Old tech saves the day

[bellinghman]

As seen here: Passengers rescued by Tornado.

It's rather wonderful in its way that when the electric-driven trains were being disabled by ice and snow, a good old-fashioned A1 Pacific steam loco could carry the stranded passengers to London.

He said: "It was a nice way to finish for Christmas, though I think some of the rescued passengers didn't realise they'd even been travelling on a steam train until they got off."

Hmm. I wonder what they thought the plume flowing back along the train from the front was, then.

(Steam trains are wondrous things, but I wouldn't really want them back in bulk. Electrics can run in almost any weather, as the Swiss can demonstrate, and they don't have to run on hydrocarbons.)

Comments

[martyn44.livejournal.com]

As someone who used to live with a steam powered branchline at the bottom of the garden, I agree - wondrous, but I would no more want to live next to one than I would an apatasaurous.

[knell.livejournal.com]

Well, diesels run fine under these circumstances too...

[furrfu.livejournal.com]

But are a whole lot dirtier than electric, still.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

When we were riding the Canadian from Toronto to Vancouver this summer, we noted just how much dirt was coming out the top of the engines. Yuck. I'm sure they could do something to clean it up a bit.

One of our co-passengers was a local representative (or worked for one) in Toronto. Toronto is thinking of opening a new line out to the airport (the Union-Pearson Rail Link), running lots of trains. They'll be diesels. This is apparently expected to more than double the number of diesels running in and out of Union Station, and the local politics is apparently starting to petition that the line be electrified right from the start.

[furrfu.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was once quite surprised at King's Cross to see just how much soot was being belched out by a Great Northern diesel setting off. The lack of local pollution (and noise -- although that's just another kind of polluation) is obviously a big plus for electrics.

And more efficient, too, even if the electricity was generated from burning oil (because most—not all—diesel trains are, essentially, electrics with a big diesel generator).

I don't know if any trains (ie not metro systems or trams) use regenerative braking yet. I imagine it wouldn't be worth the trouble on long-distance high-speed trains, but might be worth it on commute trains.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

I'd be interested to see the comparative efficiency, to be honest.

Yes, the electrics don't have to lug along a generator and fuel tanks. And yes, the power stations get economy of scale that a mobile generator can't achieve.

On the other hand, long miles of cabling can lose quite a bit of juice due to cable resistance.

[furrfu.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I have found only partial information so far:

- Wikipedia says transmission losses in the US were estimated at 7.2% in 1995
- Wikipedia says fossil fuel power plants with steam turbines can be up to 60% efficient
- A very modern piston diesel engine can be 35% efficient. Googling for train diesel engine efficiencies seems to suggest 30%.

Sadly, I lack one piece of the puzzle, and that's an estimate of the losses in the overhead wire. The UK operates (according, again, to Wikipedia) at 25kV AC, but I can't find exact numbers for efficiencies just now. However, I doubt it's enough to make up the difference.

[fanf]

I believe TGVs use regenerative braking. Trains can't rely on regenerative brakes, though, because there must be some other load on the line into which the slowing train can pump its power. If that isn't the case, trains use rheostatic braking instead (or some combination of the two if the line can take part of the braking load). TGVs have stacks of resistors and cooling fans on top of the power cars for this purpose.

TGVs only use their disc brakes below a certain speed.

[furrfu.livejournal.com]

Yes, indeed. I should have phrased it better.

"how many trains use regenerative braking with the express purpose of feeding energy back into the grid."

(I know the Brussels Metro switched to such a system not that long ago, and became quite a bit more efficient because of it. But that's not big trains.)

(Incidentally, huge dump trucks as used in open cast mining also use resistive braking. Because disc brakes just can't cope.)

[fanf]

Ah right, I see what you mean. The need for rheostatic brakes rather implies that there's no feedback to the general grid.

Speaking of brakes not coping, the French have been investigating magnetic brakes for very high speed braking, which work by transferring energy to the rails by heating them up using induced eddy currents. You can't use this technique at lower speeds because you don't want to heat the rails up too much, i.e. you want to spread the heat out as much as possible.

[happydisciple.livejournal.com]

I don't know if any trains (ie not metro systems or trams) use regenerative braking yet. I imagine it wouldn't be worth the trouble on long-distance high-speed trains, but might be worth it on commute trains.

The Dutch Railways' DD-IRM EMUs use regenerative braking (not mentioned in the English article, but it is in the Dutch one), as did the short-lived SM '90.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Oh, one other point about the Canadian trains: they're apparently considering the possibility of electrification of the line where it goes over the Rockies. Not the whole line, just the mountain bit.

