For a good part of today, April 18, a conversation has flown back and forth via email between me, Karl Junkin of TRAC, Mike Sullivan and Rick Ciccarelli of the Weston Coalition, and Robert Wightman (a frequent contributor to comments here and a member of the original Streetcars for Toronto Committee). I will not attempt to précis all of the threads, but thought it worthwhile to bring the discussion out into a broader context in this blog.
The problem, in brief, is to ensure that the electrification of the Weston/Georgetown corridor happens sooner rather than later and that the number of diesel trains operated on that corridor is kept to a minimum as service builds up to projected levels.
We had quite a discussion about dual mode locomotives with the major points pro and con boiling down to:
- Bombardier produces a dual mode locomotive which is operating or on order in a few cities.
- This locomotive could handle a 10-car GO train, but not a 12-car consist.
- Dual mode would allow electrification to proceed in smaller increments with diesel operation beyond the end of the electrified territory.
- These locomotives are very expensive, and the added capital spent on them must be weighed against the cost of electrification.
- They need both diesel power and the power conversion equipment to convert the 25KV distribution voltage for use by the train. Because there are, in effect, equipment for two power plants, you are always towing around one that isn’t doing anything, but both have to be maintained.
The idea lurking behind this is to maximize the amount of electric operation in the Weston corridor at least as far as the airport in keeping with the desire of communities along the corridor to minimize diesel operation, noise and fumes.
Various links of interest:
Railway Age article (quoted on another site).
Bombardier specification sheets for existing New Jersey and on-order Montreal equipment.
Specification sheets for GO’s current equipment (here and here, similar content).
Recently, I threw a new variation into the discussion by suggesting that there could be two separate fleets of locomotives. Purely electric locomotives would be used to hall the service on the all-day section of the Lakeshore and Georgetown lines, and diesels would be used for peak period express trips running on the extended routes.
This arrangement would mean that all off-peak service would be electric, and diesel operations would remain only for peak extensions and for lines that had not been converted for electric operation.
There are downsides to this, notably that more infrastructure would be needed to get to the point where electric service could start, but it would achieve much of the goal of reduced diesel operation in the major corridors without requiring electrification to the end of service territory. It would also eliminate the need for dual mode locomotives — whether this is a “benefit” depends a lot on where you stand on this type of operation.
Finally, all of this assumes that “Blue 22” would be electrified from day 1. This seems highly unlikely given current arrangements with the proponent, SNC Lavalin, who are not even providing new equipment for their service. Whether the proposed structures for the airport access tracks can even accommodate future electrification is unknown, and I would not be surprised to hear how we couldn’t possibly force SNC Lavalin to include this in the initial build.
Metrolinx is showing its usual colours on this whole issue saying that the project to get new service on the Weston corridor is far to important to delay, and that electrification is something for the future. They are not making a lot of friends along the line on this count as well as on other structural issues involving neighbourhood impacts. I will explore those in a separate post.
Steve Munro 
Steve sent me this following comment from Karl:
“Like you, I’m trying to think budget. Consider this: 6 hybrid locos at $12.5M each is $75M (assume the other 5 are diesel for peak-only service). How much would 6 purely electric locos cost? At $7M as an example, it would be $42M. That saves $33M in locomotive capital investment through expanding the electrification zone, before any maintenance savings over the long-term. That’s a rather large difference for such a small scope, and the savings get larger as the scope increases. This is why I seriously think it could be cheaper for GO to not use the hybrid.”
It definitely would be cheaper not to use hybrids cause they cost $15 million each and can only haul 8 bi-levels in diesel mode. It would be a total waste of money to electrfy the line and then haul the cars with locomotives. This would not give you any real speed increase because the acceleration rates would be too slow. You need self propelled cars to get the benefit of faster acceleration rate. They have a max acceleration of about 2.5 m/s/s versus less than 0.5 m/s/s for locomotive hauled trains. I did further checking and NJT says that the locomotives will only haul 8 cars in diesel mode.
The one thing that you do not want in commuter service is to electrify then run locomotive hauled coaches. They will not accelerate any faster than diesels though they can haul more coaches and achieve a higher top speed. That is why they are used for long distance trains that have few stops since the top speed determines running times and not acceleration. Commuter service depends on acceleration rates and not top speed. This needs self propelled cars.
The maximum tractive effort of any locomotive is 78 000 pounds regardless of its horsepower. Tractive effort determines acceleration rate, horsepower determines top speed. A 12 car train weighs about 12 time 90 000 pounds for the cars plus 288 000 pounds for the locomotive for a total of 1 368 000 pounds. Its acceleration is about 0.6 m/s/s at the start and drops off rapidly. Self propelled cars have a coefficient of friction of 0.25 for DC traction motors or an acceleration of 2.5 m/s/s, but humans do not like much more than 1.0 to 1.3 m/s/s
Since the self propelled cars are capable of over twice this they can maintain that acceleration to a much higher speed. The Deux Montagnes line in Montreal cut the one way running time from 55 minutes with electric locomotives to 35 minutes with electric multiple unit cars. This is why GO needs electric self propelled cars and not electric locomotives or dual power ones. Either stay with straight diesels or go with self propelled electric multiple unit cars. Electric locomotives give you the worst of both worlds, high infrastructure costs and low acceleration.
Robert Wightman
LikeLike
Why does everything in this city need to be done so cheaply?
Why can’t we have a proper electrified train from our airport to downtown from the get go?
So embarrassing!
LikeLike
“minimize diesel operation, noise and fumes.”
Noise and fumes?? I live near the Lakeshore line. The noise isn’t from the diesel, it’s from 13-cars of heavy steel zipping by. Changing to electricity wouldn’t change this much. Fumes? Good grief, I’ve never smelled fumes from a GO train; not even when standing on an overpass when they zip under? I’m tired of hearing this propaganda from whining Weston Nimbies!
Steve: The issue is not what you can smell, it’s what is in the fumes.
Don’t play into their games Steve. These people are out to stop transit, because they don’t want trains in their backyards. If they had been talking electrification from day one, they’d be out there whining that they’ll all get cancer from the power lines.
If these people were serious about simply wanting to improve things, they would be focusing on the profit aspect of the Union-Pearson service, and the CP tracks being at a different elevation than the CN tracks.
Instead they have these Nimby-only complaints about smell, noise, too many trains, and even that an extra $300 million should be spent to provide a vehicle crossing at John Street, instead of a pedestrian crossing, even though it’s only a 175-metre extra drive to the vehicle crossing at King Street. The rest of the city doesn’t get crossings every 500-metres and these guys are complaing it’s not enough … shameful.
Steve: GO Transit and Metrolinx have been playing that “Nimby” card for ages and it’s getting tiresome. People on other parts of the line are upset too, now that they see what will be happening.
