If GE or EMD built a pure electric freight motor, how powerful it would it be, in terms of HP and TE?
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It would depend on the service, intended speeds, grades, curves, available power, what the railroad can afford to pay for power, etc. The GG-1 was about 4000 HP for high speed passenger service, the Great Northern W-1 was a about 5000 HP for heavy slow freight on mountain grades, and the AEM-7 is about 6000 HP for high speed passenger service. If there was a requirement for electric freight locomotive in US, and I double there will be in the near future given our lack of a national energy policy, it would probably based on something already out there running. There are several heavy haul electric railroads around the world that are already using successful electric locomotives.
We still have some electric freight in the US... Most everyone forgets about the old E60's that haul coal down in New Mexico
Black Mesa and Powell railroad in Arizona is what I was referring to... Not New Mexico..
There have been a couple of mine to power plant electric railroads built. These are not common carriers and not part of the general system of railroads. What sets these railroads apart is that they are new railroads built as electric railroads and they generate their own power.
There are advantages for the railroads to electrify. It gives them a lot of flexibility in fuel and on grades, energy can be recovered through regeneration instead of dynamic brakes, which just turn all that recovered energy to waste heat. The problems are the cost of applying electrification to existing railroads and no energy policy. To electrify an existing railroad with high voltage AC would require the vertical clearances, like tunnels and bridges, be increased from about 21 feet to about 30 feet. No electrification like the Pennsylvania, with a 19 foot contact wire, would ever be built here again. The contact wire would probably be something like 26 feet. All the railroads existing signals and communication systems would have to be changed to be compatible with the track being used as the ground return. Then there is the energy policy issue. The railroads would have to be sure that, when there was a power shortage on a hot summer day, they would not be turned off to protect residential air conditioning loads. Then there is the cost of building thousands of miles of the overhead contact system. The source for all that power they are going to use has to be found or built, and the load would be what power companies hate, a single phase load.
To electrify there are a lot of issues for privately owned railroads to overcome when their biggest problem is next quarters bottom line.
I've always wondered: how are top-loaded cars, such as coal hoppers and container cars,
loaded under the wire?
Aaron
Several of the mining roads, like Kennecott Utah Mines Division, had side pantographs on their locomotives. At loading areas the overhead contact wire ran about 15 feet off to one side. The pantograph design was cleaver. They sat on the roof, one on each side of the main pan, length wise. When air was applied the pan would swing out sideways ninth degrees and then go up contacting the wire. Other roads, like the North Shore serviced industries with locomotives that had large storage batteries so they could run out from under the wire for short periods of time. The Sacramento Northern served a lot of petroleum distributors with tank cars. To unload the tank car a man must get on top and open the dome as the discharge valve handle is inside the dome. On these sidings there was a large knife switch that disconnected both the trolley wire and track and grounded both of them so it was safe to work on top of cars.
i haver never seen a container loading facility with overhead trolley wire. There might be some in Europe, I do not know.
I actually found a picture of a Kennecott locomotive running on a side pantograph. In the background you can see the boom of a steam (electric) shovel loading side dump cars. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/re...0029.photos.157733p/
Originally Posted by GCRailways:
I've always wondered: how are top-loaded cars, such as coal hoppers and container cars,
loaded under the wire?
Aaron
On the BC Rail Tumbler division the electric locomotives would drop their pantographs and coast under the coal loaders. Once on the other side they would raise the pantographs and back the train so the first car would be under the loader. Then they would continue to pull the train forward to continue the loading process.
Stuart
