Jet Turbine Locomotives 455
An anonymous submitter writes "I saw this article in the paper today. Not only is it lighter than a comparable diesel engine, it should burn the fuel more completely and be a bit better for the environment. Not to mention it is much faster. They should make more of a point that the North American railway system needs a major overhaul in order to support faster trains." The Department of Transportation has some information about next-generation trains, including a design incorporating a flywheel to improve acceleration.
Sounds good (Score:3, Interesting)
If you were willing to foot the extra bill for one of these in new trains that you bought (assuming that you buy trains) it would have more advantages than just efficiency and speed--can you imagine how cool this would look in an advertisement?
Re:Sounds good (Score:4, Informative)
I doubt that existing trains will be able to be retrofitted with one of these things - at least, they won't be able to to take full advantage.
If you're trying to build a high-speed train, all the running gear has to be rated for that high speed. That means suspension, brakes, etc. etc, and applies to all the carriages, not just the locomotive.
Just adding one of these to a train would be like bolting a Formula One race engine in a Civic - it could probably be done, but it wouldn't be safe to use anywhere near its full potential.
Not to mention that train tracks have maximum rated speeds also, so if you upgrade to high-speed trains you have to upgrade to appropriate track standards. Such upgrades are potentially quite expensive (you have to widen bends to reduce lateral G's, for instance).
Re:Sounds good (Score:4, Informative)
High-speed is made possible by the tracks, not the trains. The french TGV (the fastest - 515 km/h that's 320 miles per hour) is a souped-up ordinary train. No exotic technology, no fancy tilt mechanism, no esoteric power system. Just bigger transformers, faster traction motors, faster gearing and more powerful brakes.
But the track. Oooh, the track, it's a smoooooth gentle nicely laid ribbon of steel, designed to be travelled at speeds up to 250 miles per hour.
Re:Sounds good (Score:4, Funny)
Let me get this straight: The TGV runs at 320mph... on tracks rated for 250mph. Oh, that's gonna be fun.
Re:Sounds good (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Sounds good (Score:4, Informative)
With an electric wire on top, adding to the cost. The point of this train is, presumably, that you don't need to electrify the system. It'll still be expensive to upgrade the rails and reroute the track in parts, but not as expensive as the TGV.
Re:Sounds good (Score:3, Informative)
> is a souped-up ordinary train.
Pretty "ordinary" [unipi.it] yes... but there's one striking feature that differs from ordinary trains:
On a normal carriage, you have two boogie wheel pairs, one on each end of the carriage. On the TGV two carriages shares the same boogie in the intersection. Picture here: TGV boogie [unipi.it]
This picture is actually from a tilting prototype [unipi.it] of the TGV.
You can read more about the modifications to the TGV (Train Grande Vitesse) here [unipi.it], and some history [worldonline.nl] here.
Noise (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Noise (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Noise (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Noise (Score:5, Funny)
In the railroads' minds, louder is safer. They'll probably take advantage of the jet exhaust by routing it through a huge whistle and horn. It will continuously emit a piercing, deafening alien wail audible dozens of miles away. Railroad crossing accidents will become a thing of the past, because it will be too painful to remain near the tracks as the train approaches.
Re:Noise (Score:4, Funny)
You're an optimist... I predict lawsuits from grieving parents of Darwinbait.
"B-b-b-but the trains are so loud now, they practically forced Johnny to floor it and drive around the gates at the railroad crossing! When they made new trains that could go twice as fast as the old trains, why couldn't they also make them able to stop faster, too? Waaaah!"
Re:Simple Solution (Score:3, Funny)
*evil grin*
I'd love to see that in action. Johnny's pick-me-up truck gets incinerated in a blast of jet wash, windows implode, and then the train, still travelling at 140 MPH, (because even a jet engine producing 50,000 pounds of thrust doesn't do much against a train weighing tens of millions of pounds!) crushes him like a bug anyways.
(Paging Father Darwin, pickup on Track Six!)
Re:Noise (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Noise (Score:5, Informative)
Plus the size of the turbines in these locomotives is probably similar to those in Huey/Blackhawk- sized helicopter... you can get a lot more HP out of a physically smaller gas turbine than you can from a diesel (the Navy gets 2500kW from a single Huey-sized turbine/ generator setup). And, to me anyway, the lower frequencies from a diesel are more "penetrating" than the higher turbine freqs...
Another turbine advantage is they can run on almost anything flammable, given the right nozzles etc. Some power plants actually burn pulverized coal in their turbines. They can also run on methane, LNG, etc... so if/when it becomes unfashionable enough/too expensive/whatever to power the trains with dead dinosaurs, they can switch over to something else... (methanol anyone?)
I've always thought a turbine-powered locomotive made a lot more sense from a size/weight/fuel economy point of view than a diesel engine... guess I shoulda patented the idea when I had it back in the mid-90s!
Re:Noise (Score:5, Informative)
This doesn't really change your main point though. These aren't going to be as noisy as a jet engine.
