Actually, I’m just having fun with you guys…
BUT!..
…don’t let that stop anyone from offering useful information regarding the performance of UP’s gas-turbines. I am interested in the notion of using the combined-cycle concept of a gas-turbine/steam turbine hybrid. Did UP ever explore this idea before deciding to scrap the lot?
Actually UP had one experimental turbine that was coal fired but the ash damaged the turbine blades. I too have often wondered if that particular unit was not ahead of its time. With the advances in metalurgy since the experiment I wonder if it would be more feasible today. The unit used one of the former GN electrics and an Alco PA diesel and was a massive machine.
The other UP turbines operated with massive fuel tenders converted from Steam Locomotive tenders and were fuel guzzlers from the word go. I was fortunate enough to see them operate many times and thought they would be around forever. But then I thought so would the RR owned passenger trains.
Al - in - Stockton
I think a couple of years ago Bombardier(?) had a proposal for a 10,000 HP Gas Turbine for passenger trains. I think it died for lack of interest.
With diesel fuel running at $5.00 a gal(I drive a truck, not mine someone elses), remember that gas turbines don’t burn fuel they just really suck it.
RGDS IGN
IMHO, combined cycle plants are much better suited for stationary plants than mobile plants, if for no other reason that a condenser isn’t anywahere near as effective on a locomotive as it would be in a stationary plant.
On the other hand, GE’s H series combustion turbines have a full power efficiency of 46%, which is better than the 40% thermal efficiency for the best steam plant. There is some significant progress being made in thermo-electric conversion that could wring some more electricity from the exhaust of a combustion (gas) turbine. Thermo-electric converters would be easier to fit on a locomotive than a steam plant.
Again, you have the problem of narrow operating speed and load for good efficiency, but this problem can be solved by the gen-set concept, with turbines and alternators of stepped capacity.
Why could;nt they burn coal gas (aka: methane gas)? They are converting coal to gas now. very efficently. I do not know the price but should be al lot cheaper than oil. The problem with the turbines was they burned as much fuel standing still as they did at full throttle. With today’s computer controlled technology there should be a way to fix that.
Personally, I think the time has come for a reevaluation of the steam-turbine-electrics along the lines of the Jawn Henry, as technology has advanced to the point that such a locomotive might be economically doable. The UP coal fired turbine would be another one to take a technological leap, and both might find favor with nuclear power plants in the same or similar vein of some US submarines, powering steam turbines, but of less size and capacity.
The day of the oil-fired anything may be coming to a rapid close, in an economical and political sense.
Bombardier built and tested a 5,000 HP (actually about 4500HP at the rail) high speed passenger locomotive called the Jettrain based on the ACELA power units. Amtrak was initially very interested but the unit now sits in storage. Bombardier has removed the pages for the GTEL from their website but apparently still holds out some hope in marketing them for non electrified high speed rail applications.
The proposed 10,000HP turbine was actually a Railpower Industries idea for a compressed natural gas powered freight locomotive, they were mainly trying to interest the North American freight rail industry in a 5500HP six axle engine (this came about at the time that UP and BN were experimenting with LNG fueled diesels) but also did design work on an 8-10k HP unit. It was to be called the CINGL (Compressed Integrated Natural Gas Locomotive) and the concept actually predates the development of the Green Goat(which BTW was originally designed to use a small gas turbine rather than a diesel genset) and Genset locomotives. The section about the CINGL has been deleted from the Railpower website, I know that the company stated that the development of a prototype was contingent of finding a Gas Turbine manufacturer to partner with (they were trying to interest both Rolls Royce (Allison) and Solar (Caterpillar)) and I guess that didn’t pan out.
One of John Kneiling’s proposed configurations for his Integral Train system used a combined cycle (oil fired gas turbine with a heat recovery boiler/steam turbine topping cycle) and there are details and drawings in his book. This was to be for bulk train applications. IIRC the Ultimate Steam Page has a document authored by Modern Steam proponent Harry Valentine speculating about how the proposed Railpower CINGL (see my above post) could be modified into a combined cycle locomotive…
That would have been the Bombardier JetTrain. It was a US DOT funded project to explore a high speed locomotive for non-electrified territory. They basically took and Acela loco, removed the transformer and plopped in a gas turbine - gen set. It tested well at 150 mph at Pueblo.
There were no takers because there is no non-electrified high speed RR to run it on (and no new development that has actual funds to spend on construction)
The “coal to gas” you are refering to is probably the Great Plains facility in North Dakota which converts lignite to synthetic methane using a partial FT process. It is essentially natural gas. So to burn “coal gas” in your suggestion would be simply burning compressed natural gas which itself would be composed of synthetic natural gas made from coal. I think the UP gas turbines burned CNG, so it’s all the same from that standpoint.