Many people have been complaining about the Union-Pearson service going to a private company, and GO was excluded from bidding on it. However, who operates the service makes no difference to its impact. Correspondence on the Weston Community Coalition’s website makes disparaging comments about the private sector arrangement over four years ago.
The original EA for the project stated quite clearly that the infrastructure changes needed for GO were different and presumably less than those needed for the Airport Link which was the primary driver behind the need to close grade crossings. Now, however, the requirements appear to have been combined given the level of service GO/Metrolinx plans.
Electrification as an option becomes more viable as the level of service increases, and that’s why it has only been discussed recently. In the context of the Metrolinx and GO regional plans, the level of service on GO generally is going up a great deal, and there is a strong argument to convert to electric operation to improve speed and to permit closer station spacing. GO will evolve into a regional rapid transit system over the next decade and needs appropriate infrastructure and technology to do so.
The CP tracks won’t be carrying many trains per day, and the geometry of the area limits the ability to put the CP freight traffic in an underpass. However, there won’t be an airport train every 15 minutes each way plus a GO train every 30 minutes off peak, every 10 or better in peak on the CP.
The question is not a vehicle crossing at John Street versus a pedestrian bridge, but the desire for an accessible crossing between the residential and commercial communities. “Accessible” doesn’t mean climbing up a long ramp to get to the top of the bridge. Sending pedestrian traffic to a crossing 500 metres away adds 2 km to a round trip. That changes a comparatively short walk to Weston Road into a long hike that’s unrealistic for a large chunk of the community. The crossing has been there for years, and community travel patterns have grown around it.
LikeLike
Are there physical obstacles to electrifying this corridor that would make it particularly difficult?
This corridor will be the most important to electrify, given the planned traffic in it. Lakeshore is already used to all day traffic, and the other lines are projected to have less frequency.
LikeLike
I’d need to dig through press releases or something to back this up, but I believe it was already announced that GO’s next order of locomotives after the current one was to be dual-mode.
Originally the plan was to follow the initial order of 27 MotivePower units (the current MP40s) with 20 more, IIRC it was noted on a recentish followup announcement that instead of 20 they’d only get 10 more of the same, and instead immediately begin collaborative work with MotivePower at developing a dual-mode variant.
Steve: This information is on the GO website:
LikeLike
Robert,
You mentioned self propelled cars, which would be necessary in order to get acceleration improvements. Would this require extra space for the trucks, and therefore require mid-level boarding (as opposed to the low-level boarding on all of GO’s bilevel trains today)?
LikeLike
I wonder if a possible interim solution could be to order and operate self-propelled electric cars, but attach a regular diesel locomotive to each train that would operate outside the electrified sections.
Steve: This means that the EMU cars would have to push or pull the diesel around as dead weight, something that would detract from performance and would still require a diesel on any trains expected to run beyond the extent of electrification.
LikeLike
I am really glad to see someone else trying to start a serious discussion of EMU-style trainsets. There are many finer points to work out in order to tailor them to our network and adjust our service mentality to suit. For some of the planned frequent service, EMU trainsets would be a near-necessity. They also provide simple scalability that is energy efficient on short and full-length trains (when equipment is designed as married sets of three or four cars with distributed mechanical equipment). Three and four-car sets are a convenient division of the current max of twelve. At the very least they allow for propulsion redundancy so we can avoid past problems with locomotive failures out on the line. The trainsets could also be articulated to reduce the redundant truck count and the associated weight. The floor and loading door areas can be kept lower overall by only powering the first, third and fifth trucks in a four-car articulated set, for example.
I again refer to the London, England example which I have experienced extensively. Looking past all the unrelated problems there with privatization and under-investment in maintenance system-wide, the technology stands on its own. They have all-electric, diesel, I believe some dual-mode, and both third-rail and catanery supply. While we have less need for variations, the flexible design is apparent. We could have some dual-mode or diesel-only, but also different interior layouts for short and long-distance trips (ie, lack of washrooms on frequent short-distance trains). In the London example, one car in four is an un-powered trailer, so three and four-car sets can be chosen easily from a common production line without major alterations. This is even standard practice on their Underground system for subway cars.
LikeLike
I have gone over this twice and hope that I have found all of my stupid errors. I have used first order approximations for numbers and have tried to round to the worst case for electric self propelled and the best case for locomotive hauled units.
This is a PHYSICS lesson on the operation of trains and self propelled versus diesel hauled locomotives:
The maximum axle loading for a locomotive is 72 000 pounds per axle, which means that the maximum weight of a 4 axle locomotive is 288 000 pounds. With DC traction motors the maximum usable coefficient of friction is 0.25 which means that the tractive effort (accelerating force) is 0.25 times the weight or 72 000 pounds. Freight locomotives have 6 axles so they can weigh 432 000 pounds and develop 108 000 pounds of tractive effort. One pound of tractive effort will accelerate a mass of 1 pound at 32.2 feet/s/s or 22 miles per hour per second (mphps). This means that the speed of the object will increase by 22 mph in each second. The maximum level that is comfortable for passengers, especially standees is 3.0 to 3.5 mphps. I am going to do every thing in the old British system since the railways list every thing in these units. If you want it in metric send Steve an email and he will forward it to me and I will send you a copy.
The GO bi-levels have an empty weight of 49.5 metric tonnes or 108 900 pounds. Add 160 passengers at an average weight of 150 pounds and you have a rush hour weight of about 134 000 pounds. There are 12 cars for a total mass of 1 605 000 pounds plus 288 000 for the locomotive and you have 1 894 000 pounds. Using the old acceleration equation of F = ma this gives an acceleration of 0.83 mphps. If you could keep this rate up for 72 seconds you would reach 60 mph but the rate of acceleration drops off as the speed picks up because friction forces increase very rapidly while the tractive forces drop off. You can only keep this tractive effort up to 20 mph then it drops of to 50 000 pounds at 30 mph, 25 000 pounds at 60 and 17 000 pounds at 90 mph. This gives acceleration rates of just over .5 mphps at 30 mph and just over .2 mphps at 60 mph. It would take at least 3 minutes to reach 60 mph because while the tractive force is dropping the friction force increases until they are equal and the train stops accelerating as the forces are balanced. This is the balance speed.
Self propelled car with all axles powered could accelerate at 5.5 mphps theoretically but really at 3 mphps for passenger comfort. The loaded weight of an electric multiple unit would be about 140 000 pound and would have 700 hp motors at the industry standard of 10 hp per ton for self propelled units. The tractive effort would be 35 000 pounds which a 700 hp unit could keep up until 22 mph. It would still be accelerating at 1.2 mphps at 30 mph and just under 1 mphps at 60 mph. This means the train would reach 60 mph in 50 seconds instead of 180 seconds. This would save at least two minutes per stop and probably closer to three minutes. The Georgetown line has 8 stops so you would cut 24 minutes off the one way trip time. On a fifteen minute headway this would save three train sets for the round trip.
