[HN Gopher] Canadians derailed a train and drove it to City Hall...
___________________________________________________________________
Canadians derailed a train and drove it to City Hall for power
after a ice storm
Author : nradov
Score : 450 points
Date : 2021-02-23 04:11 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thedrive.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thedrive.com)
| mandown2308 wrote:
| "Dreams come true" - Inception
| tryonenow wrote:
| >Rather than leave town
|
| The concerted effort to smear Ted Cruz for going on a preplanned
| vacation before a winter storm (no one could have predicted the
| fallout, this was effectively a black swan) feels really cheap.
| It also bothers me to see it shoehorned where it isn't actually
| relevant. There's a serious media problem in the US.
|
| And that's bad for everyone - regardless of whether you
| personally agree with the usual slant, the fact that about half
| the country has lost trust in media because of this transparent,
| deliberate bias, should concern everyone. It is a failure on the
| part of news organizations.
| pseingatl wrote:
| The US Army had a nuclear power barge which tied up in Panama and
| provided power to the Canal Zone for several years. See,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MH-1A Query whether Navy ships
| could be tied up in Houston and connected to the grid.
| pseingatl wrote:
| In Panama, the barge was known at the Thor, wikipedia says the
| Sturgis, maybe there were two?
| _joel wrote:
| There are a few large floating powerstations in use
| commercially now, like
| https://www.miningreview.com/energy/mozambique-100-mw-floati...
|
| I'm not sure you'd be able to float that down in poor weather,
| however.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Japan had a nuclear-powered cargo and later research vessel,
| but she started her journey with an incident:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RV_Mirai
|
| And had to be converted to running on fossil fuels.
| bluGill wrote:
| I believe the US navy has the the ability for many ships to
| supply power to the city when docked. One job of the Navy is to
| go to a port near a disaster and help the city recover, so if
| the ship can supply the city with needed power that is very
| helpful in some disasters. (when it isn't moving it has a lot
| of spare power) Most ports don't have the ability to use power
| from a ship (and even if they do it is questionable if that
| will survive the disaster)
| reaperducer wrote:
| Reminds me of when Houston had power problems following Tropical
| Storm Allison, and jet engines were loaded onto flatbed trucks
| and parked downtown to power the skyscrapers.
|
| Noisy, but effective.
| sargun wrote:
| Jet Turbines are actually surprisingly good for power plants.
| They run on all sorts of fuel and are very efficient. I believe
| GE refurbs some old airplane engines into power plants.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Jet turbines have a much narrower range of efficient
| operational speeds than combustion engines. The Navy figured
| this out circa 1900. For emergency power where you have
| basically unlimited potential load and can add more stuff to
| ensure you won't need to throttle below your sweet spot and
| don't care about wasting fuel to keep the lights on anyway
| that's fine but freight locomotives and shipping stick to
| their legacy piston rings because the overall system
| efficiency winds up being greater in their use cases.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| Combined cycle gas turbines are about the most efficient
| least polluting non-renewable power we have available. They
| are basically using a gas turbine as a heat source for a
| steam turbine engine.
|
| Unfortunately you aren't going to load that onto a truck so
| that would be a straight gas turbine which is great for power
| to weight, cost and reliability but not efficiency.
| Lammy wrote:
| Why not both? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-497_Black_Beetle
| leereeves wrote:
| I doubt that would be allowed by the current administration.
| Even actual power plants that don't meet current environmental
| standards were restricted last week in Texas. They were allowed
| to run, but required to sell power for no less than 10x the
| usual price.[1]
|
| It seems like a diesel train or jet engine would be even worse
| for the environment, per kWh, and even less likely to get
| federal approval.
|
| https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2021/02/f82/DOE%2020...
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Diesel trains and jet engines are actually quite efficient
| and are already subject to regulations and thus don't pollute
| that much.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Boston has some jet powered train track snow blowers, albeit
| for very different reasons (heat, not electricity).
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| Some airports have truck mounted jet engines that they use
| for clearing light snow from runways.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| There is that Russian tank attached with two jet turbines on
| its turret used to put out natural gas (or oil?) field fires.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if a snow blower was using the jet
| turbines more for its blow ability than its heat ability.
| lostlogin wrote:
| A thing like this, known as a GAG (Gorniczy Agregat
| Gasniczy) was used at the Pile River mine in New Zealand
| after an accident there.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorniczy_Agregat_Gasniczy
| namibj wrote:
| Note that the GAG is used to suffocate coal seam and
| similar fires, by injecting a mix of water and fuel into
| the jet exhaust (essentially an afterburner with water-
| injection to keep the exhaust temperature low), and then
| providing a pipe of very-low-oxygen gas stream.
| namibj wrote:
| Yes, there are actually fire-fighting "tanks" [0] that
| disperse water into the exhaust of a jet turbine to get
| long-distance spraying [1].
|
| [0]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Ab
| gasloe... [1]: (There doesn't seem to be a comparable en
| site, but images and machine translation work):
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerosoll%C3%B6schfahrzeug
| haroldship wrote:
| Sheldon Cooper would love this
| vinay427 wrote:
| The last paragraph on Amtrak has nothing to do with CN or the
| rest of the article. Either the author is just unaware of
| Canadian National or they chose to include an unrelated point on
| Amtrak for some reason.
|
| CN is not a "Canadian Amtrak" or even an Amtrak competitor. It's
| a publicly-traded freight rail company that doesn't currently
| operate passenger service. The US obviously has analogs: Union
| Pacific, Norfolk Southern, etc.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_National_Railway
| johnwalkr wrote:
| It was a crown corporation (like Canada Post is) until 1995. I
| checked the date since I wondered if it was already privatized.
| CN and CP are really recognized and somewhat romanticized
| brands in Canada as they are a really important part of
| history, to connect the country from East to West. Are the
| freight railroads not well known in the US?
|
| One funny thing is the Canadian CN is..CN. It has extensive
| operations in the US
| johnwalkr wrote:
| Oops, I meant "American CN is..CN"
| lainga wrote:
| It's the outrage tax for a segment of readership
| Reason077 wrote:
| Exactly. "Canadian Amtrak" is VIA Rail:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via_Rail
|
| Like Amtrak, VIA is a federal government-owned operator of
| intercity passenger rail services. And just like Amtrak, it
| operates mostly on tracks owned by private freight railways
| such as CN.
| Rendello wrote:
| And like Amtrak, it's a hollow husk of what it once was:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1G0Lyh3uik
| Ensorceled wrote:
| Where in the article did they call CN the "Canadian Amtrak"?
| vinay427 wrote:
| In the last paragraph, they claim that Amtrak is the
| closest thing in the US.
|
| > Unfortunately, though, the closest thing the U.S. has to
| a national rail provider like CN is the chronically under-
| funded Amtrak
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Yeah, it has little to do with the current situation in Texas,
| either. While it was a nasty week, there were always public
| buildings (including event centers, schools, hospitals, etc.)
| which still had power. The blackout came for anyone who was not
| on a grid with such a high-priority building. So there was
| never a time when hauling a train engine to town hall would
| have made sense, in Texas last week. Still an interesting
| story, though, if one subtracts the last paragraph.
| jefurii wrote:
| The point of that last paragraph is the sarcastic last
| sentence:
|
| > Big business, after all, should be expected to put its
| interests first, no matter the cost to the public, be that a
| delayed train or weeks-long power outages in the dead of
| winter.
