In this era of drastic change, what will the we see in new locomotives? we are all used to the horizontal metal gym locker design( not too exiting) what’s next?? cabs at the back, cabs in the middle? higher? double end cabs? complete and total design changes?, as the last 50 years hasn’t brought very many visual differences in shape, there soon will be scramble for new technology with the price of oil @$100.00/bbl and soon to be $150.00/bbl and $5.00 per gallon gas, so anyone out there heard any rumors of new designs?? or new power sources, surely at this point we are due for a complete revamping of the whole railroad system, what was great in 1968 just doesn’t make it now, anybody have new ideas, thoughts, critiques. I may add, the first new locomotive that hits the market with new technology and lots of power and economy will be big seller. IT’S A BLIZZARD HERE SO I’M TRAPPED INSIDE.
Sorry,
If oil holds above $60 a bbl much longer, this country (and our trading partners, including China) will be in the largest “Down Turn” since the 1970s, maybe since the 1930s.
Airline Passenger Traffic and Railroad Freight Traffic will fall, maybe fail, as unable to support the costs of the mega-systems they built.
THE BUILDERS WILL NOT HAVE THE R&D MONEY!
THE RAILROADS AND AIRLINES WILL NOT HAVE THE MONEY TO BUY ADVANCED LOCOMOTIVES AND AIRLINERS!
Excluding a dip at the beginning of 2007, oil has been above $60 a barrel since mid-2005. Things will continue to change, but I don’t think we’ll see the 1930’s again…
We haven’t seen an “era of drastic change” in locomotive design since the cab units for freight service disappeared. The locomotive cab has been in roughly the same place on road switchers for a good sixty years (Alco was ahead of EMD Geeps on this); there’s no real reason to change that. The short hood was lowered to improve visibility, then widened for collision protection. All of this is evolutionary, not revolutionary–until something really major happens (like crewless operation becoming universal), don’t expect to see anything except some minor tweaks because of safety issues or other union or legislative requirements, for better or for worse.
What would you propose instead of the “locker row” long hood? Cowls and other widebodies have been tried and pretty much discarded.
GE has had a hybrid unit in the works. Haven’t heard anything about it lately, but it was out on the road last year (I got to see it go by!). It doesn’t look any different from other locomotives (more batteries under the walkways is all). No reason for a major cosmetic redesign.
Utility and economy (in construction costs) are the driving forces. Remember when EMD came out with a few demonstrators with rounded edges to the cab and low nose, to enhance fuel economy? I guess the price of construction must have offset the fuel savings, because that’s all we ever saw.
tatans:
I don’t think we’ll see any revolution in locomotives. A slow evolution seems more likely. While there is room for improvement in most products, including locomotives, I don’t see a need to re-invent the wheel.
I’d have to disagree with you, about the glory and fortune for the first company to build a powerfull, revolutionary product. Many times, it’s the people that come in afterward who benefit from the pineers mistakes.
Are you one of the people involved in sending us this most recent Alberta Clipper?[}:)]
How about a dual-powered, dual-directional, brick-shaped locomotive. Each end would have a prime mover, multi-spectral (infra-red, visible, uv) cameras (for crew visibillity), 140db horns, 7 bright headlights with multi-colored strobes, expandable wedge-shaped plows, and the crew safely encased in a hardened bunker between the prime movers.
Stick shift, or automatic?[:P]
Actually, I’m working on a new wind-powered unit. It works great going north to south. The other way is giving me some challenges.[:o)]
I don’t know if I should even post this due to my ignorance of basic physics but here goes:
Could electric power be recouped from the axles of rolling stock? In other words, could generators be rigged to the wheelsets of freight cars and that electricity be run to a battery for storage? How about adding a “battery car” filled with lithium ion racks? Or, does the weight, expense, fire hazards, etc., make such an arrangement unpractical?
But, to answer the poster’s question, I think that the major changes we’ll see in locomotive design will be in the powerplant arena. We’re going to see more and more hybrid designs and maybe even some more pure electric in some areas. If this nation would ever get over its ridiculous paranoia about nuclear power, then we could REALLY cheapen our fuel costs by electrifying the rail network, amongst other things.
