Since the price of fuel seems to be the topic of the day, I thought it might be interesting to speculate what a modern electric equivilant of an SD70ACE or such would look like if one of the big freight railroads were to commit to mainline electricifcation (like the Pennsy nearly a century ago).
Anyone up for a kitbash of same?
-George
Quick and dirty - take your humongudiesel, remove all the detail relating to its prime mover and install pantographs, either the old traditional type or a more modern single-arm variety. Viola!
I’m pretty sure that any massive move to catenary would see a similar quick mod of existing diesel designs, substituting transformers and ballast for the prime mover and its fuel tanks. Any relatively sensible design of catenary would carry single-phase 60hz power at an elevated voltage, to be reduced and rectified on board and used to feed the existing on-board equipment.
I can’t recall offhand where I saw it, but there was a photo of a modern German diesel-electric/battery loco (Green Goat technology) with a pantograph mounted on the cab roof. It could recharge its batteries as well as run off catenary, only firing up the prime mover for extended switching of non-catenary trackage.
Not that this is a new idea. The NYC worked Manhattan’s West Side Line with diesel/third rail/battery motors that were old when I was a high school student back in the '50s.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
That’s kind of along the lines I was thinking. An updating of the EMD GM6C from the 70s which was built on a standard SD40 frame.
One question that arises is, would the engines need to be as large as they are now for a given horsepower? I would think not.
Also, would they be Cowl bodied like the GF6Cs of BC Rail…
or would they keep the safety cab and road switcher body that is currently in vogue?
Finally, of the big mega roads, who do you think would be most likely to electrify their mains?
-George
http://clcotrains.embarqspace.com/#/rebuilds/4528646392
Second image. I made it from a SD70ACe from http://trainiax.net/mescaleloco.htm and a pantograph from www.trainweb.org/willstrainart
Interesting!
But since you no longer have that big diesel engine to keep cool, perhaps you could lose the fans and the radiators and replace them with the pan(s).
-George
quote user=“PA&ERR”
Interesting!
But since you no longer have that big diesel engine to keep cool, perhaps you could lose the fans and the radiators and replace them with the pan(s).
George
close quote
That was what I was referring to when I used the term, “Prime mover specific details.”
You will still need the traction motor blowers, and probably some cooling arrangement for the switchgear and rectifiers.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with catenary motors.)
For a number of years I have fantasized about an electrified railway. Like Virginian and Norfolk and Western my Seaboard and Western Virginia electrified a couple of hundred miles of their mainline across the spine of the Alleghenys following WWI. Unlike the others, however, I fantasize that the S&WV’s electrification remains intact in the 21st Century.
Whenever you are freelancing in this vein the main problem, of course, ibecomes motive power. Most certainly the lokes of fifty or more years ago have long since metamorphosed to razor blades - I’m sure someone is going to shoot me out of the saddle with information that someplace there are seventy year old electrics still working - but there might still be some forty year old units to be found on the drawbar of freight trains pulling up out of the Shenandoah Valley. With that thought in mind about fifteen years ago I purchased five N-Scale F45 body shells of unknown pedigree for a buck apiece from a vendor at a GATS show. I figured that that would be a good body for a modern electric locomotive. Nothing has ever come of this but I still have these body shells around someplace. With the current energy crunch this might be the time to rekindle thoughts of an electrified railway in the 21st Century.Modern electrics, I am sure, would take on the guise of recent offerings from both EMD and GE. There is, of course, the possibity of Americanizing foreign power. One of the reason’s for my purchase of F45s was the full length cowled body, a specification I would want for all my fleet.
As an aside I am sure that the major railroads have study groups examining electrification. Thirty or so years ago, I understand, Onion Specific layed a test track somewhere in Wyoming in order to test the durability of poles and wire in that harsh environment. I don’t know what ever came of this. Electrification is, I feel, on