GO bi-levels cost just over $2 million each so say $3 million for a self propelled electric multiple unit. This is a savings of $108 million in equipment. It is the savings in equipment costs that will justify the expense of electrification not the price of fuel. The Dual powered locomotives from Bombardier cost $15 million dollars each versus $5 million for the new MP 40’s. The reason NJT and AMT (Montreal) want dual powered locomotives is that they run in tunnels where you cannot run an internal combustion engines. These locomotives save them an engine change and the resulting time loss. GO has no such problems so using these locomotives would be a colossal waste of money. Electrify the parts of the line that are going to have 30 minute or better base service with 10 minutes or better rush and use diesel locomotives to haul the rush hour only service that would run express in the electrified section.
The dual powered locomotives need a transformer to reduce the 25 000 volts to about 1000 for the traction motors. This is 4 ft by 8 ft by 10 feet, weighs 25 000 pound and takes up space where the diesel engines would fit. This is why Bombardier has to use two smaller, higher reving caterpillar diesels instead of one large diesel. Above the trucks you have two complete locomotives, one diesel and one electric. You also need a very complex electronic unit to convert the 25 000 volt 60 Hz single phase overhead power to 600 volt 60 Hz three phase for the hotel or car heating and cooling use. This item is NOT cheap. Dual powered locomotives for GO transit are just plain stupid. Under electric operation the horse power would be around 6000. It would not increase the initial acceleration rate but it would keep that rate up until you reached 30 mph instead of 20. The time savings would be marginal.
Self propelled GO bi-levels would need to have auxiliary equipment that is normally found in the locomotive added. First would be a step down transformer from 25 000 volts to 600 to a 1000 volts. This would weight about 4000 pounds. You would need an air compressor, battery charger, traction motors and sand storage. The traction motors would mount on the trucks as in subway cars so would take up no extra space. The transformer and other equipment would have to be in the cars as there is no room under them. I would use the space just to the outside of the doors on the 2500 series where the washroom and conductor’s station are now found. The washroom would need to be moved to the middle of the car. The sand could go under seats at either end of the car out board of the trucks. While I recognize that it would be a tight fit it could be done in the same style of car.
LikeLike
If the line is electrified are significant track upgrades necessary to support the increased speed? I suspect signaling work would be required. What about track speed crossovers?
Steve: Signalling changes are needed to run trains closer together regardless of propulsion technology. Higher speed crossovers would only be needed if there were somewhere that trains would now run at a faster speed than before. The main reason for electrification is better acceleration and deceleration, not higher top speed.
LikeLike
DiCK Says:
April 19th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
“If the line is electrified are significant track upgrades necessary to support the increased speed? I suspect signaling work would be required. What about track speed crossovers?”
According to GO’s website the line is going to be set for 95 mph operation for passenger trains. There will be significant increases in speed from the top speed of 65 mph that now exist.
LikeLike
There are 2 problems here, as I can see.
1) You can’t electrify a line in one day, it takes months to build the catenary and electrical supply equipment, on a line like Lakeshore I would not be surprised if it took 2 years or more. So you either have electrified line you can’t use, or you need some kind of dual power system.
2) A lot of cars would need to be replaced for self-powered operation, not sure what the resale value is on a bilevel car or what the demand is like on the used market.
Some dual powered locomotives would solve some of the problems, with the idea that you run the diesel in the non-electrified areas and the electric where it is electrified.
Self powered cars should be designed, the idea being that when replacing cars you would replace them with self powered units.
When a line is completely electrified, electric only locomotives would be used, for non-self powered cars and self powered cars would run without the locomotives, although a power converter and controller with a pantograph would need to be on end of train units, this might reduce the passenger capacity of those units, unless they are special units that look and act like locomotives.
An ideal would be to electrify the entire system.
Steve: I believe that the original design for the bilevel cars provided for them to be self-propelled. Whether this design has been maintained, and how easily electrical equipment can be retrofitted (as opposed to being incorporated in the cars as manufactured), I don’t know.
As for construction, any major new facility goes through a period when the infrastructure is there but not available for use. If they are going to tear apart the Weston/Brampton corridor to add tracks, that’s a good time to include the infrastructure for electrification.
LikeLike
A note about diesel noise: I’ve stayed at a place next to the tracks crossing Jones Avenue north of Gerrard, and just by listening, I could tell if a GO train was passing by in pull or push orientation. The rushing cars make quite the rumble, but the engine has a booming roar that you just can’t miss; it makes for a startling crescendo when the engine comes last. At times, there’s a siren-like wail to it (not sure if that comes from different throttle settings or from cooling fans).
An EMU would pretty much have to be quieter.
LikeLike
“Sending pedestrian traffic to a crossing 500 metres away adds 2 km to a round trip.”
Good grief Steve – you’ve been brainwashed by them. Check the map. John Street is only 175 metres down the track from King Street! That’s not much more than the length of a subway platform! Check out the spacing of track crossings the tracks on the Lakeshore line between Broadview and Victoria Park.
“The issue is not what you can smell, it’s what is in the fumes.” What about the fumes of the cars that the diesel trains take off the road. What about the diesel fumes for all those cars that would have been taken off the road if not for 5-years of delays that Weston has caused – initially somewhat justified … but it’s almost like they get more rabid the more concessions they get.
Given how much worse fumes from a trains worth of cars is, how many people has the 5-year delay killed?
Steve: Sorry about the distance. I appear to have done some double counting there. It’s 175m to go to an adjacent crossing, and 250m to get back to John and Weston Road (the streets are farther apart there) for a total of 425m. This makes a round trip of 850m. This has probably been rounded up to 1km at some point, and I doubled it in error.
As for the fumes and the delay to construction, the pollution from commuters is dispersed over the entire western GTA. The pollution from the trains is concentrated along the corridor. This is a concern not just for residents of Weston but also of other communities along the route. Don’t forget that this whole process started because the Air Rail link wanted a fast connection to Pearson even though that route will carry less than 1,000 passengers per hour at peak.
The Weston folks are not “rabid”, they are just tired of GO, and now Metrolinx, inconsistent explanations for what they are planning.
LikeLike
If I recall correctly, the original bi-level coach order were designed for eventual conversion to self-propelled operation. The roof over the ends of the cars was specifically designed for eventual mounting of a pantograph, with equipment installed in the area under the stairs at each end of the cars. This requirement may have been dropped in later versions.
LikeLike
Wogster Says:
April 19th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
“There are 2 problems here, as I can see.
“1) You can’t electrify a line in one day, it takes months to build the catenary and electrical supply equipment, on a line like Lakeshore I would not be surprised if it took 2 years or more. So you either have electrified line you can’t use, or you need some kind of dual power system.
“2) A lot of cars would need to be replaced for self-powered operation, not sure what the resale value is on a bilevel car or what the demand is like on the used market.
