "elektrichka" in Russian). Not a single time the
| train was cancelled. Even delays more then 10-15 minutes
| were extremely rare including on the days with heavy snow
| or strong wind. Even all maintenance were done at night
| and never disrupted the traffic.
|
| So if 40 years ago Soviet Union managed that, I am sure
| US should be capable to build electrical lines that are
| not destroyed by a bad weather.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| We love cars, trucks, NIMBYism, and the petroleum
| industry way too much to ever build sensible trains in
| the US.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| In photos from the USSR, I noticed that forests around
| the railway tracks are cut down in a pretty broad strip,
| perhaps 100 m wide?
|
| This is an efficient countermeasure against the trees
| falling on tracks and taking the wires with them, but
| some countries aren't willing to cut down that much of a
| forest.
| fpoling wrote:
| Nothing like 100 meters, more like 15-20. I guess that
| was based on height of trees.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| Or willing to pay so much to the current owners of land
| for all the miles of railways you would have to purchase
| to do the same here
| ErikCorry wrote:
| Forestry land is really cheap.
| otterley wrote:
| Not in the U.S., it isn't. There's not much forest left
| in the interior of the country that wouldn't be snapped
| up for residential real state if it weren't already
| privately owned for logging or as National
| Forest/National Park acreage. Or, it's so mountainous
| that it would be impractical to use for railways.
| ErikCorry wrote:
| Clear cutting an acre gives you about $1500 for wood that
| took 20 years to grow. This is not an intensive industry
| in terms of what it generates per acre. I don't see how
| you are going to have to pay a lot to keep a strip clear
| on either side of the railroad. $75/acre/year would seem
| to be enough.
|
| https://www.forest2market.com/blog/how-much-money-is-an-
| acre...
| otterley wrote:
| That's fair. The US South has far less expensive
| timberland and land in general than the West does.
| NoSorryCannot wrote:
| I wonder what the economies are of splitting the difference
| between total electrification and battery power.
|
| Strategically-located sections of electrified rail to charge
| trains as they pass through without stopping. Retractable
| catenary so still compatible with existing clearances. I'm
| sure someone has had this idea before.
|
| You might not need nearly so much infrastructure, but you
| invite bottleneck congestion.
| deepsun wrote:
| > hundreds of thousands
|
| You missed the point, that those locomotives will only be
| used in the yard (shuffling wagons). It's not gonna work to
| long-haul using battery power (too low power density).
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| It feels like moving around a fixed urban area rather than
| travelling at high speed through mostly empty areas is
| probably the more impactful place to remove ICE engines.
|
| Similar to how electric busses usually get assigned to the
| start-stop routes in the urban centres.
| mushufasa wrote:
| maybe this is an incremental strategy plan: have battery power
| and future ability to also use wires, so that you can operate
| in situations where there is less than 100% coverage
| jeffbee wrote:
| This is for yard traffic. It makes sense to me. Which part
| doesn't make sense to you? For ports where they are double-
| stacking containers onto well cars, overhead wiring would be
| challenging, and you still need all-new locomotives.
| gsnedders wrote:
| > For ports where they are double-stacking containers onto
| well cars, overhead wiring would be challenging, and you
| still need all-new locomotives.
|
| That's not really a big challenge; this is something done
| globally on a daily basis. Typically you either have an
| entirely unelectrified siding and shunt in/out of it, or you
| have only the near end of the siding electrified and propel
| the cars into the siding.
| jeffbee wrote:
| No, double-stacked containers are unique to North America
| and nobody else does it.
| gsnedders wrote:
| India and China would both like to disagree:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-
| stack_rail_transport#Ou...
| jcranmer wrote:
| It would cost hundreds of billions of dollars to string up the
| overhead wire by themselves, and that's using the lowest cost
| electrification jobs done world-wide. It would cost hundreds of
| billions more to actually clear bridges and tunnels for the
| extra height needed for catenary. Then you'd have to actually
| _buy_ all of the locomotives (not even going to speculate
| there). And then there 's probably significant extra cost in
| building out transmission infrastructure _to_ the railroad
| tracks--I 'd guess there's large slices of the West where
| there's nothing around nearby you could hook traction
| substations up to. All-in-all, you're talking about a trillion-
| dollar investment to do so.