I'm going to guess though that these turbines are going to be a lot bigger than the ones in a huey. Or maybe not: http://www.bombardier.com/index.jsp?id=1_0&lang=e
Looks like they are about half again as powerful. I was imagining a freight locomotive.
Re:Noise (Score:5, Informative)
Re:But what to do with that HOT exhaust? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But what to do with that HOT exhaust? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Noise (Score:3, Funny)
IDK... (Score:2)
Currently, except for regional trains or overgrown subways, the people moving business for trains in NorAm is pretty dead. Planes and automobiles pretty much dominate the possibilities.
If air travel could be reduced yet again in cost for bulk, it might well finish wiping out the trains altogether.
Re:IDK... (Score:2)
I also don't think airline tickets are coming down in price.
Re:IDK... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:IDK... (Score:3, Interesting)
The trip would've taken longer than a bus too.
So, no cheaper than airplanes and it takes longer than a bus... any wonder hardly anyone travels via trains anymore?
We want fast or cheap. Trains are neither right now.
Rail service (Score:5, Insightful)
There are train corridors that already are quite popular such as Vancouver BC-Seattle-Portland, Boston-NYC-DC, and LA-San Diego. Many areas have corridors they would like to see higher speed, more frequent, and more reliable service. In some cases the states and cities are even willing to invest their own money (YVR-SEA-PDX Talgo service).
If I want to travel between Seattle and Portland (about 200 miles) I have 3 options:
1. Fly, 1hr to get to airport, 2hrs to clear security and check in, 1hr for flight,
2. Drive, about 4 hours, 6 or more during rush hour or if there is an accident.
3. Train,
and trains don't require a body cavity search.
If we were willing to invest even a fraction of the total subsidies given to either the auto industry or air travel industries in passenger rail services people actually wanted to use we could probably achieve ridership rates approching Europe.
Re:Rail service (Score:3, Insightful)
Not just Paris and Brussels but London as well despite the fact that the train currently runs at about 1/2 speed between the 'chunnel' and London. (The high speed link is still under construction).
Although the train doesn't travel quite as fast a plane,
The stations are closer to the city centres (i.e. in them!), the 'check in' is fast and you don't have to wait for you luggage to arrive (pulversised) on the baggage carousel.
Re:Rail service (Score:3, Insightful)
Riding the South Shore is usually a wash, in terms of time. However, in terms of sanity, its a lifesaver. I can use the time to read, write, talk with friends, or sleep, all safely and conviniently. Its like getting 1.5 free hours per day.
--Mike--
Re:Trains have other purposes... (Score:3, Interesting)
That's true, however, note that I said that when talking about people moving, trains were dead. the military, for example, loves trains because it moves all their tanks that way.
However, in cargo moving speed is not necessary. Aircraft handle the high speed, low volume traffice quite well.
Practicality of New Technologies (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Practicality of New Technologies (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't have large passenger traffic via rail because it's slow.
We don't have fast rail because most rail traffic isn't passenger.
Time to break that loop. If you could cheaply load your car on as well (think land-ferry), this would be a kickass way to vacation with a small car or minivan.
Breaking the rail problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Meanwhile, just how big is the tax infrastructure that's already in place supporting our road and highway system? Road traffic is really *heavily* subsidized by our taxes, and not just the ones at the pump, tires, and vehicle registration.
I've also heard that there's a heavy federal infrastructure involved in air transport, though I know nothing of the breakdown there between private and public sector. I remember Reagan ordering the air traffic controllers back to work, suggesting public sector, there. (I don't remember Taft Hartley being invoked, though it may have.)
Re:Breaking the rail problem (Score:3, Insightful)
But it will give billions to the nearly-bankrupt air-transport industry...
Union Pacific has one (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Union Pacific has one (Score:5, Informative)
Turbines are *more* efficient, not less... (Score:5, Informative)
Another reason for this project is that the service requirements of a passenger train are different from that of a freight train. Passenger trains pull lighter loads, travel faster, and need to accelerate more rapidly. Most locomotive technology in the US was designed with pulling freight in mind. Even the passenger locomotives are based on freigh-pulling designs. This project is a clean-slate design, with a specific purpose in mind. It should fulfill that purpose much more efficiently.
That's nice but... (Score:4, Interesting)
Just my thoughts,
Joe Carnes
Re:That's nice but... (Score:2)
Oopsie,
Joe
Re:That's nice but... (Score:5, Informative)
Yep. They probably would. But freight trains travelling at 60 mph already do take at least that long to come to a halt. Trains just don't stop on a dime. This just means that passenger trains of the future would cover as much ground to come to a stop as freight trains do now.
It's not that serious a problem--European and Japanese rail services already operate in this high-speed regime. If you don't want your vehicle pancaked by a train, don't ignore the lights at a level crossing, and don't drive around the gates.
Re:That's nice but... (Score:4, Insightful)
It is very rare for a person in Europe to drive across a rail crossing. When I lived in the UK it was mostly for small lines with one train a week.
Of course this requires money when laying tracks and America is far keener to save money at the start and spend it on lawyers during litigation.