“Some dual powered locomotives would solve some of the problems, with the idea that you run the diesel in the non-electrified areas and the electric where it is electrified. “
Forget dual powered locomotives though I don’t think GO will. They are not worth the money. So what if the wire does not get used for two years; it is not going to go bad. With the service expansions that GO is proposing beyond what will be electrified territory there will still be a need for unpowered cars.
I do not know if the bi-levels have the supports for pans and the ducting built in but I know the old single level cars did. They even had the motor mount on the trucks but this was so they could cut the cars up, rebuild them as subway cars and sell them to the TTC if GO was a flop.
If you were to convert the existing cars to electric self propelled then you would need to add: transformer, air compressor, sanders, motor controllers, low voltage systems and motor which would mount on the trucks. In addition you would need to convert the air conditioning from 600 volt three phase to single phase or put a power conversion unit on the cars. I don’t know which is cheaper but using the power conversion unit means that you could still put them behind a diesel locomotive and take head end power from the diesel. They would probably leave the equipment semi permanently coupled in three or four car sets. This would allow some flexibility in consist length while reducing the number of auxiliaries as each set would only need one compressor, one low power unit and only the end cars would need cabs and sander.
If you look at what is NOT going to be electrified, Newmarket Sub, Bala Sub, Uxbridge Sub, Galt Sub (?), plus trains to Bolton and those that go beyond Hamilton, Mt. Pleasant, Oshawa plus possibly on CP to east Markham and Seaton there should be enough demand for the equipment that they have without converting much. Don’t forget that the first bi-levels arrived in 1978 and are now 30 years old. These will be coming up (are coming up) for major rebuilding or replacement. There will not be a lot of surplus cars sitting around. Conversion if necessary could be done when the cars go in for their major mid life rebuild.
It is cheaper to build 12 coaches and one locomotive which is why main line high speed passenger service uses them. They also have the ability to run those coaches behind regular diesel. The penalty you pay is slow acceleration but if you are running from New York to Washington with only a couple of stops who cares. If you are running a commuter line with a number of stops then it is worth the extra money for self propelled cars to reduce your equipment needs by 25%. There is no economic or operational basis for GO to order dual power or electric locomotives. The only options that make sense are diesel hauled coaches for service that goes to unelectrified territory and electric self propelled for service that stays in electrified areas
LikeLike
The loco vs. multiple unit decision is different for electric and diesel trains.
For diesel trains, it is more energy efficient to have a locomotive once you hit 8 coaches, and more efficient to have multiple units at 4 cars or fewer (6 is marginal).
Electrification of a sufficiently busy corrdior is more energy efficient than running any sort of diesel, regardless of whether electric locos or EMUs are used. With electric power, there are not significant energy efficiency gains to be made by switching between locos and EMUs.
What EMUs offer is *more powered axles*. With steel wheels on steel rail, there is only so much traction you can have on each wheel without slipping. A loco offers at most six powered axles, while an EMU offers at most four powered axles per carriage, or 48 per 12-car train. Thus an EMU can have more traction, yielding better acceleration. (What would probably happen is that the axles at one end of half the carriages would be powered, resulting in 12 per 12-car train – still more than a loco).
Bi-powered locos are only worth buying if a given corridor is only partly electrified. Otherwise, you just have two sorts of loco on the system (which is perfectly managaeable).
LikeLike
The Weston people are now being joined by every community group on both sides of the track with many meeting happening this week.
It’s very easy to call people NIMBYs when you don’t have the facts but I doubt there are many people anywhere who would want hundreds of additional train trips every day coating their area in diesel fumes. The Junction Triangle, and other parts of the line, have finally emerged from their polluted past with things like Railpath and soil remediation. To then create a polluting corridor under the guise of Green is an insult. For the record, I don’t think there is one community group along the corridor that is against increased Green rail use.
Retrolinx and Go have not been very upfront with their intentions and at many open houses local residents knew more about the issues than they did. I remind you that at the last round of Retrolinx’s open houses nobody had heard of Railpath even though it runs (in stage 1) for 2 KM along the corridor and was already under construction. So residents certainly had reason to be concerned about Retrolinx’s facts and figures.
To be clear, I live along the tracks AND I support increased Green rail transit of which diesel is not. That makes me a YIMBY. Supposed Green Liberal MPs along the corridor, where are you?
LikeLike
Tom West Says:
April 20th, 2009 at 11:16 am
“What EMUs offer is *more powered axles*. With steel wheels on steel rail, there is only so much traction you can have on each wheel without slipping. A loco offers at most six powered axles, while an EMU offers at most four powered axles per carriage, or 48 per 12-car train. Thus an EMU can have more traction, yielding better acceleration. (What would probably happen is that the axles at one end of half the carriages would be powered, resulting in 12 per 12-car train – still more than a loco).”
This is one axle per car or ¼ of the acceleration for powering them all. This was how some of the old Deux Montagnes car worked. When AMT electrified they chose to power all axles. The maximum acceleration rate would be just over 1 mphps and it would drop after 7 mph; at 30 mph your acceleration would be 0.25, not earth shattering. You would lose all the benefit of self propelled equipment and would be marginally better than locomotive hauled. It really does not add any thing to the tractive effort because you are hauling a lot of weight that does not get applied to the drive wheels. Montreal Metro can haul trailers because they have rubber tires with a higher coefficient of friction. Power all the axles.
LikeLike
To Robert Wightman:
Do they really need to rebuild much on the existing GO coaches, there is a difference between a powered and unpowered coach, in this regard. Via has coaches that were originally built in the 1930’s that are still in regular service, other then maybe the trucks, the only changes were new replacing tile with carpet, repainting and recovering the seats. While this was done in the 1970’s I think a lot of it was because CN and CP had done no work on the cars up until that point, and many needed work done. Even the RDC’s needed a makeover in the late 1970’s as the linoleum floors and TTC H4 style plastic seats were well beyond their prime.
I haven’t been on a GO train in a long time, but GO always seemed to keep up on their maintenance, other then maybe switching out the trucks and adding washrooms and wheel chair seating, they should be in good shape. Depending on how complex the powering of the units would be, this could be easy.
A question on the GO cars, would they add a pantograph to each car, or just end units and run power cables between the other cars. If they run power cables then conversion is a lot easier for the other cars. Because the power equipment would be in the end units, to convert from line power to traction and hotel power. The big question is, would there be room for the Power control circuitry in the existing control stand cars. Another option of course, build a car that looks like a locomotive, basically a blunt nose subway car with no windows or passenger doors, that has a pantograph and all the power control equipment, they would then have power lines running between the cars, so all the regular cars need is motors (and maybe a small controller board), a control stand car would use the existing method to tell the power car what it does now.
Steve: Running power cables between cars effectively makes sets of cars a married unit that cannot be broken to remove a single car for repairs. It is much preferable to have power pickups and controls on every unit. Also if cables are run through the train, they must be capable of carrying the power demand of the entire train to one point — the car with the pantograph.
Putting a pantograph on every car would increase the maintenance on the overhead catenary.
