GE unveils diesel hybrid freight locomotive

[Ma Deuce]

Linky

GE Unveils First Hybrid Road Locomotive

LOS ANGELES - May 23, 2007: GE today announced the debut of its one-of-a-kind hybrid road locomotive at its Ecomagination event in Los Angeles. GE’s Evolution® Hybrid locomotive will be unveiled tomorrow, May 24, at LA’s historic Union Station to demonstrate the progress that GE’s Transportation business is making in developing a freight hybrid locomotive that is capable of recycling thermal energy as stored power in on-board batteries.

This demonstration hybrid unit will be one of many technologies featured at the Ecomagination event that are developed and used in the rail industry to reduce smog-causing emissions, including Nitrous Oxide emissions, and particulate matter. Ecomagination is GE’s initiative to bring to market new technologies that will help customers meet their most pressing environmental challenges.

“This hybrid demonstration unit is another example of our commitment to invest in technology and bring new, innovative concepts to life,” said John M. Dineen, President and CEO of GE- Transportation. “We will continue to support Ecomagination by engineering product offerings that help customers improve fuel efficiency, reduce emissions and sustain a long life of reliable service.”

Bearing road number 2010, the 4,400 horsepower Evolution® Hybrid diesel-electric prototype will feature a series of innovative batteries that will capture and store energy dissipated during dynamic braking. The energy stored in the batteries will reduce fuel consumption and emissions by as much as 10 percent compared to most of the freight locomotives in use today. (In addition to reduced emissions, a hybrid will operate more efficiently in higher altitudes and up steep inclines.)

Several GE customers including BNSF are helping to serve on GE’s advisory board for the development of hybrid technology.

"BNSF is committed to helping develop new technologies that benefit our operations as well as the environment," said Matthew K. Rose, chairman, president and chief executive officer, BNSF Railway Company. "We are proud to be partners with GE on the development of the hybrid locomotive, alternative fuel research and the testing of other technologies that optimize the performance of our locomotive fleets."

This past week, the Evolution® Hybrid demo unit traveled along Union Pacific’s network on its trek to California for its unveiling. Union Pacific also serves on GE’s advisory board.

“Union Pacific is developing and investing in new technologies that provide for cleaner air, including a locomotive fleet that's the greenest in the industry," said Jim Young, Chairman and CEO, Union Pacific. "We congratulate GE on working toward developing a hybrid locomotive and applaud innovation from suppliers that can support our leadership in caring for the environment while delivering the goods that America needs.”

Before the GE hybrid locomotive is offered commercially, the engineering team will continue work and analysis on the innovative lead-free rechargeable batteries and corresponding control systems on-board the locomotive. Following lab testing, GE will produce pre-production units for customer field validation purposes.

“This locomotive will reduce emissions while providing operating benefits to our customers that transport consumer goods and other raw materials by recapturing the energy wasted during train braking,” said Steve Gray, GE - Transportation’s Engineering Leader. “As we work toward bringing the Evolution® Hybrid locomotive to commercial production, our engineers will use this locomotive as a living lab working with our customers to test, study, and refine our hybrid locomotive technology.”

The energy dissipated in braking a 207-ton locomotive during the course of one year is enough to power 160 households for that year.

About GE - Transportation
GE - Transportation, a unit of General Electric Company , delivers technology solutions for the rail, marine, and mining industries. Products and services include freight and passenger locomotives, railway signaling and communications systems, diesel engines for marine and stationary power applications and motorized systems for mining trucks and drills.

Official GE site

Hybrid is perhaps not as appropriate a term for diesel-electric locomotives of this design as it is of hybrid cars, since diesel locomotives already use electric motors to propel their wheels and they also employ regenerative (dynamic) braking. However, instead of dissipating the electricity produced by dynamic braking as waste heat, they will now store it in batteries, where it can be reused to help propel the locomotive. Frankly, I'm more surprised that nobody came up with this sooner, as diesel locomotives have employed dynamic braking since almost their inception, and electric trains already return the electricity generated by dynamic braking to the catenery to be used by other trains, however battery technology could have been a limiting factor. Perhaps with the advent of large-scale Lithium batteries this will become more feasible.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

ARGH.

This is "PROGRESS?"



Milwaukee Road Boxcab Electrics undergoing maintenance... These electric locomotives, introduced in 1914, were the first locmotives in the world to use regenerative breaking, operating under DC cantenary in mainline service on the Milwaukee Road's Pacific extension from Harlowton Montana to Seattle, Washington.

If we had just electrified railroads steadily (plans existed after WW2 and in the 1970s for major expansions) instead of ripping the old electrification up, such energy saving mechanisms would have been in use in the majority of our mainline routes by the end of the 1970s, except probably even better.