About those trains... (Score:5, Informative)
Also, trains don't brake at the engine, they brake at every car, via the high pressure air hoses that you see in between every piece of rolling stock (if you're observant). Think about how much slack int he couplers needs to be taken up for a train that's a mile or two long (yep, they get that big). Trying to take it up all at once is damn hard, not to mention dangerous. it takes time to stop somethign as big as a drag freight of coal (or Fords, or steel, or....).
In rail traffic, the weight of a train is measured in thousands of tons. Most coal hoppers hold 50 tons of their load. A string of 100 of said cars has 5000 tons of load, not to mention the weight of the cars themselves. Fully loaded boxcars can carry similar loads.
As for derailing when it hits a bus, that depends entirely on the collision. If it broadsides a bus, and the front of the engine isn't designed such that it sucks the impacted vehicle under the wheels, then I doubt it'll be any different than rail accidents now. The problem comes when somethign gets betwen the wheels and the rail. The trains have a contact patch that's tiny...think less than one square inch per wheel. That's maybe 16 or 24 square inches of steel-on-steel contact per locomotive (4 or 6 axles respectively). This is done to minimize rolling resistance with the above enormous loads, but also makes the trains more vulnerable to derailment. it's a trade off that's been argued about over and over, but the economics of making rail travel even less efficient than it already is win.
The simple answer? Make grade crossings better, maintain them better, and teach people to OBEY THE GODDAMN SIGNALS. I can't count how many idiots I've seen blow through the crossings in the suburbs around Chicago mere seconds before a METRA [metrarail.com] train went flying by at ~20mph.
Re:About those trains... (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in the 1950's, the Chicaco Rock-Island & Pacific had a Talgo train that had a TV camera installed in the engine cab. You could watch the engineer's view on a TV screen in the bar, and after a while watching near-misses with cars, school buses and gasoline trucks, you needed a stiff drink...
Some time ago, I was in the cab of an Iowa Interstate freight train. As we pulled by the Blue-Island station, a jerk went around the gates, only to fall in the claws of a thoroughly unamused METRA cop. I went out on the engine catwalk along with the whole train crew to say a big FUCK YOU to the car driver (at that time, the cop did laugh, though)...
Not actually getting thrust from the jet (Score:5, Informative)
I'd guess the reason they say this locomotive is faster is due to the much lower power to weight ratio of the jet turbine compared to diesel engines. I don't see how this would make any difference on a fully loaded train, however, as the delta in weight between a jet turbine and a diesel engine has to be a small fraction of a percent of the overall weight of the train.
Re:Not actually getting thrust from the jet (Score:2)
On freight trains, sure, but on passenger trains, I'd be surprised if that reasoning held up. Experts?
Re:Not actually getting thrust from the jet (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not actually getting thrust from the jet (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not actually getting thrust from the jet (Score:4, Funny)
If they were smart, they'd put rubber bands around the driving wheels, just like model trains to get more traction. But of course they didn't ask me.
Now don't get too excited.... (Score:5, Insightful)
UP had a few turbine locos in the 1960's but they didn't do well. In the past, the problem with turbines in locomotives has been low efficiency (especially at part throttle) and low reliability. They are getting better, but I doubt that you'll see them in freight locos in the near future. Their lighter weight is not a big advantage in freight pullers. Sounds good for lightweight passenger travel, though.
Here is Bombardier's own page on it [bombardier.com] and a photo of the locomotive. [yahoo.com]
---Mike
Re:Now don't get too excited.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Cool engines though, and other than the fuel consumption at idle, they were successful experiments.
An overhaul would be great in the US (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd much rather travel by train, but it's always been much too slow. Even though these new trains are still slower than flying, they make up the difference quite a bit.
A smooth, relaxing train ride where all seats are Business class or better? Sign me up.
Make your own jet engine (Score:3, Funny)
But, these days it's almost a trivial task to make your own. Jet engines take air in the front at low speed and chuck it out the back at high speed.
So, with that in mind, I could easily throw one of these together over a lunch break. All you need are a propane torch, a ten centimetre square sheet of foil, one of those hole punches, and a five centimetre square of brass metal.
Make the nozzle fairly long for more power. If you want to have a nice methane-excretion sound like some teens' automobiles, poke a few dozen holes on the inside of the nozzle.
Remember that Force = Mass * Acceleration as well as what time your girlfriend will be home so that you don't have to sleep on the couch that night.
Re:Make your own jet engine (Score:4, Funny)
Stop trying to ruin my action-packed vision of a mass winning of the Darwin Award.
I'm from montreal (Score:2, Interesting)
Turbine GENERATOR - sorry to pop your bubble... (Score:3, Interesting)
You can go faster because a turbine engine that generates the same kilowatts as a conventional diesel does will be lighter. Less weight can equal more speed.
All that said, I'm not sure that "less weight" is a priority for most locomotives. If I remember correctly, the enormous weight of the locomotives is critical in pulling literally miles of loaded box cars up an incline. Of course, passenger trains are packed with very low density compared to freight, so maybe that's what this is for.