LikeLike
I’m told by a colleague who commutes on Lakeshore East that the MP40s have had adhesion issues.
As for the EMUs displacing large numbers of existing trailers – even if surplus cars still exist after accounting for life-expiry and the new/expanded lines listed above in a prior comment, it should be feasible to fob off some on a GO style network in the Ottawa area, starting with Smiths Falls.
I think directing Thunder Bay to make GO bilevel EMUs is a more practical way to maintain the jobs there with an adaptation of a familiar design than having them make streetcars which could be just as easily made here in the GTA with thousands of auto workers losing their jobs.
As for diesels coating everything for miles around with PM10s and NOx, it’s worth remembering that GO’s 27 MP40s are EPA Tier 2 rated according to the manufacturer, and 20 more to come. The older F59s are far more likely to be an issue for the north and northeastern lines, and their EMD710s can be made Tier 2 with a retrofit although there may be a fuel penalty (and ironically higher CO2).
scottd – have the Weston Community Coalition presented figures for emissions share for trains as opposed to the many TTC routes which pass through Weston?
LikeLike
scottd says “It’s very easy to call people NIMBYs when you don’t have the facts but I doubt there are many people anywhere who would want hundreds of additional train trips every day coating their area in diesel fumes.”
I live near the Lakeshore East/Stouffville tracks, and I’m thrilled that the service will soon be increased to have hundreds of trains every day – even if diesel. And I haven’t heard any complaints (I’m sure there’s a few out there – but can you imagine people complaining about increased transit service in the middle of a city!). The cars on nearby streets are far, far, far, far worse.
Diesel fumes?? I’m calling bullshit here. What’s the old rule of thumb, that each a GO Train takes 1000 cars off the road, and the emissions of a train is equivalent to 100 cars? Something like that. Remember, that Weston is also at the edge of the 401/400 interchange. The intersection of Weston and Lawrence is also pretty major.
These diesel complaints have to be most absurd, mosty-Nimby complaint I’ve ever encountered for a transit project. The residents of Weston should be absolutely ashamed for the delays they are causing to this project, and to the people that will be killed by air pollution in the meantime.
Steve: I have said this before. The pollution caused by cars is spread over the region while that caused by trains is concentrated in the corridor. The question is whether the level that will accumulate there during busy service periods is dangerous. Now that the City’s Medical Officer has been asked to report on this issue, we might get some accurate, dispassionate information.
LikeLike
I think what people are also failing to realize is that each ARL diesel car [on average] would be carrying 12 people. ARL has more trains running than GO. So the figures for GO cannot be applied to the ARL.
LikeLike
Wogster Says:
April 20th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
“To Robert Wightman:
“Do they really need to rebuild much on the existing GO coaches, there is a difference between a powered and unpowered coach, in this regard. Via has coaches that were originally built in the 1930’s that are still in regular service, other then maybe the trucks, the only changes were new replacing tile with carpet, repainting and recovering the seats. While this was done in the 1970’s I think a lot of it was because CN and CP had done no work on the cars up until that point, and many needed work done. Even the RDC’s needed a makeover in the late 1970’s as the linoleum floors and TTC H4 style plastic seats were well beyond their prime.”
VIA has only on car from before 1947 and it is stored. They have a lot of legacy cars from the late 40’s , 16,and early 50’s , 94, that are stainless steel Budd manufacture or similar design out of a total of 416 coaches. The car bodies were extremely well made and the fact that they are stainless means that they have stood up well. The insides however, especially the seats and flooring tend to wear. I believe that Ontario Northland is refurbishing the early cars in North Bay as part of a maintenance contract with GO. If cars needed to be converted they could be done as part of the maintenance contract.
As for running a power cable between cars there are two schools of thought on this. One is that you have more pans to maintain and the other is that there is less to go wrong. The power cables would carry 25 ooo volts so you would need a special cable and safety interlocks to prevent accidental electrocution or fire when it is disconnected. As for the argument about not being able to move into the shops under its own power I think that this is a non starter since the car would not be operable out of its married pair (or triple or quad) as it would be missing some of the auxiliaries necessary for safe operations such as air brakes or low voltage power. When the train passes through a phase change section, the equivalent of a section break in TTC overhead, every thing connected to the pan will loose power temporarily. The fewer cars connected to one pan the fewer loose power. Because the transformers put a huge inductive load on the system many lines have magnetic trips beside the tracks to tell the control system to turn of all power before the pan hits the break to reduce arcing which can burn the pan. I know that on the London Underground they only have power shoes on one car in the married group so you better have enough speed to coast through the section insulator.
As I have said before the big item to add is the transformer. I have be told by a consultant for GO that the ones on the Deux Montagnes cars weigh about 4000 pounds. It would have to inside the car as there is no room under the car or on the roof for it. Br running the cars in semi permanently coupled groups of 2, 3 or 4 you could reduce the number of cabs and auxiliaries that would be required as you would need two cabs, two sanders, one compressor, one low voltage power system and one computer control system per set. Each car would need a transformer and motors. The control stands are basically digital and they have 8 power setting plus off. The signal is sent down a group of wires as either on or off so there would be no need to modify them. It would be useful to add electro pneumatic breaking to speed up break applications. There is no way that you could collect all the power through one car and send it down through power cables, These would need to be half the size of the third rail on the subway to carry the required current and the transformer would be about 4 feet by 8 feet by 15 feet in each end car.
This EMU is not something that has not been built before. Bombardier builds them for NJT but to a smaller profile. There are many in Europe, some also built by Bombardier. Don’t complicate matters, the knowledge is out there. Remember K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple Stupid and power all of the axles.
Mark Dowling Says:
April 21st, 2009 at 3:27 am
“I’m told by a colleague who commutes on Lakeshore East that the MP40s have had adhesion issues.”
I believe that this is because they are trying to accelerate 12 car with the same force they used for 10 before. While the cars have the more power they do not any more tractive effort. I road 12 car trains on the Milton line and they had no problems. It might be a control adjustment is needed to keep the locomotives from applying to much power too soon.
LikeLike
Robert:
So where would they put the power equipment for each car with self powered cars, without taking a significant capacity hit. The other issue of course is that you can’t move a single car unless it has a control stand, so that would eat up even more of the capacity.
LikeLike
Wogster Says:
April 21st, 2009 at 7:20 pm
“Robert:
“So where would they put the power equipment for each car with self powered cars, without taking a significant capacity hit. The other issue of course is that you can’t move a single car unless it has a control stand, so that would eat up even more of the capacity.”