|
| If CN is a business, kudos to them for contributing to the
| civic good during a time of crisis, unlike so many American
| corporations.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| Did the last paragraph change? It calls CN, the Canadian Nation
| Railway, a "national rail provider" NOT "Canadian Amtrak". A
| rail provider can provide either freight or passenger. The
| words "Canadian Amtrak" don't even appear in the article.
| vinay427 wrote:
| I still see this in the last paragraph:
|
| > Unfortunately, though, the closest thing the U.S. has to a
| national rail provider like CN is the chronically under-
| funded Amtrak
|
| I quoted "Canadian Amtrak" as an expression of my own making,
| not one from the article.
| johnwalkr wrote:
| FWIW I understood and appreciated your highlight of this
| inaccurate sentence by reversing it into a short phrase.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| That's not how quotes work :-)
|
| The article is saying Amtrak, a half baked VIA, is the
| closest thing they, in Texas, have to CN. That's not saying
| CN is close to Amtrak.
|
| If my buddy has a Humvee and I say, "Unfortunately, the
| closest thing I have is a Schwinn", I'm not saying their
| Humvee is a bicycle.
| vinay427 wrote:
| > That's not how quotes work
|
| Quotes are commonly used to mark a specific novel phrase.
| I was not intending to imply that it was a phrase from
| the article.
|
| > The article is saying Amtrak, a half baked VIA, is the
| closest thing they, in Texas, have to CN.
|
| I disagree with the interpretation, and this claim is
| still wrong.
|
| First of all, the part I quoted makes a statement about
| the US, not just Texas. I realize that the previous
| sentence mentions Texas, but this sentence is clearly
| naming the country as a whole.
|
| Second, if the article is saying that, this claim would
| also be incorrect. There are actual rail providers that
| own significant amounts of railway in Texas, and Amtrak
| (like VIA Rail) is not one of them.
|
| Here's a decent map: https://www.intekfreight-
| logistics.com/intermodal-network-ma...
|
| > If my buddy has a Humvee and I say, "Unfortunately, the
| closest thing I have is a Schwinn", I'm not saying their
| Humvee is a bicycle.
|
| Yes. Unfortunately for the author, the US has multiple
| Humvee equivalents depending on the region, so saying
| that the "closest thing I have is a Schwinn" is just
| false when Union Pacific (among others) exists in Texas
| and is in the same market as Canadian National.
| rhplus wrote:
| _Did the last paragraph change?_
|
| Yes: _Update: Feb. 23, 10:12 a.m. ET: An erroneous reference
| to CN as a national rail provider has been removed, the
| railway having been publicly traded since 1995._
| harg wrote:
| > 131.4-liter, single-turbo diesel V12s making some 1,950
| horsepower
|
| I'm sure this engine has been optimized for different factors,
| and it's likely a fairly old locomotive, but that's about
| 14hp/litre which seems pretty inefficient. Modern diesel cars can
| usually get >60hp/litre.
| lmm wrote:
| That's displacement, not fuel. It's running at low RPM and
| likely significantly more fuel-efficient than a car engine. You
| could make an equally powerful engine with lower displacement
| (by building it to run at higher RPM), but that would likely be
| a much less efficient engine; car engines have to do that
| because they have to be physically small, but that's not such a
| problem for rail engines.
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| i think the engine is optimised for torque not raw power.
| BUT... 1950hp..? There are cars with more power! How is it
| enough to pull 1000 ton trains at any speed? Any engineers
| here?
| Ensorceled wrote:
| It's torque. If you see a freight train starting up it is
| excruciatingly slow to get going. Also, rolling stock has a
| lot less friction than trailers/cars with tires; so once up
| to speed, a _lot_ less hp per pound is required to maintain
| that speed compared to something like a semi trailer.
| metiscus wrote:
| The only production cars reaching anything like that power
| level are electric super cars. As to how it works: rolling
| resistance. A typical coefficient of rolling resistance for a
| railcar is somewhere around 0.0015. Let's guess that a
| typical train is somewhere around 5000 tons so you only need
| to be able to exert 8 tons of pulling force to accelerate
| that train.
| johnwalkr wrote:
| Well, they can be 6,000hp or more depending on the model. And
| 20,000 ft-lbs of torque. The actual torque at the wheels
| might be much higher or lower because there is not a
| mechanical transmission, there's a generator and electric
| motors called traction motors and like most motors they have
| peak torque at slow speeds. You can probably look up the
| output of those.
|
| The engines are designed for running at peak power for a long
| time, which a car engine cannot do. They run at a low rpm and
| last 30 years; millions and millions of miles. They run on
| low quality fuel. There's basically no weight constraint, in
| fact locomotives are required to be really heavy for the sake
| of wheel friction.
|
| Finally, most power is needed at startup, not for maintaining
| speed. One locomotive can't actually pull an entire fully
| loaded train from zero. There is slack between each car, and
| they are accelerated from zero one by one, from front to rear
| of the train.
| jeromenerf wrote:
| TLDR: HP = torque x RPM / 5252
|
| Such big engines runs at low RPM, below 1000 (I have not
| looked at this particular model). It's common for boats to
| run at 500.
|
| In comparison, my 2.2 liters 2007 diesel mercedes runs at
| around 2400 RPM at cruising speed of 65mph, which is its max
| torque. Max HP (150) is achieved at 3500 RPM. It's by no mean
| a sporty car but it's low RPM torque allows to pull the horse
| van easily.
|
| The freight carrier boats can feature impressive diesel
| engines, of thousands of liters, producing millions of Nm of
| torque, hundred of thousands of HP, at ~100RPM.
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| so the goal here is to minimise revolutions per minute. Is
| this to increase stability or efficiency? Or is it just so
| the engine won't shake itself to pieces?
| lmm wrote:
| The engine is probably designed for fixed RPM, because
| that way it can be tuned specifically to that RPM. High
| RPM (past a certain reasonable level) makes all the
| mechanical engineering harder, so you'd choose a level
| that's high enough for the power you need, but no higher.
| There's a tradeoff because to increase power you can
| either increase the RPM or increase the physical size of
| the engine, so you do whichever is easier based on the
| constraints of how it's being used.
| jeromenerf wrote:
| It's always a trade off of many dimensions. Usually, if
| you are looking at resistance (pulling weight, navigating
| water, ...) more than speed, a bigger and slower engine
| provides the torque you want at low engineering costs,
| more resilience, less cooling constraints ...
|
| For some cultural reasons, American muscle cars featured
| big relatively slow but torquey engines compared to their
| Italian counterparts.
| Symbiote wrote:
| The video at the end of this page, and the discussion before
| it, show how little force is required to keep a train moving.
| A very strong man can move a 70-ton locomotive:
|
| https://www.nscale.net/forums/showthread.php?26818-Could-
| an-...
|
| Or a person can start a single rail vehicle moving using a
| lever under a wheel, by hand:
|
| https://www.aldonco.com/store/p/198-Manual-Car-Mover-with-
| gu...
|
| Using one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W8c_jMVYAs
| bluGill wrote:
| There are cars with more power, but that engine can deliver
| 1950hp all day without stopping. Try to pull that much power
| out of a car and it will overheat / self-destruct in a few
| minutes. Which isn't a problem for a car because at that
| power output you are at the maximum speed in a few seconds
| and then back off to more normal output.
|
| The engineers could get 10x more horsepower out of that
| engine, but the customers don't want that because the engine
| wouldn't last as long and so it isn't cost effective overall.
| minikites wrote:
| Amazing what we can do when we band together and help everyone
| instead of relying on "rugged individualism".
| urlgrey_ wrote:
| The title suggested that they stole/borrowed a train in an
| Italian Job style heist...