Ancient History (Score:2, Interesting)
Trains as a broad social concept. (Score:2)
Oh well
According to the articcle this seems to be mainly applicable to small freight trains and passenger trains. There s a huge valid market for these locomotives. The northeast coordoor would benefit greatly from higher speed trains, and they are a joy to ride on, much less hassle the La Guardia or Logan.
The US rail system. It is a piece of shit. If we had viable transportation, there might be some more money to renovate the trains. They, despite their age, are a viable alternative to air travel. The Northeast coordoor and the SFO-LA routes are ripe for high speed trains. THis would do a lot to alleviate the crowding and security concerns involved with airplanes.
Loco-tech FYI (Score:2, Informative)
This is because electric motors have many degrees more torque at low speeds than any comparable internal combustion engine.
Turbine. Pfffft. (Score:5, Funny)
I was in a secret railroad switch-house last week, and I stumbled upon a locomotive that had been sitting there since 1880. It was fusion powered. The reactor ran on GARBAGE no less! It could levitate and even looked capable of time travel. The security guard who let me in said his only instructions were to wait for a man named "Doc Brown" to show up.
Already in use!! (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.railpower.com/2support/locomotives.h
Existing rail networks (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it too much to ask that submitters read the article they're submitting? The entire reason this train was developed is so it could be used on existing tracks with a minimum of modifications. It's right there in the second paragraph of the article: "Bombardier believes its 240-kilometres-an-hour JetTrain is the answer to providing high-speed rail service throughout North America using existing track and without the prohibitive cost of electrifying rail networks."
Re:Existing rail networks (Score:3, Informative)
So I take it you designed this train, then? Because the manufacturer says existing rail networks can be used, and I'm more inclined to believe the manufacturer than I am an anonymous coward...
What about heat? (Score:3, Interesting)
Via's Turbo Train (Score:5, Informative)
Trains and weight (Score:4, Interesting)
The reason train cars weigh so much is so they don't come off the track when they are pulled around corners. Even with the large radius curves on trainlines, the side forces of a mile long train with a fully loaded car at the back will be quite high. The early solution to that problem was to make the train cars weigh more and the result is now all trains cars fit into a standard weight. This also makes passenger trains weigh far more than they should. The US rail industry could save a major part of its energy bill by introducing a lighter train standard but that would cost a fortune in new rolling stock.
high-speed cross-continental train would be great (Score:3, Interesting)
Gas Turbines at Sea (Score:5, Interesting)
I had the chance to cruise on the Millennium last year, which has two gas turbine engines hooked to electrical generators which both supply energy to the ship's power grid and also power the motors driving the propellers. I'm sure kilotonnes of ship will help silence the engines, so I can't speak to noise, but they were amazingly vibration-free, unlike more common deisel engines with a direct physical linkage from engine to drivetrain to prop.
I'm not sure how that translates to train use, but I'm curious to find out. Considering that they'd probably provide electricity to power the wheels, I wonder if a sufficiently sized flywheel arrangement or battery bank could mean that the engine could operate at constant speed, preventing the frequent idleup and idledown which creates a much more distracting noise at a distance than the noise of a constant engine...
MHD? (Score:3, Insightful)
What ever happened to Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) engines? It seems like they'd be perfect for a locomotive application, inasmuch as they can take fuel directly to electricity with no moving parts. A quick Google search shows one old but promising article on an LMMHD auto engine, and that's about it: comments on the infeasibility of this approach would be appreciated.
Why the USA has slow trains (Score:5, Informative)
Thus US rail passenger vehicles must be built to withstand impact with freight trains. Other nations have a far greater percentage of passenger-only track including many dedicated lines. Also in many nations the rail infrastructure has been continuously modernized resulting in more sophisticated switching and control system.
Amtrak inherited its system after decades of private neglect and was originally a way to prevent the various passenger rail services in the US from individually being shut down or sliding into bankruptcy. That passenger rail still survives in the US at all after decades of far less support then virtually every other transportation medium speaks to its tenacity and durability. Unfortunately Amtrak has always been stuck with conflicting missions and starved for infrastructure (again, much of what it began with was already obsolete or decrepit; upgrades, replacements and refurbishments have always been piecemeal and/or minimal.) That and impressively bad management.
Another problem has been the extraordinarily high strength requirement has been set by the US's Federal Railroad Administration which results in US rail passenger cars being at a minimum of twice as heavy as every other nation's. A result is that there is literally no other market for US vehicles thus tried & proven designs from other nations can't be used in the USA. Spanish, Swedish, German, etc. - none of their highly successful trains can now be imported into the US due to the FRA's unique requirements.
Thus when folks point out the curiosity of Amtrak hiring the consortium of Alstom/Bombardier to design & build the Acela instead of buying a successful somethingelse model they're ignoring that the somethingelses simply aren't allowed to run in the US on an ongoing basis. After license and redesign fees it would have cost more to convert an existing train then to just design & build one to Amtrak's (& the FRA's) unique requirements, which is what was done.