Synthetic methane can be made from coal for about $3 - $4 per mmBtu. Wellhead prices for true natural gas are in the $5 - $6 range per mmBtu. Both are much cheaper than diesel which sells for about $25 (?) per mmBtu.
As for the one speed of the turbine, my thought was that with a combined cycle configuration you would have two different throttle possiblities. The gas turbine would run at baseline, and the secondary steam turbine would provide the “ummph” power.
I’m combining these two posts because they represent the hybrid I am thinking of. Run a UP-style gas turbine at a baseline lower than that of the original UP gas turbine, then use the Jawn Henry-type steam turbine as the peaking power supply.
The question is, can a steam turbine be turned on and off in a short amout of time to facilitate it’s use as a peak power supply? Assuming the answer is no, would it be possible to use a steam turbine as baseline and use the gas turbine as the peaking power source (and fit it all in a locomotive body)?
Forgive me if I’m off on a tangent, I’m just thinking as I go!
Our local landfill - a rather large affair - is currently standing up a generating station which will use the methane generated by the buried trash. It may not be economically feasible to make it available as a portable fuel, but could well serve as a power source for electrified territory.
On top of that, they plan to use the waste heat from the generators to air condition greenhouses in which to raise veggies for sale in local stores. Something like 5% of NY’s tomatoes come from just such a facility in the Buffalo area.
Norman Saxon wrote :
“I think the UP gas turbines burned CNG, so it’s all the same from that standpoint.”
Hi Norman,
only one unit (Nr. 57) burned gas as an experiment, the others burned heavy bunker oil, that was cheap at that time.
Turbines were a very specialized application for the U.P., they work efficiently under high load, only (as well as turbines of others appliances, too).
They didn’t had the versability like a diesel engine. Their advantage was that they had a high HP-output per unit at their time. As the diesel-output grewed (and the cost for bunker-oil, too), they became obsolete.
Kind regards
Lars
The UP 57 was converted to use LPG (aka propane) for fuel.
There have been a number of proposals over the years to use solid fuel gasifier units (mounted on a “tender”) to supply producer gas fuel to either gas turbines or modified diesel engines for Locomotive use. This is similiar to the way the new Integrated Gasifiication combined cycle power plants operate. Caterpillar, MK Rail, and EMD apparently all did engineering studies on such systems back during the last oil market spike (late 80’s). Part of the concept was to utilize emissions control equipment to filter impurities (SO2 being the major one, but also Mercury and other pollutants) out of the feed gas. AFAIK a prototype mobile unit has never been constructed and tested…
There is a pilot program in Sweden that is manufacturing Syngas for a variety of uses including as locomotive fuel. The feedstock for the gasification plant is farm waste, mostly cow manure. The producer gas is upgraded to Natural Gas quality…
Didnt both the Jawn Henry and the C&O turbines have numuorous technical problems associated with placing a fragile turbine on a locomotive chassis prone to jolts and slams of all sorts?
http://www.steamlocomotive.com/turbine/
Seams to me best to place those turbines, alot of them, on a slab, built a powerplant around them and use catenary to deliver the power to them traction motors.
Maybe, but nothing that couldn’t be overcome with up to date technology, right?
In this day and age, that’s the last thing you want to do. It’s cheaper to keep the powerplant mobile, directly powering the wheels below, and dispense with the expensive catenary.
Distributed power works great in transport.
At least on central power station scales, steam turbines take quite a while to vary power - best performance might be 20% per minute.
My (somewhat educated) guess is that the efficiency benefit of shoe-horning a steam turbine on a locomotive for combined cycle operation would be outweighed by the extra weight and expense. Now for a passenger locomotive in the days of steam heating (and steam ejector airconditioning), it probably would make sense to use the waste heat for boiling water.
Why would the “extra weight” of two turbines per locomotive necessarily be a negative? The modern steam web sites all mention multiple turbine locomotives, so it can’t just be the presence of that second turbine. Assuming the gas turbine has been reduced in size from the UP specs, with the makeup power coming from the steam turbine, are we really adding that much weight? Extra tenders, is that necessarily a problem?
As for the extra expense in the CC concept, wouldn’t the availability of the extra output outweigh the extra expense, since that seems to be the MO of stationary power plants using CC?
What about “storing the extra steam” when not needed for power output? Isn’t that the concept behind the fireless locomotive?