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| and that they rammed it into a building.
|
| When it was actually a smart mayor requisitioning a train
| locomotive to use it's engines to produce electricity for
| municipal buildings.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| You can use diesel electric locos to start nuclear power
| stations...
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| _U.S. residential sector accounts for 21 percent of all energy
| consumption and is responsible for 20 percent of our country's
| carbon emissions.
|
| Heating is the largest energy expense in most homes, accounting
| for 35-50 percent of annual energy bills in colder parts of the
| country.
|
| Home air conditioning accounts for almost 6 percent of all the
| electricity produced in the U.S._
|
| https://www.c2es.org/content/home-energy-use/
|
| _As of Feb. 17, energy was out for 2.7 million households,
| officials said. With freezing temperatures expected through the
| weekend, getting the lights back on will be a slow process, as
| the state has lost 40% of its generating capacity, with natural
| gas wells and pipelines, along with wind turbines, frozen shut._
|
| https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-texas-wind-turb...
|
| So extremely quick and dirty: If we moved to passive solar, we
| could potentially save as much as 10 percent of energy usage and
| it would be the part that's really critical in a crisis induced
| by an extreme weather event: The lifesaving ability to stay warm
| without power.
|
| With climate change making extreme weather events more common,
| promoting passive solar ought to be a policy around the world. It
| also helps disrupt that positive feedback loop that we run the AC
| more because of climate change and running the AC more helps
| promote climate change.
| kijin wrote:
| Solar won't help in a winter storm when the sun is not shining
| and all your panels are covered with snow. Wind power also
| tends to go down when there's too much wind.
|
| Everyone loves to pick on air conditioning, but the recent
| disaster has shown that heating is also a huge problem. As your
| statistics show, heating can consume more energy than air
| conditioning depending on the region. AC only needs to lower
| the indoor temperature by 10-20F, whereas heating requirements
| can exceed 50F. This makes it a much harder problem to reliably
| produce the amount of energy needed to keep people from
| freezing.
|
| Climate change can bring not only hotter summers but also
| colder winters and more energetic storms. We desperately need
| methods to generate clean energy even during extreme weather.
| _Especially_ during extreme weather.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| _Solar won 't help in a winter storm when the sun is not
| shining and all your panels are covered with snow._
|
| I am not talking about solar power generation. Quite the
| contrary.
|
| Passive solar is about building design and orientation. One
| of the techniques it uses is thermal mass.
| dismalpedigree wrote:
| I'd love to know the all-in energy and ecological footprint
| of building for passive solar. I could imagine it is
| significant. Sure you save lots of energy over its lifetime
| but you likely have a huge deficit to start with.
| throw0101a wrote:
| Completely passive buildings are a thing:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house
|
| Though generally one gets to a point of diminishing
| returns. It's probably better to get to a certain
| efficiency point, and then throw some solar/PV panels on
| the roof and become 'net zero', producing the electricity
| you need on-site:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-energy_building
|
| Residentially, you can built a 5000 square foot (500 sq.
| m) home that needs only 1500W (1.5 kW)--basically a hair
| dyer--to heat/cool:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vul4vMFdkA
|
| Using an HRV/ERV with an air filter per ASHRAE 62.1 and
| 62.2 gives you very good air quality.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| I doubt that, but I will add a link to this comment to my
| file and see if I can find anything when I get around to
| trying to do some kind of write up about it.
| deftnerd wrote:
| Heat Pump technology is pretty awesome and more efficient, when
| your circumstances and weather patterns support it. Since they
| move heat from one place to another, they have to work harder
| as the difference between the temperatures increase.
|
| The ideal solution is a ground-source heat pump, where a closed
| loop is buried underground to take advantage of the very stable
| and reasonable subsurface ground temperature.
|
| If you can afford to put in a geothermal ground loop and use a
| heat pump, you can have a very stable heating and cooling
| solution that is energy efficient and works well in a super-
| insulated passive home.
| xwdv wrote:
| Sooo how do they get it back on the rails? Carry it?
| liquidify wrote:
| >>> Big business, after all, should be expected to put its
| interests first, no matter the cost to the public, be that a
| delayed train or weeks-long power outages in the dead of winter.
|
| Why is it that every article in the world feels like it needs to
| take a crap on 'big business' these days. Obviously the U.S.
| could do with a bit of trust busting and regulation that serves
| the little guy. But the world is different that in was in the
| 50's and 60's. Corporations compete on a multinational stage, and
| the big players are absolutely huge. The U.S. can either serve
| their interests and the U.S. population can reap the rewards of
| big business existing in the U.S., or we can force big corps to
| shut down. The latter would place the U.S. in a terrible position
| for many reasons.
|
| It would be nice to see the U.S. government incentivize heavily
| small businesses. Perhaps they could do a 'reverse graduation
| incentive structure' or something where the smaller the
| businesses the more you get tax breaks (or some other scheme - I
| can think of several). But we just can't 'shut big business down'
| and then expect to remain competitive on a world stage.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take the baitiest part of an article and rush into
| the comments to be provoked by it. This is against the site
| guidelines--for example, this one:
|
| " _Eschew flamebait. Don 't introduce flamewar topics unless
| you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated
| controversies and generic tangents._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| [deleted]
| mbg721 wrote:
| > It would be nice to see the U.S. government incentivize
| heavily small businesses.
|
| Good luck with that. We're in the middle of a health crisis
| that's being used to funnel as much money from small businesses
| to the biggest ones as possible. Americans' cynicism is well-
| earned.
| totalZero wrote:
| Big business sucks in a plethora of ways, but I share your
| overall reaction. The coda of corporate resentment takes away
| from the article and dumps on Amtrak for no useful reason.
| _huayra_ wrote:
| It's not necessarily big business, but short-term incentives
| of big business that may not align with any other
| stakeholders than the current stockholders. Big businesses
| are necessary to enact the scale of change we need (it takes
| a huge number of people to design and build electronics,
| operate heavy industry, etc), but it's the misaligned
| incentives to meet rather arbitrarily-set quarterly earnings,
| and the possibility of being sued if a company does not
| pursue that goal (if publicly traded), that drive the worst
| parts of capitalism.
| lstamour wrote:
| Technically CN is a private company and was at that time.
| https://www.cn.ca/en/news/2020/11/cn-proud-to-celebrate-25th...
|
| Wikipedia mentioned
| https://web.archive.org/web/20071219233116/http://cnlines.ca...
| which says there was a third train in the area also.
|
| https://www.haya.qc.ca/storm.htm The following quote is from
| halfway down the page there's a first-hand account with some
| more details than I saw on Wikipedia. Not sure if French
| sources would have more:
|
| > There was an interesting phenomenon - a locomotive used as a
| generator. Railway locomotives use a diesel engine to drive an
| electric generator and this power in many cases is AC. A 2000
| horsepower CN locomotive was taken off the tracks in
| Boucherville and literally driven down the street to the
| Boucherville town hall. With the locomotive sitting on the
| street out front the generator is providiing power to the city
| offices. The locomotive is set to the third notch on the
| throttle which sets the engine speed such that it will provide
| 60 hertz power. At this speed it will generate about 500
| horsepower or 375 kilowatts of power - enough for several
| buildings. There is a second locomotive parked on the street
| near the grade crossing which is held in reserve. It was
| supposed to be used to power the shelter further down the
| street but an intervining overpass which would not support the
| 260,000 pound locomotive ended that idea. Nonetheless this is
| an interesting way to solve a problem.
|
| > In an interesting discussion on the internet on this subject
| it was mentioned that on the Devco Railway on Cape Breton
| Island there are four locomotives specially designed to act as
| generators in an emergency. Emergency planners may, in the
| future, wish to look at these locomotives since they could be
| quite useful in large scale emergencies.