Of course now Amtrak & Alstom/Bombardier are mired in suits and counter-suits, ignoring the mediation structures built into their contracts and publicly blaming each other for the problems the Acela is facing. Amtrak claims the Acela doesn't meet specifications and was delivered late. Alstom/Bombardier claim Amtrak wasn't timely in providing specifications and making design decisions, many of the problems are with features Alstom/Bombardier advised against, and that Amtrak is running the vehicles on substandard track & caternary against Alstom/Bombardier's recommendations.
Of course much of this could have been avoided had the usual process of building a test train, running it ragged for a year, then dissembling it to examine it for understanding of it's rail performance, maintenance characteristics, wear patterns, practical experiance, then refining the design before going into production been followed. Indeed reexamination of the original train's evaluation appears to show the precursors of many of the problems now appearing on the Acela.
Instead however Amtrak ordered 20 trains in one design/build package (and now claims it'll never order another.) Thus as each trainset was built it was manufactured slightly differently from the ones before as experience was applied and improvements made. This now gives Amtrak 20 subtly different trainsets and no further application of the lessons learned nor incentive on the designer/manufacturer to refine the vehicle.
Whatever the case the losers are the citizens of the US & Canada. Why Canada? It turns out the money Amtrak used to purchase Acela Express was from a $1 billion low-interest loan from the Export Development Corp. of Canada. Yep, if Amtrak goes belly-up not only will the US public be out but also the Canadians. As you can imagine the prospect of a US quasi-governmental agency going belly-up and forfeiting on it's debts to Canada doesn't play well north of the border
Ironically there is a widely rumored proposal in Canada for investing CA$3-billion to improve train service in the Quebec City to Windsor corridor (incl. Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, and possibly Kingston). The "VIAFast" upgrade is expected to take advantage of trains like Bombardier's newly (re)announced turbo train as well as track-swapping with CPR & CNR to create a dedicated passenger rail route. Indeed there's even renewed interest in a new high-speed Calgary-Edmonton corridor route to serve that rapidly growing part of the country.
Anyway, now you know why the US is stuck with slow trains: Inheritance, lack of investment, political game playing, lousy management, and extreme requirements. On the other hand neighbors in much the same situation are instead expanding their rail systems in logical yet ambitious ways. Makes me think of the tortiose & the hare...
Won't make a difference (Score:3, Insightful)
There is the immediate issue of population density - it is not high enough to economically justify the huge construction and maintenance costs. Very few passenger routes (mainly between large cities in the North East) actually turn a profit.
Of course, this exact same argument could be levelled against passenger car travel, as the hidden subsidies in the form of public roadworks, tax benefits to car manufacturers and oil companies, etc. all add up to about 4 times as much as the visible cost of owning and operating the average car.
The issue then becomes, at the core, one of culture. We are wedded to our cars, they are ingrained into our very way of life far more than their mere utilitarian purpose entails. Life in America revolves around the car, not the other way around. Given that, passenger rail travel has no hope of succeeding beyond a few niche markets.
Finally, the high-speed rail travel is only moderately successful even in its ideal arenas of rail-crazy Europe and Japan. The Eurostar, Thalys and ICE make a profit (and that's BEFORE accounting for public subsidies) only over middle distances connecting the major hubs, i.e. London, Brussels, Paris. Other routes to Switzerland, Germany and the South of France have always been making huge financial losses, even more so now with the advent of low-cost, low-frills airlines that get there in half the time.
Different Beasts (Score:4, Insightful)
Huge freight trains and fast passenger trains just don't mix well on the same lines. The US could build dedicated passenger lines (like European governments did) in some locations, but a national network just doesn't make much sense. Even the regional networks would require constant subsidies to operate.
I know, its off topic.
Slashdotters *are* trainspotters! (Score:3, Funny)
Turbine trains? Not a good idea. (Score:5, Interesting)
Although this looks promising on paper, one can but wonder if that turbine locomotiveis yet another boondoggle (sp?).
Given that the turbine's fuel appetite does not significantly changes when the turbine goes from idle to warp factor nine (unlike a diesel), one wonder what fuel economy will be with a SINGLE 5000 hp turbine engine. Okay, granted, with hotel power (to light-up the cars and air-condition/heat them), you still suck some power from the engine when the train is stopped.
One would think that a sensible way to address this problem would be to use 10 smal 500 HP engines whose number that kick-in would depend of the power needed at a time. But of course, this would mean higher maintenance costs and more chances for something to go wrong. However, modular design could make it easy to replace a turbine.
Even if we end-up with a super-magical turbine locomotive that runs all the time and doesn't suck fuel all the time as well, we'd face a little problem that is caused by the turbines's very suitableness for powering aircraft: low weight.
Of course, low weight means less power needed to go at high speed. But is means also less weight on drivers. Perhaps railroads will be clipping newspapers coupons looking for sand clerance sales (sand can be injected right in front of driving wheels to boost adhesion if the wheels start to slip Wheels will definitely slip if there isn't enough weight on them)...
So, one wonders of the suitableness of a turbine locomotive-hauled passenger train. Will it slip? Will it haul? I'm afraid that a turbine
engine will have to be weighted up... But that weight need not be always deadweight. Big cities call for big commuter train traffic: the thing electrification is for. So, why not add a pantograph and power transformer allowing for full-power operation under catenary when approaching terminals? At least, this will reduce downtown air pollution.
