As if powering the car didn’t add $50K to it’s cost, now we add RC equipment for another $50K or more. And then all that equipment must be maintained in working order for more $$$$$$$$$$$.
And wouldn’t making these cars self-propelled classify them as locomotives - with all assoicated tests and certifications?
Although my last post concerning ardunio controlled fmus via quadcopters was in jest, I thought to myself - self-power freight cars are a nice idea, but how can we make this concept less of a solution in search of a problem. Sadly, the UIC 'Self-propelled freight car" concept linked to before (I’ll add an active link here) is overkill for the OP’s new paradigm (“paradigm”? Yay - “Eighties - I’m living in the eighties!”) of serving long, light traffic industrial leads and branches.
OK, equipping each freight car permanently with a discrete power unit (DPU) at the current state of technology adds lots of extra weight, complexity, maintenance costs and so it, so we have to discount that solution as transport companies hate hauling extra unused weight around unless they absolutely have to - this is why Roadrailers, which look great on paper, are not so successful in the real world (at least Triple Crown service survives to some extent).
So the DPU would need to be attached to a standard freight car, then detached and retrieved after the car is spotted at it’s destination (visa-versa when getting the car from the consignee to a yard/local/etc). Fine, railroads have perfected methods of combining power units and rolling stock for over 150 years. Railroads even have small mobile power units, capable of handling 1-3 freight cars, up long industrial leads and branches - Trackmobiles aka Railcar Movers.
So for the final piece of the puzzle, lets get these Trackmobiles remote controlled - hey, no problem, that’s already been done - except in too limited a fashion for our needs - a range of 760metres and a battery life of 8 hours no es b
GPS via handheld I-Phone just like quad copter just at ground level…Come to think of it we could run any train from anywhere in the world from say like India.
Cars actulay sorting themselves without a hump. Why does railroading have to be stuck in the 19th century.
I’ve seen old photos of a locomotive being pulled by a couple dozen women factory workers, so it can’t be that hard to move a train car-right? I’ve seen an industry here in town that has a knuckle on a front end loader for moving cars around, so it can’t be that hard to adapt some equipment-right? And I’ve seen commercials for John Deere riding lawn mowers that look like they could pull a train, the answer is simple-right? So I’m thinking, add a knuckle and wheel like the MOW truck have, and problem solved. You wouldn’t need any self propelled cars or any locomotive engineer. Heck, the guy doing the switching would only need bibbed overalls and a John Deere hat. Around here that’s not hard to find.
Only hang up might be the brakes. I assume you could go with those fancy electric ones, but I’m not sure how you’d keep from having a train car cut the extention cord. Perhaps if someone told me how to remedy that, I could come up with a way to tell them they are wrong.
Our Gradall has a knuckle coupler, hi-rail wheels, and an air compressor. The hi-rail wheels are used mostly when keeping the ROW clear of brush (with the mother of all weed-whackers on the end of the boom…). I believe the brakes on a RR car can be controlled from inside the cab, so it could be used to move cars some distance, if needed.
During WW2, the military put rail wheels on GMC 6x6 trucks and used them to switch freight cars. Cars are much larger and heavier now, but back then cars had friction bearings and the engines in those trucks only had about 100 horsepower. With the large and powerful earthmoving equipment available now, it couldn’t be too difficult to find something suitable to push around a few cars. Any scheme to use self-powered railcars would have a hard time leaping the hurdle of the relatively low cost and widely available alternatives.
Yeah, those 4300-4400 HP AC locomotives, 120 ton rotary gondolas, double stack well cars,multi level autoracks etc are so 1889…
Bingo.
From FRA compliance manual Section 8-229.5
“Periodically, FRA receives inquiries about equipment requirements for self-propelled vehicles used to haul revenue freight on the main line.
These vehicles include those built by Trackmobile Inc., Shuttle Wagon, Mitchell Equipment Corporation and Brandt RoadRailer®. Self-propelled vehicles are used in a variety of railroad functions. When self-propelled vehicles are used only in the performance of typical maintenance-of-way functions, or if they are used to move cars or equipment within the confines of repair facilities, they are to be considered specialized maintenance equipment and are exempt from many FRA regulations. When a self-propelled vehicle is used to move freight over the
railroad, outside the limits established for maintenance-of-way operations and repair facilities, it will be considered a locomotive and must comply with applicable regulations. Even though these vehicles do not resemble a standard locomotive, the purpose for which they are being used requires compliance with 49 CFR parts 223, 229, 231, and 232.”
Let’s look at a list of some of the items FRA has its inspectors look for in connection with this. I will interpolate comments later (I’ve tried to post this no less than five times and the Forum software has dumped the post in mid-edit an equal number of times.) I’m not going through the fun of editing in Word and pasting over to the Forum – why can’t IT bring back their own functionality of asking if we want to navigate away from a post if we’re not done editing yet?
“1. The vehicle glazing material must comply with part 223.”
"2. Each self-propelled vehicle shall be inspected each calendar day when used, and an inspection report and record shall be comp