|
| > With a friend I went to Boucherville On January 17 to see
| this spectacle and met some other friends there. There were
| folks coming from as far as Sherbrooke to see the sight which
| is most unusual. It was fun to see folks having their pictures
| taken in front of the engine. There was a soldier in the cab at
| all times to make sure no one got too close to the electrical
| connections or otherwise got themselves in trouble. I doubt
| that anyone is likely to steal the locomotive!
| supernova87a wrote:
| Well, if I have remembered correctly, train power equipment is
| not that fundamentally different from dedicated electrical power
| generating equipment.
|
| In fact, I believe for a lot of engines, the mechanical energy
| rarely is used directly to power wheels -- it usually (for
| diesel-electric, for example) is powering a generator that then
| is feeding electricity to motors + wheels.
|
| So, maybe not such a stretch to take the power/electricity off to
| other purposes?
| johnwalkr wrote:
| Some replies already, but just to add (sorry, train nerd
| here).. It's not for a lot of locomotives, but virtually all
| locomotives. Early diesel locomotives tried to use a mechanical
| transmission but this mostly failed because you can't scale the
| technology up well, and this is my own speculation but I think
| you need to be able to shift under full load _. The transition
| from steam didn 't happen until diesel-electric was invented.
| This combination is also good for reducing wear on brakes, as
| you can use the motor as a generator and resistors to dissipate
| power as heat. I don't know of a locomotive that uses
| regenerative braking, but it's used on some passenger trains in
| Japan. Not by storing energy in batteries, but by feeding into
| the local power grid!
|
| Diesel-hydraulic was also tried for a while but was largely
| unsuccessful. For special applications, like maintenance
| equipment or moving things in a railyard, you can still find
| some diesel-mechanical and diesel-hydraulic equipment.
|
| _ If a freight train stops, depending on its length, it must
| reverse to add slack between cars. Then it starts by
| effectively pulling each car one by one. You can hear it as a
| bang-bang-bang if you're nearby, depending on the coupling
| method between cars. If a train loses momentum on a hill, it
| may have to reverse and start from the bottom.
| NamTaf wrote:
| Correct. Modern locos basically receive AC, convert it to DC,
| then convert it back to AC for the traction motors. Whether
| they receive AC through a pantograph, or a self-contained
| engine + generator, doesn't really make a whole lot of
| difference.
|
| The power generation is fundamentally the same as in marine
| purposes, too. In fact, the modern engines such as the EMD 710
| or GE 7FDL, often come in non-mobile stationary/marine
| operation configurations for these purposes.
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| I don't know of any that actually have mechanical linkages.
|
| The whole point is to use the alternator + electric motors as a
| CVT basically. You want the engine to be able to use it's
| maximum power at any given speed. The amount of gears you'd
| need for a mechanical transmission for the big freight
| locomotives would be absurd.
| namibj wrote:
| There are diesel-hydraulic locomotives, which use a torque
| converter (and optionally a transmission) between the driven
| wheels and the engine.
| eigenvector wrote:
| Correct, most modern locomotives are diesel-electric and not
| fundamentally different from a large standby generator that
| would be found in a hospital or data center. The locomotive has
| the great advantage of being easy to move, although a bit of
| MacGyvering would have been needed on the control/operation
| side since a traction power engine probably doesn't have a
| ready-made 60 Hz governor control.
| google234123 wrote:
| Spending the entire final paragraph on Amtrak was pretty absurd .
| vinay427 wrote:
| More importantly, it had nothing to do with CN, which is not a
| "Canadian Amtrak" or even an Amtrak competitor. CN is a
| publicly-traded freight rail company that doesn't currently
| operate passenger service. There are plenty of those in the US
| besides CN (which also operates a bit in the US): Union
| Pacific, Norfolk Southern, etc.
|
| https://worthly.com/business/five-biggest-railroad-companies...
| Ensorceled wrote:
| The point of that paragraph is that this option doesn't seem to
| be available in Texas.
|
| Texas has lost power due a snow storm, like Boucherville, but
| has no CN to ask for help.
|
| The link is set up in paragraph six. I think you can google for
| details about what is happening in Texas, it might have made
| the news.
| google234123 wrote:
| I would guess the US has 100x more fright trains than Canada.
| Some towns will have rails going through them, others not.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| Well, 10x more likely. But I don't think that was the point
| the author was trying to make.
| dawnerd wrote:
| But sadly not wrong. Amtrak outside of the east coast is really
| depressing.
| midasuni wrote:
| Amtrak on the east coast is depressing
| beerandt wrote:
| It's a pretty arbitry to think you're only allowed to ask a
| nationalized railroad to use an engine in an emergency. (As the
| author implies.)
|
| It's especially absurd here, because CN has been privatized
| since 1995, and the incident happened in 1998.
| Tade0 wrote:
| This makes me think: a locomotive's cruise power consumption is
| around 1MW, LiFePO4 batteries are currently $137/kWh, so for the
| price of a single machine($500k) one could have a rail car with
| 3MWh on board, which could be used in places where there's no
| overhead power supply.
|
| I assume that just putting miles of cable along the track is more
| cost-effective, but it can't be used everywhere.
| bluGill wrote:
| The power density of diesel is enough better than you can get a
| lot more out of it, and it is a lot faster/easier to refuel (at
| least for now). There is a limit to how long you want the
| train, so if half of the train is batteries it doesn't work
| out.
|
| Miles of cable along the track is something the big railroads
| have looked at. If fuel goes to (and stays at) $8/gallon they
| will do it. Right now it isn't worth it, but the costs are easy
| to analyses.
|
| The above is for freight rail. For passenger rail electric
| lines work out different, no serious operator of passenger rail
| uses anything else. Tourist attractions (generally running
| steam) are not serious. Diesel engines can be a useful backup
| for when wires break. Diesel is also useful on marginal lines
| that are only run at all because they already exist, but you
| would never build. Everything else - probably the majority - is
| incompetence.
| Symbiote wrote:
| > Diesel engines can be a useful backup for when wires break
|
| In reality, this doesn't happen -- the capital cost of idle
| diesel locomotives would negate (and more) the money saved
| with the electric trains.
|
| If catenary is damaged in Europe (usually by storms), rail
| services are suspended until it's repaired. Repair is a very
| high priority.
|
| (For one thing, it's unlikely to be safe to repair the
| catenary if trains are still running.)
| bluGill wrote:
| Very good point. A diesel backup implies you can borrow it
| from some freight service, or have one in your tourist
| attraction fleet, and the problem isn't your wires but the
| wires feeding you.
| mlavin wrote:
| The closest that's actively used is Wabtec's FLXdrive, which is
| a battery-powered locomotive run between two conventional
| diesel-electrics. Not a bad idea, since braking with the
| electric motors otherwise dumps the energy as waste heat.
| There's also the Railpower Green Goat, which is diesel-electric
| with a storage battery.
|
| https://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2021/01/04-wabtecs-flx...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railpower_GG20B
| chrisma0 wrote:
| So the train moved under its own power on the asphalt? The train
| cannot steer, right? So they had to get the direction just right
| when moving it onto the street from the train tracks...
| impressive!
| Aeolun wrote:
| Theoretically you can get the wheels to turn in a certain
| direction. The challenge is doing it while under 40 tons of
| load.
| analog31 wrote:
| I'd guess you could "steer" it to some extent by pulling the
| front wheels with a truck.