Wouldn't a better way be to have distributed traction throughout the train? You keep power generation in a lightweight power car (it would hardly be a locomotive anymore), and have traction motors throughout the train itself, so to take advantage of the weight there, too. Smaller traction motors, too, or at least, bigger derated ones. The first french TGVs had powered axles under the passenger coaches, and the Hikari Japanese bullet-trains running on the Shinkansen, as well as the newest german ICE trains have distributed powered axles through the trains (and the ICE-3 trains are real neat, too because the front seats of the first cars look on the track ahead, over the engineer's shoulders).
But of course, one hits other problems, such as safely sending traction power throughout the train. You're talking at something like 1000 amps at 600 volts there. Coupling/uncoupling cars would cause problems, and at each car, you also have connections that can go wrong. 100 years ago, in Paris, a subway train caught fire, killing more than 100 people. The cause: high-intensity traction power sent through flexible cables throughout the train. Such lessons from the past are not easily forgotten...
An lighter articulated train would be better in this respect, but then, you end-up with with an unflexible consist.
But, again, adding cars and removing them is expensive, more expensive than hauling around empty seats (or it seems, looking the way some MBAs with adding machines seem to think in railroad adminive departments). But, after all, the french TGVs are articulated, so this is less a problem it might see.
Aha! Let's compromise on, oh, four car articulated, self-contained (1 first class parlour/club-car, 2 second class coaches, bar car & checked luggage/bicycle space with reversible control cab) units, two of which could be powered by one power car. So a 16 car train could be feasible, and you can retain some flexibility.
And then, do we have a tilt-train ? Tilt-trains are attractive, but is still one more thing that can go wrong. And with motorized trucks, you have less room to put the needed power-banking mechanisms...
It should work politically: engineers looove that kind of contraptions! And politicians looove to be associated with forward-thinking technology... But what kind of engineers? Aircraft engineers are clueless about railroad problems (one should remember the woes suffered by the late UAC turbo train), and railroad engineers are justifiably wary of sleek lightweight technology that falls apart at the slightest rail joint...
I am afraid that having efficient turbine power for high-speed passenger trains would end-up in a costlier, less flexible exercise than using electrified off-the-shelf technology in the long run...
However, technology has improved (Score:4, Insightful)
Fortunately, if you've read Bombardier's web page, JetTrain has been designed with the following in mind:
1. The train is designed to meet the very strict FRA requirements for crash survivability, requirements that are actually stricter than those in much of Europe.
2. The JetTrain locomotive uses far more modern gas turbine engines than the old Turbotrain. Remember, Turbotrain was built during the 1960's; with 30 years of research and development since then derived from developing quieter, more fuel efficient and less-polluting jet engines for the commercial aircraft industry since 1970, Pratt & Whitney today can deliver a gas turbine engine for the JetTrain that will use much less fuel, spew out way less exhaust emissions and generate far less noise than the old Turbotrains.
3. Because JetTrain is a clean sheet design, it won't have to owe anything to current diesel-electric locomotive technology, technology that emphasizes more on initial pulling power for heavy trains. Remember, the entire JetTrain trainset uses the latest in materials technology to keep the weight down while still meeting FRA safety standards.
If Bombardier can demonstrate it can properly cool the hot exhaust from the gas turbine engine so it doesn't become a fire/high-temperature hazard to nearby objects, JetTrain with its potential 155 mph (250 km/h) top speed could be just the train for a number of Amtrak routes here in the USA. Already, Amtrak is in the process of upgrading the Chicago to Detroit corridor to handle trains in excess of 100 mph; JetTrain would be a natural for this route. And since Amtrak's Southwest Chief long-distance train between Chicago and Los Angeles runs mostly on AT&SF railroad trackage (which was rated for 100+ mph operation back in 1937!), imagine a JetTrain variant of the Southwest Chief going between Los Angeles and Chicago in under 36 hours! (That is faster than the record for this route set by the Santa Fe Super C freight train in the late 1960's.)
While having high-speed electric trains with overhead wiring is nice, you're forgetting that setting up all that catenary wiring is exorbitantly expensive, especially when you also have to tie in that wiring into the local electrical grid. And don't forget the NIMBY crowd that might not be too thrilled by the installation of all that wiring for various reasons.
I think if Bombardier can work out the bugs on JetTrain, it may become the primary form of locomotion for high-speed rail in the USA, mostly because you can skip out on the expensive overhead catenary wiring installation.
Re:Turbine trains? Not a good idea. (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, things happened a bit differently. While it is true that the train caught fire due to an electrical wiring defect, the blaze didn't kill many people; most if not all the passengers of the train escaped and survived.
What happened is that the train being mostly made of wood, it generated a lot of smoke while burning. Additionnally, the venting in the subway tunnels was simply bad at that time. So, the hundred or so people who died there were in fact in the next train, which stayed stopped in the tunnel, where most of its passengers were asphyxied or killed in the panic that ensued.
