Now for something completely different…makes sense in a theoretical rather than practical manner but is interesting as an example of thinking outside the box…bear in mind, I am still waiting for my flying car…
http://www.railway-energy.org/static/Self_propelled_freight_cars_84.php
New Slogan for this concept: “Always Expect a Freight Car”
I see the logistics of maintaining them as the biggest single roadblock. Ten thousand Diesels and drive trains to keep fueled, lubricated, etc, etc.
After a cursory look at this, I believe that RoadRailers are just as flexible, or more so.
That self-organizing concept kinda raised my eyebrow.
The idea was tested in both the UK and Germany. It works good for the shipper if loads are light (a lot of tare weight). Biggest problem is that it takes just as much track capacity as a full train, and on a congested railway network that is a big problem.
[#ditto]
This concept sounds like a solution in search of a problem. It appears to be the equivalent of a truck on rails.
Or something the electric railroads USED to have
One of the potential advantages of these self propelled freight cars, or “Freight Muiltiple Units” (FMUs) as they are sometimes called in Britain is that they can be coupled in multiple, perhaps with passenger trains. SO far this has not happened with the latest generation, but back in the 1950’s there were parcels DMUs and EMUs which often did multiple with passenger units and were also used as surrogate locomotives to haul short trains.
MLV’s
I have one thought. Spacing! you have a mile and a half train. Then two blocks back you have another mile and half train.
Your system, you have a single car going somewhere. Two Blocks back you have another single car following. Then every two blocks back you have another single car following.
Please correct me if I’m mistaken.
I was under the impression that the explosive growth of containerized shipments was fueled, in part, by the ability to separate the box from the (far more expensive) carrying device, whether well car, skeleton trailer or oceangoing ship. It seems to me that this concept, as floated, flies in the face of that proven financial success.
Part of the original planning for the Shinkansen, back in the early '60’s, was the idea of MU container trains (using the same small containers standardized by the JNR) to run at high speed during the overnight hours when there were no passenger trains to be delayed. Some form of MU double-stack MIGHT be practical on an electrified line. Running individual cars on a modern high-capacity main strikes me as reinventing the square wheel. After all, over-the-road trucks already do this pretty well.
Chuck
Hey we been down this road before
His system is for sidings, leads, and track inside warehouses or plants, where individual cars or short cuts of cars are moved around. In a pinch small cuts of cars could be moved longer distances where it wouldn’t pay to provide a switcher or ‘hire’ a crew to move the cars.
Even on branchline trains, these cars would move in an otherwise normal train, be switched by otherwise normal means at yards and over regular railroad traffic, and would be mixed, more or less indiscriminately, with ordinary cars.
This is emphatically NOT a system like the Adtranz Sprinter (or whatever it was called) or one of Kneiling’s integral train modules, where the distributed self-propulsion is intended for train handling or to achieve higher speed or acceleration. It is even less a variant of PRT (It might be possible to use the powered cars as ‘boosters’ with an adaptation of DPU, rather than use a remote-control ‘pack’ as he does, but the performance gains would be small, the safety concerns large, for the required investment.
To further highlight the differences between the “Cargosprinter” type freight multiple unit with the system described in the O.P’s post…
The 'Sprinter was a short (manned) C.O.F.C freight train with powered cars on either end:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CargoSprinter
The system is similiar in concept to the partially built and tested CSX/CP “Iron Highway” integral train set:
http://www.railmotive.net/23theironhighwayinter.html
The concept in the first post is for individual autonomous freight cars which can operate singly or in consists.
At one point in the early 2000’s Alstom (IIRC)was testing a driverless (correct terminology in Europe) diesel propelled container flat car. They only operated it on a closed test track.
Even with PTC I imagine integrating individual self propelled freight cars with existing passenger and freight operations would pose some major safety and operational issues, at least for the forseeable future.
Now, I’ll grant you this isn’t quite the same thing as a self propelled boxcar, but when I was a lad in the 1950’s I saw something that to my eyes looked exactly like it.
Our house in East Cleveland, O. was immediately next to the embankment on which the Nickel Plate Railroad had its double-track main line. I well recall that for several years there would be a few evenings each summer when one could look up at the tracks and see, not a train, nor a switcher with a few cars, but a lone box car moving silently along the track by itself at about 15 mph (I’m guessing). At first glance it looked as if it had gotten away from a yard or a train and was out of control, but sure enough, on the back or on the front of the box car was a brakeman going along for the unusual ride. I only saw this on the eastbound main, so I assume the car was given a shove a mile or so west around Mayfield Road. There must have been a combination of a good nudge and a long downward slope towards the east to the small NKP yard at Chardon Road, a distance I’ll guess is about two or so miles. I suppose cold weather discouraged this practice except in the summer.
Has anyone else heard of this practice on other railroads? Also, what on earth could have been the reason this was done? Again, the box cars may not have been self-propelled, but they moved along down the main line, nevertheless.
The switch at location where the car was to placed faced the ‘wrong’ way for the direction the local
We actually had one place where we were allowed to drop cars by the engine, per special instruction. Place has since been torn down, so that was that.
May not have even been a drop NKP guy saw. Could have just been riding the car to teh other end of a yard track. Old school railroading - all but dead on any of the major railroads. A shame.
Driverless vehicles are much in the news now, including trucks. Platooning a series of 18-wheelers (perhaps with a driver/attendant in the first cab) has to be railroad intermodal’s worst nightmare. LCVs multiplied. So why not explore self propelled freight cars seriously? Traditional “loose car” railroading is eroding rapidly anyway.
Consider the enormous weight-carrying advantage of rail: 5 to 1. And the large cubic capacity advantage: 2 to 1. Platoon the freight cars on an isolated right-of-way, and provide truck-like service (instant dispatch, no terminal delays, etc., etc.) with railroad productivity and safety advantages.
With PTC now inevitable, leverage all of the IT and communications investment by re-imagining the entire concept of railroading. The age of the unit train is closing (look at all of the pressures on coal, CBR, etc.), while demassification is in its infancy.
Think about the competiton’s possibilities and the shipper’s requirements 20-30 years out. Start the serious R&D at Pueblo tomorrow morning.