| renewiltord wrote:
| This might sounds dumb, but why not extension cables for the
| second engine that was providing zero power.
| nightshift1 wrote:
| I grew up in that town. To reach the high-school from the
| track, you have to cross an overpass. They were concerned about
| the weight of the train. The school is is about 1.4 km from the
| overpass.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Oh thanks. Fair enough.
| tempestn wrote:
| If the overpass was the issue you'd think they would have
| realized that before moving the second locomotive at all. One
| would assume you'd at least plan out the route in advance.
| tra3 wrote:
| You gotta have some real big cables to avoid transmission
| loses.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Ah, just seemed surprising they had all these parts to step
| down the voltage and everything but didn't have power cables.
| But I guess it is what it is.
| namibj wrote:
| The distribution infrastructure for distances above a few
| hundred meters(yards) typically uses 10 or 30 kV, and the
| former is fairly easy for pantograph-powered locomotives.
| So if the locomotive can optionally use a pantograph
| instead of it's diesel (tunnels and urban areas on the east
| coast come to mind), it has a transformer between the low-
| voltage traction motors / diesel generator rail and the
| pantograph rail (15~25 kV, typically).
|
| The alternator and transformer don't care about the lower
| voltage, except that their current capability won't change
| much (so you loose power capability).
|
| So I'd assume they should be able to use existing power
| lines from the other side of the overpass to the school,
| possibly after isolating that segment from the rest of the
| grid.
|
| This might also connect some other buildings, but typical
| transformer ratings here (DE, urban, residential; are a few
| hundred kVA. So
|
| (If you don't know what kVA means, "kW felt by wires/
| transformer/generator, but not the diesel" is a rough
| summary sufficient for this scenario.
|
| (Don't worry, it's neither wrong nor misleading. If you
| disagree with that statement, elaborate and feel free to
| downvote.))
| renewiltord wrote:
| Fascinating. Thanks for sharing.
| jacquesm wrote:
| This was my first trip to Canada, and _of course_ it had to
| coincide with the worst ice storm in living memory. We made it to
| Montreal and then immediately got snowed in, the road from the
| airport into Montreal was more like a tunnel between two walls of
| snow and ice thrown up by the snowblowers. Quite the experience.
| Fortunately after a week or so we could leave for warmer
| territories (Toronto, so 'relatively' warmer) but it is an
| experience I'll never forget. It took many months to restore the
| damage done by that ice storm.
| njacobs5074 wrote:
| Wow. That's like a real-life "Mike Mulligan and His Steam
| Shovel"[1]
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Mulligan_and_His_Steam_Sh...
| S_A_P wrote:
| I really struggle with a lot of these "car magazine" sites lately
| for a few reasons: 1- little in the way of technical content 2-
| high snark to signal ratio 3- listicles 4- lazy writing (they had
| to run the engine at a specific RPM and I don't know why...)
| konschubert wrote:
| I am confused. How did they tug it along the street?
| tempestn wrote:
| The article doesn't say, but I assume they drove it under its
| own power.
| martimoose wrote:
| I live near there and remember going to see the train in the
| town's center when it happened. I remember seeing the wheel's
| tracks in the asphalt, as they drove the loco directly on it,
| and was impressed at how shallow they were. I would have
| thought the train would tear the asphalt apart, but it was
| not the case, at least not when going in straight line.
| thetinguy wrote:
| The linked video appears to show it driving under its own power
| estreeper wrote:
| They didn't, it moved under its own power! However, trains
| can't steer, so according to a user in the forum this article
| is based on, they used a crane to lift the ends into place to
| aim it.
| konschubert wrote:
| Ok, wow.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > Once at its destination and hooked in, its V12 had to be run at
| a specific, constant rpm' to generate AC current at 60 hertz, the
| frequency used by most North American utilities.
|
| I don't think this is exactly right. I'm sure it wasn't
| consistent either, but few loads really cared too much.
|
| From the article's link, about a different locomotive doing the
| same thing:
|
| > Conrail actually had a set of standing instructions on how to
| provide quasi-commercial power from a locomotive. For an SD40-2,
| you attach to the bus before the diodes. Operating in notch 6
| runs the generator at 647 RPM. Since the AR10 is a 10 pole
| machine, that gives 64.7 Hz power. You could tweak the governor
| to get it closer to 60 Hz if you really wanted to, but for
| powering everything but clocks, it's close enough. I think the
| method for regulating the voltage was to disconnect the load
| regulator from it's governor-powered vane motor and dialing the
| voltage in manually. The output is 3 phase power. Max output in
| notch 6 is about 1000KW. If the avg home draws 2-3 KW on the avg,
| that'd power several hundred homes.
|
| http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/194245.aspx
| collin128 wrote:
| Not an engineer but I used to sell generators. I believe
| constant rpm eng/alternator is pretty common practice. From
| memory and a quick Google search, 1800 rpm produces 60hz and
| 1500 produces 50hz in newer alternators. I'm unfamiliar with
| these engine/alternator combos so they likely operate slightly
| differently.
|
| Most power generating units operate at a relatively fixed rpm
| for longevity and will ramp a little during heavy load.
|
| Source:
| https://www.generatorsource.com/Generator_Frequency_Conversi...
|
| Also pulled up an old spec sheet for a Cummins and it had the
| same rpm/Hz specs.
|
| Link to PDF:
| https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...
|
| Edit: added link to spec sheet
| Ballas wrote:
| Older/basic generators would run at fixed frequency to
| generate the correct frequency. I believe the voltage is
| regulated by regulating the field strength in the rotor.
| Modern generators have inverters that handle the output and
| regulates the 60Hz/110V or 50Hz/220V etc. In this case the
| RPM is controlled by the wattage required (with a min and max
| RPM). Motor -> alternator -> inverter -> load
| namibj wrote:
| It depends on the size.
|
| The larger the generator, the more likely you have a
| constant-RPM setup.
| bluGill wrote:
| True, but that is changing. Inverters are not very
| expensive anymore, provide cleaner power, and can match
| the frequency of the something else allowing you to put
| several generators in parallel and disconnected one for
| maintenance. They also allow running lower RPM which at
| lighter loads can save fuel/money. (A constant rpm
| generator often uses more fuel at 50% load than at 80%
| load!)
|
| Inverter generators can also sell power back to the grid.
| To pay for the fuel you need more than the typical retail
| price of electric, so this is only worth it if you have a
| need for a backup generator anyway. However if you have
| this need talk to the power company, they often will give
| you a discount because when there are load issues (See
| Texas last week), and the ability to add power to the
| grid in this time will be something they are interested
| in.
|
| Today most large generators are still constant RPM, but I
| don't expect that to last.
| namibj wrote:
| Why would a constant-RPM generator not be able to feed
| into a grid?
|
| Also, you can run them in parallel without problems, as
| long as you keep the governors from oscillating. But
| proper PID tuning and sensing architecture should turn
| that into a non-issue.
|
| Larger engines btw. just disable cylinders for part-load
| operation.
| bluGill wrote:
| They can, and do: if the governor is good enough. Overall
| it is easier to use an inverter, but there are several
| ways to solve the problem.
|
| Cylinder disabling has a place too.
| eigenvector wrote:
| Diesel engines for power generation will have a governor
| control that sets the throttle based on the load to maintain
| whatever rpm is required for 60 Hz (constant speed control).
| The load in this scenario is uncontrolled and the genset
| simply follows it.