It was still the very beginning of the subway at that time; lots of lessons were learned the hard way.
Interesting talk in the railroad.net forums (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.railroad.net/forums/messages.asp?Topic
Gas Turbines 101 (Score:3, Informative)
Time for gas turbines 101. Here's the biggest difference betwen Gas turbines and Diesels. A diesel can idle on almost no fuel whatsoever, that's why you hear them idling all the time. The fuel/wear and tear it takes to start them vastly outweighs the fuel needed to run them for an hour or eight. Because they use a reciprocating compressor, and a reciprocating compressor maintains is efficiency accross its speed and horsepower band (actually dropping off at the top end) you can turn them down to zero HP out and the fuel going in drops to 1-5% of max power.
GT's have a compressor which relies on the velocities of the compressor blades and the air mass flowing through the compressor to make its magic happen. You dump all the vibrating, clanking, and flailing parts of a recip engine and rely on the momentum/dynamics of the working fluid to get a gizmo which takes 14.4 PSI air at the front and shoves 200-300 psi air out the back with one moving part which is in perfect rotary balance.
The problem is: It only performs this miracle in a small RPM range. Slow down by 10% and the efficiency goes to pot. Long story short, GTEs have only one fuel flow setting, ON. that's why the military was working on an APU for the M1 Abrahms tank. IT would keep the housekeeping electrical systes running without throwing all the fuel away!
There have been advancements in GTEs. Variable inlet stators allow them to have a somewhat broader band of acceptable efficiency. I would not be surprised to see that this engine has intercoolers between the compressors stages. This is a BIG help to efficiency (less HP needed to crank the compressor). This is not done in AC engines because intercoolers are bulky, but not heavy. The second thing you COULD do in a train is to use a recuperator. The takes the nice cool compressed air, and heats it with the exhaust air. Saves on fuel big time, reduces the noise and and the thermal plume of the engine. Again bulky but not heavy.
Modern, digitally controlled, intercooled, rucuperated, gas turbine engines are bone head simple to operate and basically have squat for moving parts and maintenance needs. And they're light. Damn light. Mostly air in fact.
Modern Turbochanred intercooled diesels are damn efficient too. Comfortably close to Carnot efficiency. BUT the massize engine block needed to take the reciprocating pistons is god auful heavy. Damn near a solid block of iron.
Modern diesel freight engines need to be heavy because they need lots of traction to get moving. A passenger train hauls mostly air and aluminum. People weigh squat next to 100 ton freights. That's why passenger cars are so long. They're full of air. Its posible for this type of passenger train to weigh 1/20-1/100 of a freight train with the same HP. A lightweight engine will impose much smaller dynamic loads on the track system.
A big limiting factor is the engine weight. Modern high speed/non electric passenger trains have big fat engines up front. In europe, they offload the engine by using overhead electric power.
This is an interesting solution to the speed problem. I hope it works.
Re:in case it gets slashdotted (Score:3, Insightful)
Mod this down. If you like the content, GO TO THE SITE.
Take my karma when above comment is lower than mine
Pikers (Score:4, Funny)
Don't they know you have to charge the US Gubmint at least $500 million to get any attention? There's not enough pork in this project for it to go anywhere.
Re:Noise levels? (Score:2)
Re:Better for the enviroment? (Score:5, Informative)
Incomplete combustion results in particulate matter and cancer-causing inorganic compounds.
Jet fuel != Rocket fuel (Score:3, Insightful)
You want a nasty fuel enviromentally? Very little is worse than ordinary pump gasoline.
KFG
Re:Remindes me of the JATO Impala story (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't about some jackass engineer at Bombardier strapping a jet engine onto a flatcar to make it go faster. Bombardier is proposing the use of a turbine in the same way they are used in natural-gas fired power plants. Presumably, the turbine will drive a generator whose electricity output will drive electric motors as in a conventional diesel locomotive.
I'm all for it if it will bring high-speed rail service to North America. Electrifying the existing rail system will take decades if it happens at all--Canada and the U.S. just aren't densely packed enough to support the infrastructure investment seen in Europe. If we can get high-speed non-electric locomotives, we might see high-speed rail service to more cities, offering a viable alternative to the inconveniences of air travel.
Re:Remindes me of the JATO Impala story (Score:5, Interesting)
incorporated into coaches." are awful trains.
I remember when they went into service and replaced the nice big heavy comfortable
slowish trains, with a lot of room, real dining cars, and seats that were
like chairs. Then Amtrak bought these turbo trains from the French. They are
not at all nice, lighter weight, uncomfortable, slowish trains with not much
room, snack cars, and seats that are like airliner seats. ( Some moron
at Amtrak probably thought they were loosing business to the airlines
because people like those airline seats.)
They were always getting disabled every time they hit a snowmobile because
they were so fragile. They were supposed to be fast, but they aren't because
the rail beds are so crummy.
Fast trains aren't fast if they are on slow tracks, and until Amtrak
can get their own tracks the freight trains will keep messing up the rail
beds for all these fast trains.
And they smell just as bad as diesel trains, because there is no
difference between the jet fuel they use, and diesel fuel.