I would put the transformer to the outside of the door where the washroom is in the 2500 series cars. I would put the air compressor at the opposite door in one of the car of the married group of four; low voltage unit in another car, communication/computer in another and the conductor’s station in the fourth. I am all for polygamy when it comes to rail vehicles. The washroom would be in the inside of the lower unit; yes you would loose some seating capacity. Each group of four would have 2 cab cars one at each end which would eat up more seats. I would put sanders at the cab end of the outer cars, probably under some seat. The motors would be mounted on the trucks and the motor controllers could go under 2 sets of seats in the lower level. In a four car unit you would loose 8 seats for each cab, total of 16, 4 for each washroom total of 16, plus 3 for each auxiliary unit total of 12. This makes 44 seats out of a total of 640 or 7% of the total seating in a 4 car set; I believe that this is an acceptable trade off for the improved performance.
There are a lot of EMU’s in England and Europe that operate in 3 or 4 car units. If you wanted to work on a single car then you would have shop motors, probably Whiting trackmobiles, which would move the detached unit in the shop. This arrangement would allow you to operate 4, 8 or 12 car trains. If you wanted more flexibility then you could also have 3 car units which would allow you to operate 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 or 12 car trains but I don’t think that is necessary. I am not making these things up in my head; they all exist and some are even manufactured by Bombardier. They know how to do this. Why would you want to move a single car except in the shop? Stop and think about what you are saying and do some research. There is a magazine, “Modern Railways” published by Ian Allan from the UK that has all this information in it. You can buy it at Indigo or Chapters.
I cannot believe that I said I road a 12 car train instead of I rode a 12 car train. My English teachers are turning over in their graves.
Steve: Sorry about that. Normally I try to catch and fix spelling mistakes unless leaving a comment in its original form contributes to understanding the, er, um, style of the writer.
LikeLike
Further to my comment about EMU’s, after thinking it over I believe that most of the auxiliaries could be put under existing seat so that would return 12 seats to the mix.
Secondly you do not need a full control stand to move a single car about a yard if it is indeed capable of doing so on its own. The old RDC 9’s, cabless motorized trailers, and the cabless B units for the F series locomotives had hoslter controls for yard moves. These were basically push buttons that allowed the car to move at lowest possible speed and to be stopped. I have seen cars like the new ones being order for the Yonge subway moving about yards over seas without a cab car on either end. The Toronto cars will probably have this feature as the shops are set up to work on two car sets. The second hand PCC’s that Toronto bought also had these as back up controllers under the rear seat. This made it possible for one man to back them into a stub end yard track.
Again there is nothing new or unique in the requirement for GO EMU’s. There are already double decker EMU’s running on 25 000 volt AC from catenary. The only difference is our streamlined shape and nice green colour.
LikeLike
A couple of quick comments…
The BBD dual-power units are rated for 8 MultiLevel cars – these are the cars that AMT and NJT are buying. They have a considerably higher HEP usage (~67kW vs. ~53kW for a BiLevel), and so they should easily be able to handle 10 BiLevels here in Toronto.
The BiLevel structure was designed to be able to be redesigned into an EMU vehicle – but this is not the same as re-equipping the current fleet. A longer intermediate level at one end is necessary to handle the additional equipment.
The last issue is that the regulatory requirements for EMU’s are too stringent to allow them to become commonplace in North America. Until such a time that they are no longer considered locomotives, it won’t be practical for many/most properties. One can look at AMT and NJT, both of which are looking to enhance EMU-provided service with loco-hauled ones (and in NJT’s case, replacing EMU’s outright).
Dan
Toronto, Ont.
LikeLike
What’s the contemporary conventional wisdom on trains composed of powered and unpowered cars? I’m pretty sure that some British trains employ this approach. Maybe some inspection and maintenance costs could be reduced if two cars in each four-car MU group were unpowered.
And if it’s still considered viable to go that route, it raises an interesting possibility for hybrid diesel/electric operation — just create a mixed train of DMUs and EMUs. It may not be any more sensible than dual-power locomotives, but at least you can dispose of the DMUs when you don’t need them any more, or move them to service on non-electrified track, instead of being stuck with an overweight fleet of locomotives that never use half of their abilities.
LikeLike
Dan Garcia Says:
April 22nd, 2009 at 11:39 am
“A couple of quick comments
“The BBD dual-power units are rated for 8 MultiLevel cars – these are the cars that AMT and NJT are buying. They have a considerably higher HEP usage (~67kW vs. ~53kW for a BiLevel), and so they should easily be able to handle 10 BiLevels here in Toronto.”
That is 14 kW per car or 72 extra for the 8 cars. The extras 2 bi-levels need 106 kW so a net loss of 34 kW plus the extra 600 hp or 450 kW to haul two more cars It looks like they are underpowered by about 480 kW or 600 hp. I believe that I read somewhere that the 4200 hp total rating is a short term one and the continuous power output is only 3600 hp, but I can’t find it any more. So 3600 hp minus 530 kW or about 700 hp leaves you with 2900 hp for traction. The new F59’s have 3300 hp for this use; so they are underpowered.
“The BiLevel structure was designed to be able to be redesigned into an EMU vehicle – but this is not the same as re-equipping the current fleet. A longer intermediate level at one end is necessary to handle the additional equipment.”
I don’t know why you want to put it on this level. I think that you would get a better weight distribution, lower centre of gravity, by putting it on the lower level. The biggest item is the transformer which weights about 4000 pounds on the AMT EMU’s.
“The last issue is that the regulatory requirements for EMU’s are too stringent to allow them to become commonplace in North America. Until such a time that they are no longer considered locomotives, it won’t be practical for many/most properties. One can look at AMT and NJT, both of which are looking to enhance EMU-provided service with loco-hauled ones (and in NJT’s case, replacing EMU’s outright).”
I agree that the requirement to have a 92 day, quarterly, major service is a little stringent but they are looking at increasing this on the newer equipment. If this could be extended to every 183 day, half yearly, then this would be better. If you are not going to run EMU’s then there is no service advantage to running electric or dual powered locomotives over straight diesel. In fact there is a huge penalty to pay. It would be a colossal waste of money to electrify without running EMU’s. If you are going to spend $4 billion to electrify the Lakeshore and Georgetown then you had better get a major benefit, like shorter running times. AMT and NJT require electric propulsion because of running in tunnels or in New York City. GO does not have any of these restrictions so I believe that there is a better place to spend $4 billion than on a electrification that would have minimal benefit. They must run EMU’s if they electrify.
Robert Brampton ON
LikeLike
Karl Junkin Says: “I think what people are also failing to realize is that each ARL diesel car [on average] would be carrying 12 people. ARL has more trains running than GO. So the figures for GO cannot be applied to the ARL.”. At most these one-car self-propelled trains will run once every 15 minutes. I can’t believe for a second that anyone is going to be concerned about about a single-car going down the track every 15-minutes – surely this is inconsequential compared to the truck traffic alone on adjacent streets such as Jane, Lawrence and Weston Road. And given that GO is also talking ultimately about every 15-minute service on the Georgetown line (certainly in rush-hour), and that there are up to 14 cars (12-cars plus 2 engines), then the bulk of the emissions will be form the GO Georgetown trains … not to mention the GO Bolton trains, and the VIA service.
