I’ve been an unsufferable crumudgeon about RRs lack of investing in their future.
Time for some “put up or shut up”?
I choose “put up”.
Electrification looks like a winner. Take a look. Then we can…um…“discuss”.
https://blerfblog.blogspot.com/2023/04/i-built-train-performance-calculator.html
This from the king of electrification-scenario developers (say what we may about weasels at a certain Wisconsin media company)
Interestingly enough, the entire model I see is different from the usual idea of electrification used for bigger, longer, cheaper (and used ta be faster, but not any more) consists. Take the model of dual-mode electrification, adapted (and it adapts beautifully and cost-effectively!) to power consists of powered and battery locomotives MUed for ‘best continuous power’. This of course is short of what instantaneous to hourly electric power “could” develop, but it ensures that any train that operates over unelectrified gaps will work at least as effectively under wire. Then build out the wire… but with gaps wherever it isn’t cost-effective to string 50kV 60Hz, and just transition to power (with advance warning via GPS/GIS a la Carnegie-Mellon) when you need the transition.
First places you electrify are grades and ‘sensitive areas’ in air-quality management districts (the latter being amenable to what may be dramatic levels of OPM git-r-dun funding to be repaid through tax setasides) where effective dual-mode ‘snapping’ can be done to reduce track occupancy and so forth.
Then electrify the portions of the route that most benefit from the additional horsepower and braking that electrification can provide… with it not mattering whether there’s a brownout or electricity-fairy stroke or wires down in the storm. Or put the pans up and crank up the excitation to supply ‘excess’ power to the grid if necessary… the phase sync is inherent in the grid power.
Naturally the trick will be easier on routes where some kind of ‘iron ocean’ shared-assets management has been established, perhaps as a kind of 19th-Century Union or Star express-line operation that is an overlay on PSR maintenance and slipshod practices. Where the fun definitely will be lacking, though, is if some of
This route might suit battery tenders well. It’s on my list to look at!
Getting from now to full electrification of main tracks doesn’t have to be a straight line…
(Crumudgeon mode “on”…)
But, the industry needs to get off their butts and push. Something. Anything!
They just sit around and read their press releases about how “green” they are. Just so dumb.
I think they actually are trying to go out of business…
(Crumudgeon mode “off”)
Getting off your butts is hard. And a big investment in something like electrification would mean cutting down on stock buybacks and dividend payments.
It’s hard enough to convince a PSR Class I to invest in more minor capacity improvements like double track and yard expansions. And most won’t touch choke points like single track bridges or speed restricted curves, so forget about a paradigm shift like electrification.
The Class I’s aren’t really railroad companies anymore. They are accounting firms which happen to own railroads, and they aren’t exactly thrilled about it. Actual physical operations are dirty and hard, it’s much easier to sit in an office and crunch numbers.
You’ve probably heard of scientific concepts like the ideal black body or ideal gas. I suggest another one: the ideal PSR railroad, with no costs and only profits. To achieve this the ideal railroad owns no track, has no customers and operates zero trains, because each of those things is a cost. And once you’ve gotten rid of all that you can get rid of the biggest cost of all: the employees. You have now achieved perfection, the operating ratio is infintely low and all that’s left are the accountants and upper managment, they can spend all day trading stocks, counting money and bragging about profits and how green they are (zero trains = zero emissions).
I kind of feel like I’m rewarding bad behavior here [:)], but I’ve always thought of Mr. Iden as one of the good guys and it’s probably good for people to hear his thoughts, so:
Dan
Make you wonder why people with that kind of mindset go into railroading to begin with instead of banking or stockbroking where they could play with other people’s money all day long with nothing else to worry about.
Three simple questions need answered. Forget the cost of the electricity to go into the cantanery
What would the cost be per mile for the infrastructure String power lines to the cantenary(I can hear the “NOT IN MY BACK YARD” now), the support poles, insulators and power wires?
Who will pay the billions to electrify the railroads?
Who will pay for the extra maintenance costs of maintaining the cantenary?
The Virginian, Great Northern and Apache railroads all had cantenary, but took it down in favor of diesel!!!
Those are all good questions!
Here’s mine: What would have been the possible effects on the recent derailment in East Palestine, had the line been electrified with catenary, etc.? How would electrification complicate derailments in general?
I suspect, but don’t know for a fact, that the downed live catenary wires might have created additional fires and been a issue with first responders until such time as the power was KNOWN to be deactivated.
The Virginian didn’t de-energize until N&W merger days, when a paired directional running scheme was instituted on their parallel lines, with no way for ex-VGN electrics to return in the N&W side. The GN electrification was too short to warrent two back-to-back engine changes. I never heard the Apache had electrics, could you be refering to the Navaho mine RR? I’ll also throw in the ex-PRR freight electrification, which became disjointed after they mostly migrated off the Amtrak’s NEC. With electrification you really need to be all in.
I for some reason remember Apache as being a rare-Baldwin railroad, not electrified.
