Check out General Electric’s ads for the Evolution locomotive line on www.CNN.com .
Good advertising.
They were on ESPN’s site last night, too. That one sort of left me scratching my head.
I’m going to show some ignorance here. On their web site, GE talks about a Hybrid locomotive in the works. They only give high-level details, but from the description, it sounded an awful lot like dynamic braking to me. Any idea what the difference between a hybrid locomotive and one with dynamic brakes is?
I have no idea what the difference might be. Hybrid technology implies two or more sources of motive power…one needs to look no further than the Honda Insight, Toyota Prius or Ford Escape Hybrid for the concept. I would presume that GE has something similar in mind. Dynamic braking applies only to, ahem, braking, using the locomotives traction motors as generators, whose generated current passes through resistor grids to provide a load to slow the motors. GE’s concept may use the traction motors to recharge batteries. It’s an intriguing idea.
GE’s high profile embracing of “green” technology is (IMHO) not quite as sincere as it may seem, although they have admitted that it’s also good business, i.e.: there’s money to be made by being green. A very big motivation, at least for their Transportation Systems Division, is that as of 1 January 2005, the US gov’t. put into law the next tier of air pollution standards for diesel locomotives sold in the US. AC4400’s wouldn’t meet those standards, so now we have the ES series to meet those environmental standards.
I was always under the impression that they were using the energy generated by dynamic braking to feed the batteries, as well as slow the locomotive. Thus the root of my confusion. GE definitely is planning to charge the batteries in that manner.
Plus, they claim the new design runs cooler (added a couple of additional fans) to reduce engine wear.