I remember reading somewhere the President of a railroad saying their engines could be easily converted to emergency generators and make enough electricity to power a small town. I forgot what railroad that was. Wouldn’t it have to be an a.c. loco to do this, and what at what hertz (sp?) is an a.c. loco at?
No you could use a DC engine if you ran the output through a rectifier to convert it to AC. Steam engines were often used as steam sources at industrial locations when boilers went down for maintenance. I have two photos of this being done using Nickle Plate Berks at McLouth Steel in Detroit. When I worked at Armco Steel in Middletown Ohio we had a N&W Y3 for use at the open hearth. There are probably much more efficient ways to generate electricty than a diesel however. I was at a Menards Hardware this morning that has a Generac unit that runs on natural gas and has an alternator. This thing had a 2" gas line and was bigger than a full size van to handle emergency power for the store. The power company here in the Chicago area has several jet engines that spin generators or alternators for peak demand requirements so use of a diesel is highly feasbale.
Some time back, Trains carried a photo of a CN unit that was being used as a power supply in some Canadian city; the unit had apparently been run down a track in a city street, and then drug some distance further off the rails to a point where its generating capacity could be used…The details are pretty sketchy,in my memory[X-)],but I think the details are still pretty accurate.[sigh]
It depends on the RPM of the diesel. It doesn’t matter though cause on an AC the alternator output is rectified and then powers an inverter that creates an AC current at a frequency determined by the traction motor speed / gearing / windings.
Locomotives can easily be used for supplying power to the grid, but it will need some additional equiptment to get from 600 volt DC to 7200V 60Hz AC. Either a motor / generator or an inverter (a big one) or a way to phase lock and step up the inverter output.
Ndbprr, A rectifier can only convert AC to DC, not the other way around.
I believe the town is Stewart, BC. I have a friend from Stewart and he told me that the town uses a couple of CN locomotives for power generation. I’m not sure if it is a full time thing, or only as a backup.
You cannot make Inverters big enough to feed a neighborhood, much less a town. We are a group of about 500 homes within reach of the tracks and each home needs 60 hertz at 120 volts AC and who knows how many total Amperage to feed each one. Heck the computer Im using is probably the third biggest electric eater behind the laundry and the home air/heat.
There are probably 2000 homes in my town and a few hundred businesses along with phone lines, traffic lights etc etc etc.
It is also my opinion that when someone like me uses the words …“You cannot…” someone else probably found a way to spend the United States Dollar in sufficient amounts to make it happen.
Actually they can have inverters big enough (if it’s not already done, look up the Celeo converter station in Sylmar,Ca.), but it takes $$$$ for expensive and large simiconductors. Much easier to use a motor / generator set.
A locomotive can easily produce 4000-6000 amps, pleanty to supply even the largest neighborhood
More than a few years ago, a scrap yard near Boston used the ex-B&M Speed Merchants that it owned to provide electric power for its various operations.
I seem to remember MRL experimenting with supplying power to the grid somewhere in Montana where electricy was extraordinarily expensive. If I recall the experiment was short lived. I think they were useing 6 SD40-2s.
Poor fellows…once up a time I used to work on emergency generators, and I never saw a company that took short-cuts like Generac did. I always liked Onan (now part of Cummins) and Katolight much more. Then again, those days are so far removed that the situation might have changed and Generac is much better. It’d be interesting to see what the industry is like these days.
This is an interesting concept. Say there’s a natural disaster somewhere and the ROW is ok enough to get an engine or two and maybe a specially fitted car with whatever converter is needed to get usable power to the grid. It could at least help out and what great PR to the RR that would help out like that. [2c]
I remember seeing a picture of that. The news article made it sound like the engine moved under it’s own power down the street tearing up the pavement somewhat. I think they knew they were going to be without power for a couple of weeks so they were willing to trade off the road damage for power.
Enjoy
Paul
Off topic response: I believe Northern Pacific sent a 4-8-4 to the University at Bozeman to provide steam when the boiler could not be fixed. Maybe MichaelSol has the details.
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Not sure about the name of the town, but otherwise you are correct.
This was done to supply power to a town that was dark due to an incredible ice storm. The town is in a valley, and the cold air pooled in the valley and when the precipitation began falling, it was rain…but as the rain fell into the cold pool (where everything had already been chilled to many degrees below freezing), all the rain turned to ice on impact. Some places had ice 4" thick!! It took many weeks to restore all of the downed lines.
ndbprr I hate to call you again on the same post but they do NOT have JET engines that “spin generators”. These are gas turbines and they have about the same relationship to jet engines as a water wheel does to a garden hose nozzle. A jet engine produces thrust due to the reaction to the action of gas passing at high speed through a jet or orifice. A gas turbine produces torgue through the pressure on blades(also known as buckets) as the expanding gases pass through the turbine, at each stage pressing on another set of blades as the gases expand. their velocity at the exit is low and you would not hear one at all at 200 yds.
1993 ice storm covered eastern ontario and CN did run a loco down the street to power emergancy services…peaker services in South Lyon MI …a prime mover remanufactor…supplies local cities with rebuilt 567’s and ac/dc sets for standby power…at least they have twice that i know of
A C60AC produces around 4.7 million watts of power at full throttle. That’s the equivalent of 40,000 amps at 120 volts.
Didn’t California consider using the old BN B30-7A during the electricty trading crises several yeasrs ago? I do not know if it ever worked but I remember the discussions.