|
| A diesel locomotive's engine controls are about producing the
| right amount of power to match the operator's throttle
| control. Electrical frequency at the generator (alternator)
| terminals is irrelevant since that output is being rectified
| to DC anyways. This is great for a train, because it means
| you can have full power at any speed - the speed of your
| train and the speed of your engine are completely decoupled
| from each other. But if you now connect this normally
| variable frequency AC output directly to 60 Hz loads, you
| will need to figure out how to set the throttle to best
| maintain something close to 60 Hz and your power output will
| be limited.
| bluGill wrote:
| If you buy a large engine for a generator the manufacture
| will have one pin on the ECU for the 50/60hz switch which
| just changed the RPM. Generators are not enough of a market
| for the manufactures to make their own engines (unless they
| have other divisions that also need an engine for something
| else) that meet emissions, but they are large enough a market
| overall that companies that make engines want to get in on
| the extra profits they can by selling to the market (they get
| to spread the cost of emissions development across more
| engines), and the 50/60hz RPM needs are only a few hours to
| code/test on top of all the other work they are doing anyway.
|
| There may be minimum quantities in your engine order, though
| the contract will provide for spare parts which might get you
| a single replacement many years after the generator is
| manufactured (if the rest of the engine is still available)
| jhoechtl wrote:
| 1800 rpm 60hz / 1500rpm 50hz given a four pole alternator.
|
| One of the reasons old stationary engines (in Europe) in the
| pre-governator time ran at a fixed speed of 1500 RPMs
| raphaelj wrote:
| In the video, the French-speaking news anchor says that one of
| the biggest challenge was to convert the DC from the engine to
| AC (around 1:10).
| jacquesm wrote:
| Slight change of interpretation: the biggest challenge was to
| disable the AC->DC rectification circuitry, the generator
| already made AC.
| shsbsi wrote:
| "but few loads really cared too much."
|
| There's some room for error, but frequency is the a very
| important metric for the utility to get right. The reason is
| that motors start to burn when the frequency is significantly
| off of the design f [1].
|
| So, the blower in your furnace will die (-> no heat in the
| home). Your laundry machines' motor burn. You ovens convection
| oven burns. Etc.
|
| You're better of with rolling black ours (Texas forgot the
| "rolling" part) than get the frequency wrong.
|
| [1] think of a motor as an LCR circuit. There's a natural f,
| and if youre far from it it will cause heating of the windings
| exikyut wrote:
| I understand that more load reduces frequency and less load
| raises frequency.
|
| Maybe something got lost in translation and "specific, constant
| RPM" was describing (a feedback loop of) "watch the frequency
| and keep it steady" as opposed to "always use this value"?
|
| --
|
| Also, wow. Seriously, _wow_. A locomotive running flat out
| could power _several hundred homes_. Transportation is
| _expensive_ , both from a relative cost perspective, and also
| from a resource(-wastefulness) perspective. Electric
| (specifically grid-connected) trains also suddenly make a bit
| more sense.
| cgh wrote:
| > Also, wow. Seriously, wow. A locomotive running flat out
| could power several hundred homes.
|
| That's exactly what happened in my hometown, which generated
| power via a locomotive that was literally up on blocks. You
| could hear it grinding away from quite a distance. They only
| got connected to the grid when I was in my 20s and long gone.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| If you really want to have your mind blown, consider that one
| locomotive can move the equivalent of _400_ trucks, and can
| be run in tandem to move more.
|
| Trains are similar to solar panels... they are operationally
| super efficient but require a large capital investment. Where
| they work, they are magic.
|
| Electric infrastructure is even more capital intensive, i
| would guess that if using was even marginally more efficient,
| it would have been implemented as railroads benefit from that
| efficiency. Equipment exists to accept grid power in diesel
| (Amtrak trains pulling into Penn station in NYC switch).
| Symbiote wrote:
| I think the main motivations for electrifying a railway
| are:
|
| - flexibility and independence of power source. Switzerland
| can use hydropower, France can use nuclear power, many
| places could use coal power and not worry about losing rail
| transport in an oil shortage.
|
| - reduced maintenance costs (no diesel engines; reduced
| weight of the trains causes less wear on the track)
|
| - more power, i.e. faster trains, increasing the capacity
| of the railway line. Passengers approve, and freight trains
| can accelerate better meaning it's easier to run them
| between passenger trains.
|
| The US and Canada have less to gain with these than many
| other countries.
| johnwalkr wrote:
| I used to work in the freight railroad industry. One
| instructive thing to demonstrate how efficient rails are,
| which I got to try once or twice: one person can move a fully
| loaded railcar with a pinch bar (basically a crowbar with an
| extra lever element) behind a wheel.
| machello13 wrote:
| Where do you think electric trains get their electricity
| from?
| petertodd wrote:
| > Transportation is expensive, both from a relative cost
| perspective, and also from a resource(-wastefulness)
| perspective.
|
| It really isn't. That locomotive running flat out may use a
| lot of energy. But it's also moving an enormous amount of
| freight, making the energy used per unit mass fairly small.
| For instance, CSX estimates it can move about 1 ton of
| freight 492 miles per gallon of diesel:
| https://www.csx.com/index.cfm/about-us/the-csx-
| advantage/fue...
|
| Your trip to the store and back will probably use more
| energy.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Running rail relatively slowly and on the level is low-
| power. Put hills or other load factors (start/stop, speed
| up / slow down, even wind) into the mix and it can go up.
| Elevation most especially --- railroads will go up to a
| thousand kilometers out of a straight-line route to avoid
| elevation gains.
|
| A passenger car should get 20-30 miles (30-50 km) per
| gallon, so unless your store run is several towns over (or
| you're in the sticks), probably less energy moving a ton
| 500 miles by rail. Though yes, personal autos are, relative
| to size and cargo capacity, profligate energy users.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| What goes up must go down. Every joule you have to put in
| to climb, you get back in the downhill.
|
| So in the end it mostly works out.
| greenshackle2 wrote:
| I think you are forgetting brakes. There is absolutely no
| way a train is free-rolling it down a hill. They will be
| on brakes the entire time - dynos and air brakes - so you
| are "getting back" a lot of those joules in the form of
| electricity and heat, not momentum.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Certainly. If this is a significant cost, then
| regenerative braking is installed. But it is mostly
| negligeable.
| shsbsi wrote:
| " Electric (specifically grid-connected) trains also suddenly
| make a bit more sense."
|
| On a first glance it would appear so, but it a terrible idea
| in practice. At least for freight. Commuter trains are often
| electric (15 Hz? I forget), mostly for local air quality
| problems.
|
| Train engines are incredibly efficient. Only the largest
| marine engines are better. These engines are large enough
| that they approach the thermal efficiency of the thermal
| plant producing electricity.
|
| So no real gains for CO2 emissions. (Wind and solar don't
| count at a first approx. since we're talking about marginal E
| use. The train not connected on to the grid frees up
| production at a thermal plant to lower its production)
|
| But you also loose a lot of resiliency. In extremis, a diesel
| Trains don't need anything to run. In case of an ice storm
| you have to rebuild big infrastructure. Train can help you
| transport that if they're independent.
| willyt wrote:
| Electric locomotives on freight trains are pretty common in
| Europe probably because they can have a much higher power
| output in a smaller unit.
|
| A pair of TGV power cars, one at each end of the train, has
| a max power of 12MW at full acceleration, you would need
| about 14 of these diesel locos for the same output.
|
| The power here is 25kV at 50Hz apart from some commuter
| lines. Also modern electric trains can use regenerative
| braking to dump the braking energy back into the grid. It's
| pretty common.