Steve: I have said this before. The pollution caused by cars is spread over the region while that caused by trains is concentrated in the corridor.
Steve, can you explain why the emissions on the 401 that runs on the north edge of Weston gets spread over the region, while those along the railway corridor gets concentrated in the corridor … cause that just doesn’t make any sense to me.
Steve: The 401 will always be full. What is happening is that a new source is being added along the corridor which, by the way, goes a long way south of the 401. Stop fixating on Weston.
LikeLike
Robert Wightman Says:
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:22 pm
“That is 14 kW per car or 72 extra for the 8 cars. The extras 2 bi-levels need 106 kW so a net loss of 34 kW plus the extra 600 hp or 450 kW to haul two more cars It looks like they are underpowered by about 480 kW or 600 hp. I believe that I read somewhere that the 4200 hp total rating is a short term one and the continuous power output is only 3600 hp, but I can’t find it any more. So 3600 hp minus 530 kW or about 700 hp leaves you with 2900 hp for traction. The new F59’s have 3300 hp for this use; so they are underpowered.”
In hindsight, I completely botched my original paragraph. The numbers are ~67kW per car for the MultiLevels and ~53kW per car for the BiLevels. I have not been able to figure out what accounts for this discrepancy between the vehicle types.
Nonetheless, the rest of your paragraph does not apply to the F59’s and MP40’s, as they have a separate powerplant to handle HEP requirements. No word yet as to how the BBD dual-modes will deal with HEP.
And to nitpick – despite the fact that the engines in the F59’s are technically rated at ~3300hp, they are rated on paper as 3000hp at the wheels.
“I don’t know why you want to put it on this level. I think that you would get a better weight distribution, lower centre of gravity, by putting it on the lower level. The biggest item is the transformer which weights about 4000 pounds on the AMT EMU’s.”
It’s not necessarily that things like the transformer were to go somewhere particular – in fact, I don’t know if they’ve ever gone beyond simple and preliminary sketchwork. When the original design was formulated, it was realized that some additional equipment was going to be required to make them powered, and that additional equipment is going to have to go somewhere – ergo, the concept of a longer intermediate section at one end (with equipment being mounted above and below it).
“I agree that the requirement to have a 92 day, quarterly, major service is a little stringent but they are looking at increasing this on the newer equipment. If this could be extended to every 183 day, half yearly, then this would be better.”
I don’t think that it will be though – the closest we may get is that many railroads are applying for waivers, as they claim that the newer locomotives are designed for longer duty/maintenance cycles and are more reliable.
But these are waivers, and not a request to change the law.
“If you are not going to run EMU’s then there is no service advantage to running electric or dual powered locomotives over straight diesel. In fact there is a huge penalty to pay. It would be a colossal waste of money to electrify without running EMU’s. If you are going to spend $4 billion to electrify the Lakeshore and Georgetown then you had better get a major benefit, like shorter running times. AMT and NJT require electric propulsion because of running in tunnels or in New York City. GO does not have any of these restrictions so I believe that there is a better place to spend $4 billion than on a electrification that would have minimal benefit. They must run EMU’s if they electrify.”
Not so. You still get a sizeable performance upgrade by electrifying lines – its just that it is not as impressive as with EMU’s. I would have to look at some of the electrification reports, but the general consensus is that you can factor in a 10% decrease in running times with electric locomotives over diesels – which in turn can be used to either reduce the fleet (and therefore rolling stock capital costs) by a similar number or add a similar amount more service.
The same reports (Caltrain, GO 1988) state a 20% or better decrease, for the record.
As well, you eliminate many costly components such as the engine, main alternator – things that are expensive to maintain and that wear out relatively quickly.
Dan
Toronto, Ont.
LikeLike
Eric S. Smith Says:
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:45 pm
“What’s the contemporary conventional wisdom on trains composed of powered and unpowered cars? I’m pretty sure that some British trains employ this approach. Maybe some inspection and maintenance costs could be reduced if two cars in each four-car MU group were unpowered.”
If you cut the number of powered axles in half then you reduce your rate of acceleration over the entire power curve. There are two parts to the acceleration:
1 Constant Force: Initial acceleration is limited by tractive effort and mass of vehicles. The maximum tractive effort is 0.25 times the vehicles weight on powered axles. The coefficient of friction for steel on steel goes up to 0.78 but it is too difficult to work above the value of 0.25 for DC traction motors. AC traction motors can go up to 0.40 but they are very expensive to run off AC overhead. It has too do with the complicated control circuitry required to convert single phase 60 Hz AC to three phase variable frequency AC.
2 Constant power curve: During initial acceleration the train cannot absorb all the power that is being fed into it because the power output, Po, of the engine is equal to the tractive effort, force F, times the speed of the locomotive, v. This is why hump units can have a slug attached that does not need a prime mover. Once you reach the speed where FV = or > than Po then the tractive effort or accelerating force drops. Ignoring friction forces for a first approximation acceleration is constant until Po = Fv. Once you hit this point acceleration varies inversely as speed and drops off until tractive effort just balances the force of friction. I went over the figures for this in my post of April 19. AMT obtained a 36% reduction in travel times with the new EMU’s with all axles powered versus the motor-trailers or locomotive hauled trains. The Union to Mt Pleasant one way time is 50 minutes. If you reduce this to just over 30 you could run a 15 minute service with 5 train sets versus 8.This is a 37%reduction in equipment costs. ThIS IS WHERE YOU SAVE MONEY and not in fuel savings which cannot be accurately predicted.You are right that traction and maintenance costs would be reduced with unpowered trailers but operating costs would be increased by slower running.
“And if it’s still considered viable to go that route, it raises an interesting possibility for hybrid diesel/electric operation — just create a mixed train of DMUs and EMUs. It may not be any more sensible than dual-power locomotives, but at least you can dispose of the DMUs when you don’t need them any more, or move them to service on non-electrified track, instead of being stuck with an overweight fleet of locomotives that never use half of their abilities.”
Now you have created two problems instead of one. DMU’s require more maintenance than EMU’s because they have all those prime movers on board. Next are you going to use hydraulic transmission or go diesel electric. If you want to go diesel hydraulic good luck finding a place to put the diesels on a bi-level car. If you want a DMU make it a diesel electric unit and put a 450 to 500 kW 600 volt three phase 60 Hz generator where I would put the transformer and do everything else the same as on the EMU that I mentioned above. There is a reason that VIA is running trains of only two or three cars behind a locomotive capable of pulling seven instead or running DMU’s. It is efficiency and cost effectiveness. It is not there for DMU’s unless you change the 92 day service requirement.
I am going to the States tomorrow for two weeks so you will all be spared by rants for a while, unless I can find an internet cafe.
Take care. Robert Wightman
LikeLike
“Steve: I have said this before. The pollution caused by cars is spread over the region while that caused by trains is concentrated in the corridor.