The thing I thought was going to kick off more electrification was the Muskingum, which IIRC was not only electric (being run by and for a utility) but at least semiautomated as built.
Of course the canonical modern reference, both for implementation and for possible removal, was the Tumbler Ridge line, which was built assuming electrification but did not stay that way.
OTOH, in the event that a wreck takes down the catenary supports, I would imagine there are circuit breakers that will trip, lessening the hazard. Depending on the sequence of events of the wreck, this could mean that the catenary won’t be a contributor to fires. Or may be the primary contributor…
I’m sure there are breaks in the catenary that would allow a section to be de-energized. The question then would be how long it would take for that to happen.
As a firefighter, sometimes it takes a while before the local utility can show up and de-energize a line so it’s no longer a hazard we have to handle.
The utilities usually have to ability to isolate remotely, but there’s a question there of how large an area they would be shutting off by doing so.
For a freight wreck not involving spills or hazmat (Springfield, OH), there would be little reason for first responders to even approach the wreckage. Passenger operations would be another story.
I would certainly want first responders/dispatch to be contacting the railroad ASAP. Our fire dispatchers will sometimes contact the utility immediately if they have confirmation that power lines are involved, as opposed to w
What I’d like to add in is the dawn of small nuclear reactors. Not installed in locos. Could a UP or BNSF supply its own electricity to its locos, and significantly lower its energy costs?
If the government tolerated self-insurance for even one of these, I’d be astounded; in addition it would be necessary to do something like extend Price-Anderson to potential accidents regarding them… and I don’t see any prospective government even broaching the issue of statutory limitation. (We sure ain’t gonna see the latter readily after East Palestine!)
Railroad would have all the ‘baggage’ of dealing with permitting and the usual cost-escalating delays and pressure groups; it would have to provide, or expen$ively outsource, the added security against the usual suspects that would find small nuke plants an attractive nuisance; just think about the fun convincing absentee investor owners of having to account in advance for the full decommissioning costs. And that’s just for operation with no incidents.
Read starting on page 1-7…“downed Amtrak overhead power lines can arc up to three feet”…holy crap!!! I did not know about the powered signal line mentioned in that same section.
Given that the world is transitioning away from fossil fuels, I would think something’s going to have to give. The U.S. and Canadian governments aren’t going to allow railroads to operate diesels in perpetuity.
That was true even “back in the day” of pole lines with a plethora of wires. One pair of the wires would carry power that could be used at remote stations for lighting. Probably a single light bulb or two at any given location, but lighting nonetheless. Commercial power was not as ubiquitous as it is now.
The wall mounted anchor point for said power is still visible on a section house along the Adirondack line. It’s a good distance off the beaten path. There is no commercial power there today (they use battery lights and the way-more-than-adequate coal stove), and I doubt there ever was.
Two more questions…
Where’s the electricity going to come from?
Who’s going to pay the development costs for a small run of electric locomotives?
The argument against electrification one invariably hears is that the distances are too vast here, and the cost of building and maintaining the infrastructure would be astronomical and prohibitive. That’s all true…but… electification can nevertheless have an outsized positive impact by limiting it to one or two high density shorthaul corridors. By way of example, consider CN’s Kingston sub which connects Montreal and Toronto. This double tracked high speed subdivision punches far above its weight in terms ton miles (25+% of CN’s total are generated on this division alone), and contribution to revenue etc. Electrifying this segment only, therefore, would have an outsized impact on cost reduction and efficiency for the entire company. Sometimes to think big one has to think small. Electrifying the entire network would make no sense at all…electrifying one or two corridors, on the other hand, would likely result in massive efficiencies…
And that’s for the original spec 11kV. Any likely ‘future’ freight electrification would be no less than 25kV, with 50kV being more likely.
When you learn about corona, the required safety and clearance issues begin to balloon at the higher voltages for freight service (especially when you have stacked 8’6" containers, and for comedy gold look at the cat height in India, where their double-stacks are on flat rather than well cars) – this is a major consideration in the extent of punctate electrification.
Perhaps needless to say, even with PSR cost-cutting you’re going to want an alert and knowledgeable ‘power director’ watching. There won’t be a repeat of Malbone St. where the power is repeatedly cycled through what might be many people; at least in the systems I’m planning there are external monitoring systems, and a good bridge to first responders, so that power can be cut quickly and selectively and, if necessary, operations conducted around the damage.
Some of those lines were, IIRC, 4400V!
People tend to forget that extensive electrification into ‘rural regions’ didn’t occur until the 1920s (and a combination of Wall Street revanche and New Deal grandstanding short-routed what would have been extensive private development, something that has nearly disappeared from industrial history). Even where electrical service was being expanded, points of contact between the utility AC infrastructure and railroad ROWs might be both incidental and inadequate to supply more than the kind of energy needed to keep battery signals ‘recharged’.
It’s unsurprising that a pole line of any great length wouldn’t have the same sort of high voltage to keep transmission losses down,