| amluto wrote:
| Electric commuter trains have other major benefits. They
| stop and start frequently, and electric train sets can
| accelerate and decelerate faster than diesel. On the
| upcoming electric Caltrain, this will save quite a bit of
| time for long commutes. I believe that many electric trains
| can also regenerative brake. They can operate safely in
| long tunnels, unlike diesel. I suspect that diesel
| locomotives are considerably less efficient under the
| varying load conditions of a commuter train than they are
| for long freight routes.
|
| And, as far as I know, all major high speed trains are
| electric.
| donarb wrote:
| > electric train sets can accelerate and decelerate
| faster than diesel
|
| All locomotives use electric motors for traction. Diesel
| locomotives have a motor that turns a generator to
| produce electricity for the traction motors on the
| wheels. A diesel locomotive can stop and start just as
| fast as a fully electric locomotive, but commuter trains
| are relatively lighter than freight trains. Diesel
| locomotives can also use regenerative braking.
| amluto wrote:
| > A diesel locomotive can stop and start just as fast as
| a fully electric locomotive,
|
| The Caltrain electrification plan respectfully disagrees.
| I am not remotely an expert, but I would guess there are
| two major factors at play. First, a lot of commuter
| electric trains are multiple units and have no
| locomotive. This means that more of the wheels can supply
| traction, which presumably increases the traction-to-
| weight ratio of the whole train set. Secondly, I think
| that efficient diesel generators tend to be most
| efficient at a specific output power, whereas a commuter
| train runs over a wide range of output powers. A grid-
| powered electric train set can briefly draw several MW
| from the grid without a major loss of efficiency.
| Symbiote wrote:
| To make a third factor a bit more explicit: there's a
| limit to the power you can apply to a wheel before it
| slips on the rail. Having more powered wheelsets means
| the total possible power is increased.
|
| Commuter trains usually use multiple units, and metro
| trains always do -- they start and stop often, so the
| improved acceleration is a benefit.
|
| Long distance trains can be multiple units, or a single
| locomotive: the time saving is less useful on a train
| that stops infrequently, so lower capital + maintenance
| costs win (plus passenger comfort, it's quieter inside).
| rebuilder wrote:
| Well, my hybrid electric car gets, on a summer day, about 70
| km per 10 kWh charge. So if the locomotive can produce about
| 24000 kWh in a day, it could power 2400 35 km round-trip
| commutes.
|
| Now a freight train will run at, I don't know, 120 km/h? So,
| theoretically, it could run 2 880 km in a day. As we can see,
| that's a lot less than the combined 168 000 km 2400 hybrid
| cars could drive.
|
| So if we're comparing a train pulled by a locomotive like
| this to single-occupant hybrid electric cars, the train would
| have to transport 60 people to be about equivalent in
| efficiency. That seems very doable, you could fit that in a
| single train car. Also the 1000 kW power output is the _peak_
| output, I can 't imagine a locomotive would be anywhere near
| it's max power very often.
|
| Did I goof in my calculations? I may well have! But based on
| these numbers, trains seem pretty efficient.
| reasonabl_human wrote:
| Freight train implies cargo transport, while you're
| generally correct from my point of view, I think the more
| apt comparison would be freight train vs. semi
|
| Also, looks like your car gets ~230Wh / mile, that's pretty
| efficient compared to teslas, what kind of EV do you have?
| Are teslas just that inefficient or are you including ICE
| hybrid engine use in that measurement? Model 3 gets ~315 -
| 350 Wh / mile
| rebuilder wrote:
| It's an Opel Ampera, i.e. a Chevy Volt. That range, fully
| electric, is the best I've reliably gotten out of it,
| attainable on summer days (no heating!) driving on slower
| country roads. Highways and wintertime are a different
| story - this time of year I get maybe 45 km per charge.
| And currently it won't even run on battery only since
| it's so cold the car insists on intermittently running
| the engine for heat.
| caf wrote:
| _Operating in notch 6 runs the generator at 647 RPM. Since the
| AR10 is a 10 pole machine, that gives 64.7 Hz power._
|
| This part doesn't quite make sense though, because it mixes RPM
| (per-minute) with Hz (per-second) without scaling.
|
| 647 RPM is 10.8 Hz, and more poles should increase the
| frequency not decrease it - 10 poles means you'd multiply it by
| 5, so would give you 54 Hz.
| hwillis wrote:
| probably 54 Hz- split phase power has a GND, positive phase,
| and negative phase: https://techblog.ctgclean.com/wp-
| content/uploads/Split-Phase...
|
| Alternating phases would be hooked up to one phase or the
| other, with negative phase poles connected backwards. I know
| traction motors are brushed, so probably the generators are
| as well. If that's the case then you should be able to just
| bolt new wires on (brushes are consumables, so they are
| easily replaceable).
|
| edit: managed to misread your conclusion as it would be 110
| Hz, lol.
| mindslight wrote:
| I wonder what they did with the 5 phases? Use them
| asymmetrically and let the engine struggle with the
| unbalanced load? Also it seems like this feed would be no
| good for powering 3 phase motors, or really any phase-phase
| load. Although maybe city hall back then was only on single
| phase power, and they could balance circuits between all 5
| phases, with the probable addition of temporary electric
| heaters etc.
| rob74 wrote:
| I think the only actual reason why the power frequency has to
| be precise is so all the power plants can be synchronized. But
| in an emergency situation, you don't really care if it's 60 or
| 65 Hz...
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| Wild variations are bad for heavy inductive loads like
| transformers and motors. Within 10% is unlikely to damage
| anything though.
| totalZero wrote:
| With what part of it do you take issue? I don't see the
| discrepancy...
| slater wrote:
| soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETfiUYij5UE
| humanbeinc wrote:
| The amount of snowpiercing they had to go through is incredible.
| protomyth wrote:
| Montana used trains to power its grid several years ago when they
| were having power generation problems. The conversions and
| hookups are fairly easy and documented.
| sandos wrote:
| They ruined a lot of streets and those nice wheels! :)
|
| I wonder what it all cost in the end.
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| It's common in Montreal for streets to last one or two winters
| before requiring repairs.
|
| See this: https://www.mtlblog.com/en-ca/news/crazy-montreal-
| map-showin...
| johnwalkr wrote:
| The wheels only have a lifespan of about 2 years anyway and
| it's regular maintenance to replace them. They get serviced
| regularly on a lathe which is either standalone or built
| underneath a service track. They can be pressed on and off the
| axles, which last like 80 years.
|
| Local asphalt repair is also pretty routine for replacing pipes
| and stuff. I too wonder what it cost but I bet it's
| surprisingly little.
| KDJohnBrown wrote:
| What a waste of time when he could have just fled to Mexico and
| soaked up some sun.
| [deleted]
| guytv wrote:
| The walking dead.
| jhoechtl wrote:
| What I ask myself is how did they transform voltage of the engine
| generators? I highly doubt the locomotive electric motors which
| were driven by the locomotive generator were operating at 220V.
|
| They may have "simply" modified the generators exciting field
| strength. If so, these generators once were designed with ample
| allowance.
| hwillis wrote:
| DC diesel electrics are commutated for quite low starting
| voltage- wheelspin is immensely expensive to repair. Then they
| can tweak throttle to hit voltage, but they'd have to be
| balancing that with frequency unless they were very lucky.
| dboreham wrote:
| A town isn't supplied at 220V. More like 33KV. At least 7.5KV.
| mannykannot wrote:
| My understanding is that the voltage generated by diesel-
| electric locomotives is variable, topping out in the low
| kilovolt range, and it would be counter-productive to control
| for a given voltage (other than to avoid exceeding the
| equipment maximum rating); the voltage is allowed to vary to
| match the speed-dependent back-EMF of the traction motors. If
| so, then a locomotive is unsuitable for patching into a
| multi-kilovolt network without a suitable transformer, and
| there will be voltage-matching and regulating problems to be
| resolved in patching into any level of the network.
