Excuse me if this has been covered before, and head over there, but I did a search and could not find it.
What is the normal MPG for a freight train pulling X amount of cars?[bow]
On a coal train between Galesburg and Chicago I will burn about 600 gallons.
Rodney
In reality we’re talking gallons per mile! [(-D]
LOL, then what woulld the gallons per mile be?
The number that pops into my head is about .075 miles per gallon for the average sized freight train on level track. I forget where I read this, but it was some sort of fairly recent publication.
By Yahoo map, it is 195 miles Galesburg to Chicago-600 gals/200 miles roughly equals 3 gals per miles- Said the “normal” way around: 1/3 mile per gallon-does that sound right to any/everyone?
Do bear in mind that the fuel per distance may be low, but ton-mile per gallon is incredibly high (if I remember correctly, 300 ton miles per gallon, but that sounds too high).
The 600 gallons you mention reference; is that for one engine or the entire train? How many units in tyhe consist?
I was thinking the same thing- if there were three engines, then it would be 200 miles/1800 gallons, or 0.1111… miles per gallon, which is alot closer to ben10ben’s number.
I found a fuel chart for locomotives in a past CN timetable that should give you some idea of fuel economy (or lack thereof)
The top set of numbers is throttle notch, bottom set is fuel consumption in gallons per hour.
EMD 3000hp
idle 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
4.3 7.6 21 36 50 66 83 110 136
EMD 4000hp
idle 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
2.5 9.7 18 39 53 71 110 136 158
GE 4000hp
idle 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
3.1 9.5 19 43 61 87 111 138 163
Should give you some idea of fuel economy.
the columns were straight when I typed this up!!
Randy
Keep in mind that the notch may not be indicative of the speed. An article in Trains regarding AC locos a while back spoke about a drag set doing about .5 mph in Run 8. You can do the math.
As usual, Al Krug supplies us with excellent material on this subject.
A typical freight train will get anywhere from 300 to 1000 ton miles per gallon depending on route, speed, type of train, etc.
If you use 600 ton-miles/gallon as the avg and 6000 tons as the avg train, then a train will get 0.1 mpg
On a sd70mac I will burn about 200 gallons per hour and on a dash 9 4400 hp I will burn about 210 gallons per hour in throllle notch 8. The adverage cola train to Chicago is about 17,000 tons and I only have 2 engines.
Rodney
My horse power per ton is most often .4 hpt when the train list calls for .8 hpt on a coal train.
Rodney
best way to find out is get train timetables. they lots of good info.
sd 40 burn about 9 gallons per hour just idling, dash 9 burn 11 gallons per hour, and mac 70 burn around 10 gallons per hour.
for the time being i am working on a run from witchta falls texas to amarillo texas. yesterday i had two engines both being dash 9’s. the run is 222 miles long and each motor burn 900 ± gallons of fuel. that is an average of about 4.05 gallons per mile.
You’re a bit high on your idle fuel rates. An SD40 will burn 5 gal/hr at idle and 4.0 at low idle. An SD70 will burn even less - it idles slower.
Overall, this shows that freight trains are very efficient at hauling bulk loads at longer distances far better than trucks. Unfortunately trains are limited by their right of ways as are barges, which are even cheaper.
Ok guys, it is very important for my science project that I get this info.
What is the average pay of a freight train crew, and/or smei truck driver/crew. What is the normal tonnage of a semi, and of a normal manifest train? What is the normal speed of a freight train and a semi? How much could a train haul in a month? A truck? I will try to think of more stuff later but if you can think of something else , please post it on here. Thanks in advance!