Wabtec is also working behind the scenes on a potential game-changer for the rail industry - a battery-electric locomotive, or BEL, that Wabtec calls the FLX Drive.
I built these New for GE Transportation in Erie Pa over 30 years. Seen much in change, including selling to Wabtec. Truth is, RR's are exploiting the new emissions requirements by 'rebuilding' old locomotives. I have video inside Eries plant if interested....
Show it, so people can see what a proper erecting shop layout is like. Side by side. So one batch doesn't block access to another, if parts and subassemblies are delayed.
Nobody wants to deal with the maintenance of tier 4 emission systems. Major headache to deal with. Not to mention the government fluid that is required for those engines. Much easier to rebuild the old stuff than deal with the new stuff.
Locomotives having to use DEF would be a disaster to the food supply. Trucks already are. In the lockdown UP embargoed CF Industries, a major ammonia producer. That caused a squeeze on both fertilizer and DEF, which led to further transportation and agriculture issues. DEF is an unnecessary vulnerability in the economy much like ethanol. Why do we keep using food for the wrong things?
Really hard to get good numbers on absolute peak, average peak based on season and region. Even worse is how many homes in a block; numbers from 10 - 600. [ 7.2MW per train, I know of a small full service hospital that had 2MW emergency power. 30KW peak per house gives 240 homes. ] 30KW is like absolute peak - huge AC, Water Heater, Clothes Dryer, Cooking Stove, Hair Dryer and some other junk running.
I love the rebuilt AC44C6Ms, but eventually we knew that new units would be ordered again and that is really Wabtec’s main reason for being. BNSF and CN have once again been getting new units in 2023 and CPKC is next! I can’t wait to see them and what they will look like!
The charging systems are not near enough to replace anything. When a battery system can be recharged as quickly as filling tanks with diesel, then we can be impressed. Until then, we are dependent on oil.
we need over head wire power locomotives again in the usa there where tons of railroads using electric locomotives in the 40s but around the 60s and 70s they went full diesel sadly
@@Zdogcat How do you think we are going to power those locomotives? Coal? Basically there is no way to power anything eletrically without creating emissions of some sort, with the execption of solar but you are talking massive solar farms to power just one section of rail. Never mind the emissions to build, install, and maintain those items. If we still built nuclear plants, sure it would be a viable option, however the only way we produce eletric is coal, gas, water, solar, and wind, all of which are not mature enough to over come coal to even replace 50% of the actual load of the grid. These are great ideas once we aren't burning coal to power eletric cars, trains, etc, but until then, its absolutly useless as all it is doing is "transplanting emissions" to a place you cannot see it. (will add nuclear is about the best option as it does not take up massive amounts of land, very safe, and little to no emissions, espeically if they contiune with the work on disposal of the waste via bacteria, or at the very least finding a storage means under ground that are 0 maintenace so that in the event (always does) that maintenace is not funded, or provided 50 years in the future, the ground water is not at risk and the waste cannot phycially go critical by over heating)
@@zimbabwesteve4620 Nope. There is not a power generating station every few miles. Now, electric trains (which get electricity from catenary) use traction substations.
Battery-Electric locomotives are one of the dumbest ideas ever. All-electric locomotives have been around since the 1930s or earlier. They use power lines and pantographs instead of batteries, and although power lines are expensive, batteries are more expensive. They'll have to be replaced every 5-10 years (easily half the cost of the locomotive) and lithium ion batteries are not at all environmentally friendly, despite what EV companies might tell you. Oh, and the cobalt in L-ION batteries is almost always obtained via child labor.
@@placeholdername0000not addressing any of the other points I made. I am aware that cobalt isn't a strict requirement but most L-ion batteries have it.
You had me until you started talking about "Zero Emission Battery Powered Locomotives." The juice to charge that thing has to come from somewhere outside of the unit. It seems odd to think that two or four of these things will probably end up pulling coal trains, coal to run some of the electrical plants needed to keep the electricity on.
Battery technology still has a long way to go before it can pull a train from point a to point b without stopping and recharging! Today’s locomotives can start out with a full tank of fuel and goes several days before refueling!
These rebuild programs are as much about avoiding problematic Tier 4 emissions standards for new locomotives as they are about saving capital. There is a reasonable “middle ground” approach to battery electric locomotive tech. No, they may not ever completely replace diesel freight locomotives. However with improved energy density from graphene batteries, they could at some point greatly increase efficiency by harnessing wasted energy from braking and allow fewer diesels to move the same tonnage. It’s not any different than how a Prius works. People need to be more open minded and realistic about the problems and potential benefits of battery tech.
Find a way to build a nuclear powered locomotive that uses a fuel cell similar to that of the probes we send into space and you might actually make progress in getting away from fossil fuels.