The vast majority of that traffic is freight, with two, sometimes three, great diesel-electric haulage units on the front.

[furrfu.livejournal.com]

Yes, according to Wikipedia — which seems to be very thorough when it comes to anything to do with trains :-) — electric is more powerful than diesel is more powerful than steam. Similarly more efficient, too.

[furrfu.livejournal.com]

This might be a good point to mention the fantastic http://nrkbeta.no/2009/12/18/bergensbanen-eng/ - over 20GB of train p0rn. A 7+ hour train journey from Bergen to Oslo, through one of the prettiest landscapes on the planet.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Hot damn. Now that's a wonderful use of BitTorrent.

[furrfu.livejournal.com]

I've watched about 90 minutes of it so far. I put it on a second display, thinking to leave it play in the background but it's oddly mesmerising. Such a gorgeous country. It helps that I did part of the journey myself, a few years ago.

[hesadevil.livejournal.com]

Isn't there a regular steam train doing the London/York route, or is it a special touristy thing that happens every now and then? We can hear it's whistle (and sometimes the track-noise is the wind's in the right direction) from our house.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

It's almost certainly Tornado running that route: it would make a lot of sense.

(She ran it for the Top Gear Race to the North, when she did the KingsX to Edinburgh Waverley trip, back in April.)

And no, I don't believe it's scheduled per se: she's a one-of-a-kind beast. As far as I know, she's the only steam loco working the main line, as opposed to those on enthusiast branch lines.

[timill]

http://www.uksteam.info/tours/trs09.htm is the 2009 main line steam programme - 2 or 3 tours per weekend.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

I saw _Sir Nigel Gresley_ at King's Cross recently, and IIRC it'd come from York. Since Gresley lives on the NYMR, it'd be an obvious choice for services from York.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

In which case, I happily stand corrected.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Well, I daresay Tornado does a lot of it too - the A1 Trust are keen to get as much use out of it as possible, and unlike SNG it doesn't have a home railway to use it. But SNG is the NYMR's normal locomotive for letting out (being mainline certified, quick, and unspeakably magnificent) so you see quite a bit of it.

This discussion has enabled me to catch vandalism of SNG's Wikipedia page, so it's all good.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Looking at the schedule that Tim linked to, it's not immediately obvious which use Tornado. Well, except where 'Peppercorn' appears in the title, of course. Following the links, the engine used for an appreciable number, but not all, of the trips up the line that passes hesadevil's property actually is Tornado.

[fanf]

One of the many reasons I love the TGV: yay for nuclear powered trains!

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Yay indeed.

And they can become water powered in some areas - TGVs wander through Switzerland almost to the Italian border at Brig. Mind you, once there they tend to be set upon by feral herds of the more agile Pendolinos. (A TGV can outrun a Pendolino in a straight line, but have you ever seen a straight line in Switzerland?)

[jon-a-five.livejournal.com]

The problem with moving a diesel train line to electric is that you have to add the electrical wiring along the track as well as buy new trains. It's incredibly expensive and would require investment (which seems to be a rude word in some parts of the train industry and government).

[caerleon.livejournal.com]

The Flying Scotsman is to be re-named in order to honour Gordon Brown

At last, Gordon Brown decided to throw the towel in and resign.

His cabinet colleagues decided it would be a worthy gesture to name a railway locomotive after him. So a senior civil servant - 'Sir Humphrey' - went from Whitehall to the National Railway Museum at York, to investigate the possibilities.

"They have a number of locomotives at the NRM without names," a specially-sought consultant told the top civil servant. "Mostly, however, they are freight locomotives."

"Oh dear, that's not very fitting for a prime minister," said Sir Humphrey. "How about that big green one, over there?" he said, pointing to a beautiful train numbered '4472'.

"That's already got a name" said the consultant. "It's called the 'Flying Scotsman'."

"Oh. Couldn't it be renamed?" asked Sir Humphrey. "This is a national museum after all, funded by the taxpayer."

"I suppose it might be considered," said the consultant. "After all, they did rename a number of their locomotives after directors of the company, and even renamed one of them Dwight D Eisenhower."

"That's excellent", said Sir Humphrey, "So that's settled then .. let's look at renaming 4472. But how much will it cost? We can't spend too much, given the expenses scandal!"

Well, said the consultant, "We could always just paint out the 'F'"