Tanks too... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Remindes me of the JATO Impala story (Score:3, Insightful)
The US is not ready for high speed trains, the infrastructre is FUBAR. Railroad crossings are lethal at the moment and likely to become worse with 100mph+ trains.
The Amercian public is not wishing to travel by train, so get the passangers off the track and make them exclusively for freight.
The best thing that could happen is for AmTrak to be put out of it's misery it's assets sold off and everyone forget about rail travel in the US.
Maybe in 50 years if nothing better has come along America can rediscover trains but until the current crippled system is ripped out nothing will improve.
Right-of-way (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Remindes me of the JATO Impala story (Score:3, Insightful)
1) I like trains.
2) I don't like planes.
3) I would rather see the world than see the clouds.
4) Speed doesn't really mean anything to me, I can work on a train while traveling.
Re:This is silly. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because of Japanese expertise in this area, other countries (other asian states, some european) either licence the technology outright or tap the experts to develop their own technology (recently China and Korea are doing this).
The problems the US faces are known quantities. Why re-invent the (fly-) wheel? The comparative advantage of nations is real. The US should shelve its hubris and buy a proven japanese design rather than investing in more white elephants.
You missed the whole point of the article. All of Japan's (And Europe's) high speed trains are electric powered. For the US to use these technologies would require a huge investment on upgrading the current track to electrified. This engine will work on any track, and will save quite a bit of money in the long run if it actually works as described.
Re:This is silly. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This is silly. (Score:2)
Actually there are good reasons for using different technologies. Japan is very small and has and the railroads are all electrified.
One of the main advantages cited by the article was that this technology would make it possible to keep 'using existing track and without the prohibitive cost of electrifying rail networks.'
Tor
Re:this shouldn't have been accepted by /. (Score:5, Insightful)
may actually be more environmentally friendly... (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, it addresses it very well. With the JetTrain, you have a fossil-fuel turbine generating electricity which turn electric motors on the train wheels. With an electric train, you probably have a fossil-fuel turbine generating electricity which turn electric motors on the train wheels.
The JetTrain would use slightly more energy because it has to push a large engine and a big tank of fuel around. It's minimal compared to the weight of the load, though.
An electric train would use massive amounts of energy and resources to build out electric tracks over thousands of miles.
it's a one time versus an ongoing cost.
Compared to SUV's, the savings are fricking massive.
Bryan
Re:Umm, have we invented electricity yet? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because North America is very big, and relatively sparsly populated. It is not at all certain, that electrifying the entire grid is an economically optimal solution. In remote areas there are no power plants, so either you have to construct new ones in the middle of nowhere or the power has to go through very long cables (which causes a lot of losses).
Tor
One reason (Score:3, Insightful)
One reason Japan's rail system is so much better than the United State's is because Japan is just that much smaller of a country. And as for Europe, Texas alone probably equals the space covered by several European countries.
Re:Umm, have we invented electricity yet? (Score:3, Informative)
Same applies to concrete ties, bi-directional signaling, centralized traffic control, and all the other technologies that make railroads run faster and more efficiently.
The problem with turbines for automotive use. . . (Score:3, Informative)
They are, however, when used at constant rate, far more efficient than piston engines. This makes them good for turning generators.
This would make them good for *hybrid* cars, in which there is renewed interest. In fact, the locomotives that are in question here are conceptually the same as a hybrid car.
KFG
Let Amtrak die? (Score:3, Informative)
That's just another way of saying "let the bondholders pay for the mess." Which isn't necessarily a bad idea, but someone ultimately is going to have to pay.
Let a new company with new vision and an eye towards the future of transportation develop a high tech train system in America.
There's not a single passenger train system in the world that isn't subsidised by some government. Cut the funding and you can expect ticket prices to rise and the number of passengers to drop sharply.
Of course in todays low interest rate environment maybe the system could be sustained, at least until interest rates start going up again.
We don't need old companies to make a new train system.
Considering that it's only old companies that have the capital to make a new train system, yes we do.
Fortunately, technology is better in 2002 (Score:3, Informative)
However, we still must eliminate a big problem with gas turbines: the hot exhaust from the engine. Both GE Transportation Systems and GM's EMD will have to figure out how to cool that exhaust in a very small space before we can build a modern gas-turbine locomotive. Remember, we're not taking about a ship, where there is plenty of space to either divert the hot exhaust or install various technologies in the exhaust stream to cool the hot exhaust.
Re:power to wheels (Score:3, Informative)
Is Turbine B possible?
Not really. The great thing about turbines is that you can run them really hot. The bad thing is they are fragile to shocks. You run these things either at the limit of your metals or use something inherently fragile like ceramics(experimentally at least). This allows you to get a big temperature difference, which means lots of energy can be extracted (at least that's what all those thermodynaics equations seemed to be about.)
If you tried to run it direct to the wheels you'd probably have to run it so cool that any energy efficiencies would be lost. You also wouldn't get the acceleration you can get by putting electric motors under every car in the train, powered by single lightweight generator car.
Re:TechTV (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Flywheels (Score:3, Insightful)