The achievement of putting regenerative breaks on a diesel-electric is still not what I call brilliant, or remotely new. You're still pointlessly lugging your powerplant around with you, and it still runs on hydrocarbons instead of electricity which can be renewable/and-or/hydro-nuclear.

[Broomstick]

Speaking as someone who rides a catenary-powered electric train to and from work on Monday through Friday, I have to say that "lugging your powerplant around with you" DOES have some very real advantages. Catenary lines can and do break for various reasons. I've seen them tangled up around the train cars at times. There's a lot of maintenance involved in keeping such a system up and running, which costs money, labor, and materials. Particularly over trans-continental distances, I'm not sure this is the most efficient way to go about transporting people and goods even if they work fairly well over urban distances.

[Redleader34]

The problem with cantanry in Americana is that there is a lot of areas that are heavily hit by hurricanes/storms, (*the midwest/the southeastern coast) that would need rebuilds every 5 years when an hurricane Andrew/Katrina came through and destroyed the railset. I prefer third rail for long range rails, because is likely to fall down and require massive repairs, and the fact that its harder for idiots to hit the electrified part of the track and possibly die.

[EmperorChrostas the Cruel]

I would go you one further, and state that transmision losses through line resistance is very great at the operating voltages of these trains.

http://www.electricalpowertransformer.c ... -down.html

In order to avoid great power losses you would need to set up a power grid with high voltages and step down transformers. Maintenance of this AND the Catenary lines is going to add to the costs. Also, how are the workers going to get to Bumfuck Nebraska to do the work? Why trucks of course! Adding more energy use and pollution to the mix.
The addition of batteries to use the lost power of braking would be much more bang for your buck, as well as cheaper to set up.
Then we have inclement weather to consider. Severe storms and tornados would make areas impassable during power outages.

No thank you. I don't want the trains to stop when the wind blows too hard, or ice brings down the lines.

Property would need to be bought, or stolen through eminant domain.

Do you want an entirely new set of power lines built, with all that baggage?

[EmperorChrostas the Cruel]

Redleader34 beat me to the punch.

[Redleader34]

I would go you one further, and state that transmision losses through line resistance is very great at the operating voltages of these trains.

Also, how are the workers going to get to Bumfuck Nebraska to do the work? Why trucks of course! Adding more energy use and pollution to the mix.

On that point, we have construction trains which are simply older engines with old passenger cars and construction machines on flatbed cars to do repair work. We have them on the Northeast corridor for rail work.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Speaking as someone who rides a catenary-powered electric train to and from work on Monday through Friday, I have to say that "lugging your powerplant around with you" DOES have some very real advantages. Catenary lines can and do break for various reasons. I've seen them tangled up around the train cars at times. There's a lot of maintenance involved in keeping such a system up and running, which costs money, labor, and materials. Particularly over trans-continental distances, I'm not sure this is the most efficient way to go about transporting people and goods even if they work fairly well over urban distances.

Yeah, it's a second failure point in the system, but then again, I've had the experience of sitting around on a long-distance train with a dead engine and HEP failure while they come in to get some freight locomotives to haul us at reduced speed. Or threaten to end up busing us, which happens fairly often with Amtrak these days though thankfully a lot less than it used to.

The cantenary system on the Milwaukee, St. Paul, and Pacific, however, was the most robust thing you could imagine. Erected in 1914 - 1927 over different parts of the Pacific extension it operated until the 1970s. Some of the original 1914-vintage locomotives, albeit heavily rebuilt, were still in operate at point--sixty years of service. The cantenary itself was never replaced in that whole period, and only taken down to take advantage of the high price of scrap copper.

There's no question that we can put the whole railnet under wire. I'm quite certain of that. If they put Pipestone Pass and Snoqualmie Pass under wire for 50 - 60 years and it worked fine, then there's plenty of proof of concept for other electrification projects, which unfortunately weren't taken.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I would go you one further, and state that transmision losses through line resistance is very great at the operating voltages of these trains.

http://www.electricalpowertransformer.c ... -down.html

In order to avoid great power losses you would need to set up a power grid with high voltages and step down transformers.

The Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific managed to do this over several mountain passes without a problem.

Maintenance of this AND the Catenary lines is going to add to the costs.

Not enough to preclude keeping the mainline electrics in operation for 60 years.

Also, how are the workers going to get to Bumfuck Nebraska to do the work? Why trucks of course! Adding more energy use and pollution to the mix.

You've apparently never heard of loss/failure reserves. There's no need for inefficient trucks to do repairs; you can keep a reserve of old diesel engines and use them for running maintenance trains on the cantenary while necessary.

The addition of batteries to use the lost power of braking would be much more bang for your buck, as well as cheaper to set up.

Then we have inclement weather to consider. Severe storms and tornados would make areas impassable during power outages.