Steve, can you explain why the emissions on the 401 that runs on the north edge of Weston gets spread over the region, while those along the railway corridor gets concentrated in the corridor … cause that just doesn’t make any sense to me.
Steve: The 401 will always be full. What is happening is that a new source is being added along the corridor which, by the way, goes a long way south of the 401. Stop fixating on Weston.”
Steve the pollution occurs at the source. I don’t see how you can say that a car travelling along a road does not contribute pollution along that corridor but that a train travelling along a rail does. In both cases the pollution is centralized along the path of the vehicle creating it.
Steve: For the last time, the point was being made about diverting commuters. In the process, their travel is moved from one place to another where, today, there is little pollution. The 401 will still be there along with its pollution because road corridors backfill if existing demand is diverted. Indeed, a lot of the 401 traffic serves trips that won’t go down the Weston corridor anyhow but to points further east and north. Moreover, this will occur not just in Weston relatively near the 401, but all along the corridor. All people are asking is that the effects of all those diesel trains be properly accounted for, and that if there is an alternative, better way to operate the line, use it.
Repeating over and over again that they don’t have time to electrify, or that it’s too expensive, is inconsistent. If they are going to electrify by 2015 as some have stated, then cost is not the issue, only timing. If there are arguments to make one way or another, then publish the studies. Metrolinx and GO have shown themselves hopelessly unadequate in providing such background material, assuming it even exists, but prefer to bluff their way through any discussion.
LikeLike
Dan Garcia Says:
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:59 pm
“Nonetheless, the rest of your paragraph does not apply to the F59’s and MP40’s, as they have a separate powerplant to handle HEP requirements. No word yet as to how the BBD dual-modes will deal with HEP.”
Actually it is in their spec. The two prime movers operate at 18oo rpm driving 500 volt alternators that provide traction power and head end power. There is no more room for another diesel with a 25 000 pound transformer 4 feet by 8 feet by 25 feet.
“Not so. You still get a sizeable performance upgrade by electrifying lines – its just that it is not as impressive as with EMU’s. I would have to look at some of the electrification reports, but the general consensus is that you can factor in a 10% decrease in running times with electric locomotives over diesels – which in turn can be used to either reduce the fleet (and therefore rolling stock capital costs) by a similar number or add a similar amount more service. “
I doubt that it would be anywhere near that good on a line with frequent stops. Maybe if they had 6 axle trucks or one locomotive at each end which would double the acceleration rate of the single engined GO trains. Also the higher horsepower would increase the speed at which the acceleration force starts to decrease. If you are going to spend the money then go with the biggest time saver, EMU’s. Perhaps if GO could show that the lines are segregated from all other freight and passenger traffic they could operate under something other than the current rules. Is there any where that I can get a copy of this report? I would like to.
“And to nitpick – despite the fact that the engines in the F59’s are technically rated at ~3300hp, they are rated on paper as 3000hp at the wheels.”
The older engines were rated at 3000 hp. Unless they specify where they are doing the rating then it is impossible to tell but a 10% loss from prime mover to wheel is reasonable. Are the older units 2700 hp at the wheels? It is like comparing US horse power for cars versus the ratings of European cars in the 50’s and 60’s The European cars appeared to be grossly underpowered but they could still beat the American cars in races.
LikeLike
Robert Wightman:
AC traction motors can go up to 0.40 but they are very expensive to run off AC overhead. It has to do with the complicated control circuitry required to convert single phase 60 Hz AC to three phase variable frequency AC.
TTC Passenger:
Not anymore. That’s surprisingly common now. Three phase variable frequency drives running off single phase 60 Hz isn’t exclusive to large, expensive industrial applications like railways anymore – heck, when I was buying a laundry set, all of the front loading washers and driers at the appliance store listed solid state VFD direct drive for enhanced reliability as a feature on their product sheets. I think it’s fair to say that once the technology’s migrated down from large, expensive industrial equipment to being something you find in your clothes dryer, it’s no longer a big deal.
Also, for what it’s worth, I’ve got diagrams for several three phase variable frequency drives and a set of diagrams for General Electric PCC cars. The motor power handling circuit for the three phase VFD systems are much simpler than General Electric’s PCC traction power circuit. I’d love to hear the ‘complicated electronics’ railfans explain this one!
LikeLike
Had an idea this morning and was curious if any of the loco-heads could rapidly debunk it before it takes root in my brain as a sane concept.
Has consideration ever been given in any context to achieving a dual-mode capacity by adding an extra chunk of rolling stock behind a conventional diesel-electric loco? I’m thinking of something roughly akin to an old-time coal-carrying tender car that went behind a steam locomotive and ahead of its passenger cars.
The electro-tender would have the pantograph and the various transformers and such that are missing from the current locomotives. It would then pipe the juice horizontally in some sort of sufficiently beefy line over the coupler into an existing MP40 which has had some sort of (again hypothetical) modification to the electrical system so this input could replace the feed from the diesel generators as needed. Traction would continue to be via the same electrically-powered axles as today.
The potential advantage is that the existing fleet of diesel-electric locomotives could be utilized and expanded as needed at the current price point, while these tender cars could be built a la carte and used only on routes as electrification occurs.
LikeLike
Eric: Denmark mixes DMUs and EMUs in the same train all the time. A seven-carriage train leaves Copenhagen, carrying its heaviest loads in the dense area around the city. When it reaches the end of the wires, the four-carriage EMU is disconnected, and continues working the regional routes, while the three-carriage DMU runs on to destinations farther afield. Of course, the two types of stock have to be designed to be compatible for this to work.
Tom: The plans for Britain’s new intercity trains involve something like this, only in reverse. The train is essentially electric, but if its route involves stretches of unelectrified track, a generator trailer is attached, containing a diesel engine that supplies power to the rest of the train.
The downside is that it’s a dead weight while under the wires, but it’s still better than the current solution of running a diesel train from London to Aberdeen when half the route is electrified. It’ll be interesting to see if it works – there’s a sizeable body of opinion which holds that it would be simpler to electrify the whole route.
LikeLike
Robert Wightman said:
Ottawa is a precedent for this, running Bombardier Talent DMUs on its O-Train service. Freight and passenger traffic cross the O-Train line, and it’s even possible for freight trains (Ottawa Central, now CN) to use the O-Train tracks after hours.
In the case of GO, there’d be a shared corridor instead of a couple of crossings; the regulator might not like the possibility of a freight derailment fouling the GO line. And, for that matter, GO’s funders might not like the expense of exclusive track, even in the face of the benefit of running proven, Euro-style EMUs.
(Thanks to David Arthur for the muti-mode examples!)
LikeLike
Along the lines that Tom was thinking. Would it be possible to use trailers with pantograph/transformers to turn three car units of the current GO carriages into EMUs without the need for a costly interior redesign? Just replace the axles and add compressor/sander and run wires?
LikeLike