The fuel cells they use in space are _tiny._ Basically, they jus use an isotope of plutonium whose radioactive decay makes it physically hot, and then use thermocouples to convert that heat into electricity. You get almost no electricity that way -- just enough to power small electronic devices. They most commonly use plutonium-238. You'd need nearly 6,000 _tons_ of plutonium-238 to get as much power as a modern diesel locomotive.
@@beeble2003 Thanks for doing the math on that. I'm not a nuclear physicist by trade and I was just bouncing off an idea without really thinking about how large something like that would actually have to be.
@@HustleMuscleGhias In fairness, I should have mentioned that a small conventional nuclear reactor would be a much more plausible power plant for a locomotive. The kind used for space probes is only suitable for very low-power applications, but a "normal" reactor would probably be workable. However, people would be very unhappy about nuclear-powered trains running through their neighbourhood. It would almost certainly make more sense (socially and even economically) to just build a normal nuclear power station and install overhead cables to run electric trains.
I want to give some perspective regarding battery electric locomotives. A modern train doesn't have just a locomotive in it, but various machines. The electric locomotive is intended to be used in a hybrid consist where its main purpose will be to recharge itself using the dynamic brake.
They basically just use them to start the train & going uphill. They don't use them for 100% of the trip unless it's a short distance. Most if the time it's off. Just dead weight.
Well, the advantage is a much lower maintenance cost. If you use batteries that are optimized for a long cycle life you will have very few parts that wear out. On the other hand, your locomotives will be heavier. Much like you said, they will essentially have a slug/B unit permanently attached to the locomotive. However, the extra traction is just a neat bonus. For winter weather the locomotives have an advantage over electric cars, since they're huge. That makes it much easier to keep them warm, to the point where the extra grip might actually give them an advantage.
I don't know where you got that information because in real life, the Wabtec battery powered unit that was trialed on the BNSF was seen as pretty successful.
I mean neat but railroads will do seemingly anything but electrify their tracks to an actually modern standard. Overhead power was the future in the 30s and continues to be the most efficient way of electrifying the trains
It's still difficult to imagine how the power plant on the inside of one of those things can move it at all to say nothing of pulling all the rail cars that go with it. Pretty amazing.
Zero emissions, except for the scores of dead battery packs that have out that have outlived their service life; zero emissions, except for those expended in mining the materials for said batteries... 🙄
They’ve tried battery powered locomotives for years, and every single attempt fails miserably. Second only to attempts over the last 30+ years to put Caterpillar engines in locomotives. Fails every time…..and usually a catastrophic failure.
"Zero emissions" is a misleading claim on all electric locomotives. Somewhere electricity is being generated to recharge these locomotives and unless that electricity is wind, solar or hydroelectric, there will be emissions in the creation of that electricty.
@@aerospot2 Correct! The passenger railroads are mostly all government run. If the emissions equipment proves unreliable and costly to maintain, then they just raise your taxes to pay for it.
Yes, they're referring to freight railroads, since those account for well over 95% of the locomotives in the USA. Amtrak, by far the largest passenger railroad company in the US, owns about 400 locomotives, so I doubt there are more than 800 passenger locomotives in the US in total. Union Pacific, on its own, has about 8,000 freight locomotives. So, even if the only railroads in the USA were Union Pacific and passenger railroads, freight would still account for 90% of the market.
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A locomotive that can power up a neighborhood 😮🤔? Where was this guy when the electrical gid in Dallas CRASHED 😮.? With so many locomotives in storage they could of plugged a few into the grid and solved that issue 😉. But NO, let's let everybody freeze 🥶 along with their brains and don't think outside the box. Think back, with that ice 🧊 storm that hit the northeast and Canada, CP Rail took one of their engines to a ice covered crossing, turned it 90 degrees, and drove it down the road, and plugged 🔌 it into the grid. True story. WAKE UP DALLAS⏰! IT HAS BEEN DONE😮!!!
Dude we can't even get electric cars, let alone electric semi trucks to be reliable or efficient. We have no business looking to mass movers like rail, sea or air to go EV especially in a commercial/industrial/long-haul capacity until we can get the smaller units squared away. Every other evolution in propulsion has started small and expanded to larger power plants, this is no different. There is no sense in reinventing the wheel. One foot in front of the other. One step at a time.
The FLXDrive is a glorified time-shifting slug unit for cheaply built, slow and steady mineral railroads like the B&LE that have a roller coaster profile, and have to use more units because of isolated grades. And a publicity show horse of course.
Did I hear "battery locos"!! What is it with EV's?? WHERE ,oh, WHERE IS THE "E" GOING TO COME FROM?!?!? Let's get somemore of that "Jim Jones juice"!!!
