I came across these sitting on a siding in the Leesville railyard.
My guess is that the second set of items are the generator housings that sit atop masts comprising wind power generators. The first set of items are perhaps the central covers for the mounts into which the vanes are set on the front of those generator housings.
Yes. As I found out on another forum that’s exactly what they are. I’d never seen one in pieces before.
Yes they are giant versions of the lionel 022 switch cover lens before being painted. I would guess this is what they would look look in 1:1 scale. Thats pretty funny, I think ill take a picture of them on a lionel flat car and post it.
They are wind turbine parts. From the size, I suspect they are large ones(over 2 MW capacity). At least one if the large companies ships them from Scandanavia to Duluth, MN. There is a dock with hundreds of turbine parts waiting for shipment via rail car. The largest are in the 2.2-2.5 MW capacity(the largest that can be shipped via rail without a ‘high/wide’ load clearance).
Neat Load!
Jim Bernier
Oh my gourd!
It’s the space alien’s space craft!
Wind turbine parts wins the race.
Those are $2 million wind turbines that are destined to save someone $50/month on their electric bill. They should pay for themselves in about 200 years.[:-,]
$50! That’s 98% of my electric bill!
Hi!
We see a lot of those trucked up I-45 north out of south Texas. They are wind generator parts (as others indicated in earlier postings). The thing that makes it hard for most to identify is that they are sooooo large and its hard to put them in perspective.
We also saw trains of blades and the main housings up near Fort Worth too. There are huge windfarms in northwest Texas, and we saw some in Oklahoma and New Mexico. The largest one was over 200 generators.
ENJOY,
Mobilman44
We should all be so lucky[:P]
I caught these being trucked up to the Laurel Highlands, they had just pulled off of I-68 at Grantsville, Maryland.
There’s a huge windmill farm that runs pretty much from Meyersdale, PA up to Somerset, and maybe beyond. If you drive on the PA turnpike around there, you can’t miss them.
Lee
Hmmmmm, but wait. Let’s think here.
I’m not into the global warming “knee-jerk hoopla”, but let us reason that, theoretically, an actual $50+ per month can be saved. If a few units will be used in a town or city of a population of, let’s say, 70,000+ people (or a city of several million) would that not justify the investment; especially after just one year?
O.K now back to trains [;)]
I priced some home wind turbines Jay Leno was promoting on some show. $35,000 for all the hardware and the auto grid switching circuitry that you need to have. (NOT installed!) You had to supply the tower, wire, crane, riggers and electrician.
They said this unit would power ONE standard size refrigerator and a medium size TV!
How’s THAT for cost effective?!?[:O]
Lee those are the ones that were put in near Central City, off of 160 (and keeping this train related) and the end of the NS branch from Windber.
I see 'em from my living room window.
[i] I priced some home wind turbines Jay Leno was promoting on some show. $35,000 for all the hardware and the auto grid switching circuitry that you need to have. (NOT installed!) You had to supply the tower, wire, crane, riggers and electrician.
They said this unit would power ONE standard size refrigerator and a medium size TV!
How’s THAT for cost effective?!?
[/i]
Hmm. The 10KW one I looked up was about $36,000 including the tower. Just to check out what one would support, I looked up a fairly large refrigerator http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_04678543000P?mv=cf&vName=Appliances&cName=Refrigerators (476KWH/year or about 1.3 KWH/day). A refrigerator cycles on and off, so the demand is intermittent and the maximum current draw is upon startup. Averaging out the hourly usage, this refrigerator uses only about 54 watts/hour.
Then I went to CNET to check on TV power consumption http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6475_7-6400401-3.html?tag=lnav . One of the poorest rated appears to be a 65" LCD TV by Sharp (76.1 watts standby, 583.8 watts when on). This is not a medium sized TV, but a humongous one. Even when the TV is on, it’s drawing less than 6% of the rated capacity of the generator.
There’s a 3.6KW generator in our motor home. It will simultaneously power a refrigerator, the TV (old tube type), an 1100 watt microwave and a 15,000 BTU air conditioner. A 10KW generator will run a lot more than a single refrigerator and a medium sized TV. You also get to sell generated power in excess of usage to the utility company. &nb
**andrechapelon-**Yeah, I don’t get it either.[%-)] This was the company Jay used to make his auto museum “green” They sell some new cylinder type turbines instead of the fan blade style. They say it’s more aesthetically pleasing to look at. (and apparently much less efficient for the $$$!![D)]) I got a good laugh at what they were trying to sell these for![(-D]
No, you have it backwards. They have started using them here in Colorado. They are designed to be green and therefore COST everyone $50 more dollars a month on electric bills.
I’m also a sailor, and I can tell you there are a lot of flat calm days, in the area of the Great Lakes in the summer. Not to mention my house is surrounded by high trees. Oh, and my monthly electric bill is around $25, with senior discount. [:D]
The first set could be marker lights for a really big caboose? The second set just has to be car top carriers for a giant suv!
Dick
Texas Chief
[quote user=“andrechapelon”]
[i] I priced some home wind turbines Jay Leno was promoting on some show. $35,000 for all the hardware and the auto grid switching circuitry that you need to have. (NOT installed!) You had to supply the tower, wire, crane, riggers and electrician.
They said this unit would power ONE standard size refrigerator and a medium size TV!
How’s THAT for cost effective?!?
[/i]
Hmm. The 10KW one I looked up was about $36,000 including the tower. Just to check out what one would support, I looked up a fairly large refrigerator http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_04678543000P?mv=cf&vName=Appliances&cName=Refrigerators (476KWH/year or about 1.3 KWH/day). A refrigerator cycles on and off, so the demand is intermittent and the maximum current draw is upon startup. Averaging out the hourly usage, this refrigerator uses only about 54 watts/hour.
Then I went to CNET to check on TV power consumption http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6475_7-6400401-3.html?tag=lnav . One of the poorest rated appears to be a 65" LCD TV by Sharp (76.1 watts standby, 583.8 watts when on). This is not a medium sized TV, but a humongous one. Even when the TV is on, it’s drawing less than 6% of the rated capacity of the generator.
There’s a 3.6KW generator in our motor home. It will simultaneously power a refrigerator, the TV (old tube type), an 1100 watt microwave and a 15,000 BTU air conditioner. A 10KW generator will run a lot more than a single refrigerator and a medium sized TV. You also get to sell generated power in excess of usage to t