I am working on a locomotive that uses an elcetric motor that turns a generator that moves the train and supplies power to the drive motor. Its got a battery start on it that is also charged by the generator…
Sorry, gotta poke fun at the laws of perpetual motion…
But, I am not talking about perpetual motion. Obviously, its impossible to create a system without energy loss. However, a car’s alternator works on the same principle that I described earlier, does it not? It is drawing power from the engine’s belt to keep the battery charged. Once again, though, I’ll admit that I don’t have enough physics knowledge to know the ins and outs of this stuff. It just seems to me that there is a lot of lost energy in wheels turning on freight cars.
I don’t think you could beat the dynamic friction coefficient of the wheels/axlebearings of the cars as they are. Your idea isn’t a bad one, actually it’s already been done, it’s just the gear is in the locomotive(s) not the cars. Reuseing the energy formerly wasted by the dynamic brake grids is what the hybrids are all about. If there is any revolutionary technology in locomotives it will be in the efficiency of the storeage medium for that recopped energy, be it batteries, flywheels, hydrogen fuel cell or whatever. And accomodating that technology may indeed mean changes in the carbody of the locomotive.
There used to be wind powered railroads. RMC had an article about several that were still in (then) current use in the Baltic Sea in the late 1960’s. There were a few wind powered railroads in the USA as well. Wind powered railroads tended to be at the seashore where a breeze was almost constant.
While it wasn’t a quantum leap, I feel like the wide cab represents more than just collision protection - one name that was applied to them was “Comfort Cabs”, thus more than a natural progression. Sound isolation was introduced with them as well, IIRC. The well-being of the crew became more than an afterthought.
The basic body won’t change until technology demands it. That has already meant some lower bodies (hybrids, gensets). If the space is required, we may see a return to the cowls. I doubt the covered wagon will make a comeback, though (no, not Conestogas, “F” style bodies).
If train speeds were to increase alot then stream lining would start to matter.
You think that if oil is an issue that we could get steamers back again? Or possibly steam turbines? Except for lubrication, they might not need any oil at all.
You could collect electricity from the turning wheels and axles on railroad cars. Thats how early electrically lit passenger cars got their power. However, that little bit of friction needed to turn the belt connected to the generator will effect the train. Basically, it becomes just that tiny little bit harder to get the train moving. The power to get the train moving comes from the locomotive.
Its like using a waterwheel to pump streamwater uphill to turn the waterwheel again. Just like with a waterwheel, where some water would be spilled on the way back uphill, some would evaporate, electricity behaves in the same way. Some energy is always lost when coverting one type of energy into another. Getting electricity from the turning axles of a freight car would look like this :
Burning gas in engine → Generator for Electricity for traction motors → Steel wheels on steel rails turning → generator generating electricity - > Wires to traction motors
Each of those arrows represents a small bit of power being wasted. When generating electricity, you generate heat. That heat is wasted energy. There’s friction between the steel wheels and the rails. That’s also heat and energy. By the time the cycle gets back to electricity, you’ve spent more energy getting the generators o
Remember Wabtec’s division of MotivePower is building locomotives.
http://www.motivepower-wabtec.com/
This is what you are looking for in new Diesel-Electric Locomotives.
Andrew Falconer
Last night while working in my yard I saw some new UP locos being sent west but they had stickers on stating the were green or eco friendly or something like that I didn’t pay too much attention to the but they were road power not the new switchers
I’ve been wondering - why haven’t we seen a return to center-cab switchers? I know thats is hard to do with a traditional switcher, since you need room for the engine and the generator/alternator to be next to each other, which kinda forces the cab to the end, but with newer gen-set switchers and the like, couldn’t you return to having the cab in the center?
The current new switchers have the cab towards one end, with a really low short hood, probably for crash protection, but low enough so that the crew can see over it quite well. But if you’ve got to back up, you’ve got the long hood in the way.
If you put the cab in the center, then you would be able to have good visibility in both directions, “forwards” and “backwards.” However, you’d have a higher hood on each end to look over.
So : Which is better?
-Having a really low short hood on one end, where the visibility is great in one direction, and bad in the other,
or
-Having a cab in the center with okay visibility in both directions?
In modern switching, how much do you actually need to see where you’re going, and how much is done based on radio communications, listening to the noises the cars make, and watching out the front window as that boxcar slowly gets closer and being able to judge by signt when it should be coupled? Is visibility even that much of an issue?