| mabbo wrote:
| Me, reading the headline: "Aw shit, was that us in '98?"
|
| Open the article: "Over the week spanning Jan. 4-10, 1998..."
|
| That was honestly a wild time. I was almost 12. School was closed
| for 2-3 weeks because they couldn't promise there would be
| electricity to heat the building. The ice kept breaking power
| lines or crushing the transmission towers from the weight (ice is
| heavy!). Imagine your car, covered in a 1-2 inch thick layer of
| very solid ice, encased.
|
| People died. The military had to come in to help. My family was
| fortunate that we had a wood stove in the basement that kept the
| house warm and cooked some meals on. We lost power a few hours at
| least every day.
|
| Crazy time.
|
| Edit: For those interested in this, the Wikipedia article
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_1998_North_American_ic...)
| has some great photos and description. 1,000 transmission
| towers/pylons destroyed, 35,000 utility poles. Whole forests
| devastated.
| Humdeee wrote:
| I thought the same thing. I was 11, in 6th grade and remember
| it pretty clearly. We had the wood fireplace going non-stop,
| and yet we had it fairly easy in comparison with 'only' 2 weeks
| without power in the Ottawa area.
|
| I remember walking over huge snowbanks on our front yard and it
| was all frozen solid. We could almost walk straight up onto the
| house roof.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| One of my former colleagues worked on disaster response in the
| northern Adirondacks and areas around the border. From his
| tales, it was pretty harrowing, basically bringing the region
| into circa 1880 technology overnight.
|
| It was pre-911 before emergency response was well funded which
| made things more challenging. They were dealing with frozen
| everything, no power, no cellular, impassable roads, etc.
| s0rce wrote:
| I remember that, luckily we were spared in Toronto.
| loceng wrote:
| The Ice Storm as it was aptly called.
|
| We were lucky that we were on a road designated as an emergency
| route, and though power was down, our internet still worked.
|
| My dad was handy so he set me up on my laptop with a car
| battery, and my life as a shy, hypersensitive, introvert who
| found solace being away from people and on my computer -
| learning to code through adding features and a fixed ASCII
| interface for the text-based MUD I was building - debugging as
| I went, using my mother's university account server to host it
| initially; he also brought in a BBQ and heated the house with
| propane - not recommended as you need to know the cautions.
|
| Photos: https://www.google.com/search?q=1998+ice+storm+canada
| hylaride wrote:
| I grew up south of Ottawa and remember this storm well. Ice
| 10cm thick on downed power lines and transmission towers. I
| lived in a rural town south of Ottawa (Winchester) and school
| buses would be cancelled on any rain that happened when the
| temperature was below freezing. The literal first day of the
| ice rain (that lasted for a solid week) was on the first day
| we were supposed to go back after the xmas break. School was
| out for two weeks (so a straight month off). On top of that,
| it was the year of the Mike Harris teacher strikes, which
| meant we got a two week break a few months earlier. When we
| did eventually return to school, the army and requisitioned
| our gymnasium and they cooked us all free cafeteria food for
| two weeks.
|
| Winchester was an Ontario Hydro hub, so I was only without
| power for about a day and a half (we had a wood stove, too).
| So this nerd had internet and video games. The only "tough"
| job I had to do was help my grandfather clear his driveway of
| the thick ice, which took hours (salt was impossible to come
| by at this point).
| mcjoken wrote:
| I was also outside Ottawa(West) at the time. I remember
| hearing the trees collapsing as they failed under the
| weight, it was like mini explosions. We were out for about
| 48 hours but our neighbours' line to the road down their
| long driveway failed and so they were out almost 2 weeks.
| throw1234651234 wrote:
| Laptop with a car battery? 12V DC to 160 or whatever AC?
| drewzero1 wrote:
| Laptops (and computers in general) run on 12V DC and 5V DC
| (and more recently also 3.3V DC) internally. Modern laptop
| chargers tend to put out around 20V DC to charge the
| battery and stepped down by power management circuits. Not
| sure if it was already 20V in '98 or if laptops were still
| using 12V DC to charge the NiCads, I seem to remember car
| chargers that plugged the laptop directly into the
| cigarette lighter.
| thedanbob wrote:
| Probably a DC-DC adapter, bypassing the power brick
| entirely.
| throw1234651234 wrote:
| That would make sense, really interested in the details.
| Unrelated to anything, but makes me wonder how horribly
| inefficient running a car I4 is for providing power.
| kube-system wrote:
| Internal combustion engines emit the _majority_ of their
| energy as heat. A typical gasoline engine is 20%
| efficient at turning gasoline into rotational power. (and
| that 's under ideal usage, usually they're designed to be
| most efficient at operating speed, not at idle) Anything
| you have connected to the crankshaft after that is
| additional inefficiency on top of that.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm a bit surprised you had either a laptop or broadband
| Internet (as opposed to dial-up) in 1998. I may have had
| (barely) a work laptop by then but I didn't get home
| broadband until maybe a couple years later.
| daveslash wrote:
| Came hear to also say _" I remember that"_. Glad to see
| fellow Ice-Stormers here. We were in Maine, on the coast. We
| were lucky enough to have a wood stove for heat. And we were
| close enough to the ocean that the kids (me) would go down to
| the ocean at high-tide to fill up 5-gallon buckets with sea-
| water. We used those to flush our toilets for a full week.
| Oh, And I had to walk to school in that ice storm - up hill,
| both ways ;-).
| loceng wrote:
| You reminded me my dad something similar for the toilets -
| living close to Lake Ontario. :)
| Proven wrote:
| Deplorable behavior
| noisy_boy wrote:
| I love this. There is something about the power of train engines
| that is very appealing, even though there might be other bigger
| engines out there. Maybe it is the pulling aspect due to them
| being in front instead of driving that makes me think of them
| like iron horses.
| [deleted]
| asudosandwich wrote:
| Iron horses. I like that.
| WalterGR wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_horse
|
| _" Iron horse" is an iconic literary term (currently
| transitioning into an archaic reference) for a steam
| locomotive, originating in the early 1800s when horses still
| powered most machinery, excepting windmills and stationary
| steam engines. The term was common and popular in both
| British and North American literary articles._
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| An "Iron Horse" is one of the oldest terms in the book for
| describing rail locomotives (dating back to the early 1800's).
|
| These days they're basically rolling generators (powering
| electric motors and using their sheer mass for traction).
| redis_mlc wrote:
| What's interesting is that those locomotives were 1,950 HP, and
| the late WW2 US fighter planes (P-47, Corsair) were about the
| same at 2,000 HP.
| tyingq wrote:
| _" Both locomotives were powered by Alco 251C prime movers;
| 131.4-liter, single-turbo diesel V12s making some 1,950
| horsepower"_
|
| So each cylinder displaces ~11 liters. I know there's bigger out
| there, but that's big to me.
| jacquesm wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5NVOGmrb7w
|
| is pretty impressive stuff and this one:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/MachinePorn/comments/mfjdz/this_is_...
|
| Is nothing short of amazing, there are some pictures with
| engineers going down into the cylinders with stepladders...
| 1800 liters / cylinder displacement.
| yread wrote:
| That's about 1 bucket
| bregma wrote:
| Just short of 3 gallon-jugs of milk stacked up. In common
| journalistic parlance, that's 3x10^-6 Olympic-size swimming
| pools.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-02-23 23:02 UTC)