|
| At the same time... the performance benefits really aren't
| worth it for freight trains. Remember that diesel locomotives
| are _already_ an electric drivetrain--the diesel is merely
| fueling a generator that 's sitting on board to power the
| drivetrain. The big savings with electrification come with
| weight reduction--and with freight, the weight of the
| locomotive is a small component of that weight--or using EMUs
| that let you have every wheel being powered (and with freight
| cars, that's again never going to happen).
| konschubert wrote:
| The US has a much higher percentage of freight transported by
| rail than the EU. I would not be so dismissive of their way of
| operation.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| If you want to do things incrementally it makes perfect sense.
| gok wrote:
| There are around 300,000 km of active rail in the US,
| essentially none of which is electrified. Then there are 10s of
| thousands of diesel locomotives that would need to be all
| replaced. This would cost trillions of dollars, more than any
| reasonable estimate of rail revenue for the several decades.
| Then those overhead wires would need to be maintained, which is
| much more expensive than just keeping rails functional.
| projektfu wrote:
| There's almost certainly a power law applying to which tracks
| are getting the most use. If you can electrify 50% of traffic
| you would make a great upgrade, and it wouldn't require
| anything near 150,000km of track.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Aren't they diesel-electric though? It's not like a diesel
| engine is turning the wheels. The diesel is just power the
| electric motor driving the wheels, or are these not the norm?
| [deleted]
| trothamel wrote:
| https://scag.ca.gov/sites/main/files/file-attachments/crgmsa...
|
| According to this study from 2012, the cost of electrifying
| railroads in California is about $4.8M/track mile, and
| according to google, there are about 140,000 route miles of
| freight rail in the US.
|
| I'd assume that doing this in bulk might drop the costs
| substantially, but we're still talking about a huge network.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| It's not necessarily doing it in bulk that would make it
| cheap, it's basically turning it into an assembly line
| capable of doing a small amount of miles every year for ever
| cheaper cost.
|
| American infrastructure projects tend to be super big, then
| don't do anything for 10+ years before you kickstart
| everything up again. This is a fairly poor idea if you want
| to keep knowledge around from the last time it was done.
| trothamel wrote:
| It's one of those things that's kind of useless if you only
| do a small number of miles a year though - if you don't
| have the ability to make the entire journey electric, you
| have to involve two locomotives and the cost to switch
| them. That might be why Battery-Electric looks good, as you
| only need to electrify the two stations.
| mlyle wrote:
| It's not too hard to make locomotives that can use
| electric power in addition to diesel, because the
| architecture is already an electrical connection between
| the diesel generator and the wheels.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Not necessarily.
|
| Amtrak is currently investing in dual-mode locomotives:
| https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/amtrak-
| sie...
|
| My understanding of how these work is that when not
| connected to wires directly, a diesel generator supplies
| electricity instead. So partial wiring is possible with
| these. Amtrak has some additional constraints (they can't
| run diesels under the Hudson River) but to some extent a
| lot of freight operators have similar restrictions but
| deal with them differently; due to ventilation concerns,
| most Western mountain tunnels only permit one train in
| them at any given time, and the crews have to carry
| respirators and oxygen in case the trains stall inside
| the tunnel.
|
| ---
|
| Britain also has trains that do this running with a
| program of incremental electrification:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_802
|
| Once the electrification is complete, the equipment can
| be converted to full electric operation simply by
| unplugging the diesel generators.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| _laughing / crying in CAHSR_
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_California_High-
| Spe...
| sixothree wrote:
| Who are they buying them from?
| Aloha wrote:
| Progress Rail
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Well, that at least explains why they laid off so many of their
| private security personnel, and then helped shaped the "LA train
| crime" story to their advantage. Those battery-electric
| locomotives are not cheap.
|
| [ EDIT: have any of you downvoting this actually read the
| backstory to the LA train crime story? Here are some links to the
| layoff part:
|
| https://jalopnik.com/union-pacific-train-thefts-started-righ...
|
| https://www.lataco.com/union-pacific-theft-police-laid-off/
|
| ]
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