No thank you. I don't want the trains to stop when the wind blows too hard, or ice brings down the lines.

You apparently don't know what the hell you're talking about, considering that what you're suggesting, if true, would have made mountain electrification in the USA entirely worthless, especially nearly 100 years ago when there was extremely heavy snowfall in these places. But for some reason, it did not. Railroad after railroad electrified its mountain lines because steam could not compete with the effectiveness of electric engines in such circumstances.

And the Scandinavian countries have no problem operating electric railroads. And if that wasn't enough, Russia has 42,300 kilometeres of electrified track, with a massive project ongoing to double-track and electrify the trans-Siberian railroad.

Property would need to be bought, or stolen through eminant domain.

Do you want an entirely new set of power lines built, with all that baggage?

Why not? They can run along the same right-of-way, so no eminent domain is needed.

As if the coming of peak oil is going to give us a choice!

[Broomstick]

The cantenary system on the Milwaukee, St. Paul, and Pacific, however, was the most robust thing you could imagine. Erected in 1914 - 1927 over different parts of the Pacific extension it operated until the 1970s. Some of the original 1914-vintage locomotives, albeit heavily rebuilt, were still in operate at point--sixty years of service. The cantenary itself was never replaced in that whole period, and only taken down to take advantage of the high price of scrap copper.

The South Bend South Shore Rail Road - the one I use to commute - dates back to 1901 (operated under a different name, and much shorter route) and is, obviously, still in service. So even with 19th Century engineering it was possible to build systems that lasted more than 100 years in continuous service. Much of the original infrastructure is still in place and still used, as there is no reason to replace it unless it is destroyed. That means quite a bit of wires, rails, and all of the train cars have been replaced over time (moving/abraded parts wear out), but the supports for the catenary have remained unchanged. There is no doubt that these systems can be robustly built and maintained long-term. The question is still the cost/benefit equation - most areas dismantled their electric trains because the gasoline powered car out-competed them (for a number of reasons, and not always good ones) The NW Indiana/South Chicago lines remain because enough people were willing to ride them to keep them going along with some subsidies from urban governments dealing with road congestion. And ridership goes up and down with the price of gas (and also with construction on key freeways). If the cost of gas continues to rise the demand for rail commuting will go up, at least in the area I live in. It helps that mass transit commuting on a regional level has been a commplace for over a century as it means cultural and social barriers to the practice are minimal - not so in areas of the US that have never had mass transit.

The SS&SB does use old cars for maintenance, some electric and some diesel powered (a few both) along with pickup trucks modified to run on rails. The SS&SB does also have a few diesel engines for hauling frieght (for the most part, between steel mills and local suppliers).

I think the future may hold not transport systems running on just one power source but with flexibility, in which case a hybrid system running on electricity OR diesel (or flex fuels) would be the engine of the future. Flexibility being the key. But, again, the idea of flexibility is nothing new - the "Skokie Swift" line operated by the Regional Transit Authority north of Chicago runs off a catenary on the north portion of the line and off third rail in the southern portion.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The problem with third rail is that while modern AC cantenary wires eliminate all of Chroastas' electric transmission issues, third rail suffers from all of them, and as a second-rate backup source it would prohibitive to install in the short-term.

One interesting idea is seeing if a Stirling Cycle railroad engine could be developed--that could provide considerable flexibility in fuel used while still gaining efficiencies over existing diesels.

[Sea Skimmer]

The problem with cantanry in Americana is that there is a lot of areas that are heavily hit by hurricanes/storms, (*the midwest/the southeastern coast) that would need rebuilds every 5 years when an hurricane Andrew/Katrina came through and destroyed the railset. I prefer third rail for long range rails, because is likely to fall down and require massive repairs, and the fact that its harder for idiots to hit the electrified part of the track and possibly die.

Third rail electrification isn’t practical for long distances and especially not long distances with American sized freight trains. If you build overhead wires to a high standard, with big steel polls and only a small number of heavy duty bracing wires then you’ll have quite high resistance to storms. The key thing will be to keep trees cut well back from the tracks in hurricane prone areas.

I’d suggest expanding existing 25,000v overhead systems outward, while areas of wholly new electrification will run on 50,000v. The US is huge enough that it’s not particularly vital that all trains run on the same gear. It’s not that hard these days to make a locomotive that can run on two or even three different systems anyway.


It never going to make sense to electrify all tracks though and diesels will always have to be around for support and industrial work.

[Drewcifer]

Forget the wires, the future is gensets.

Besides UP, Norfolk Southern is running some gensets as well and they like them too.

Whether they end up running on diesel or corn in the future is still up for grabs though.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Forget the wires, the future is gensets.

Besides UP, Norfolk Southern is running some gensets as well and they like them too.

Whether they end up running on diesel or corn in the future is still up for grabs though.

No, it's not the future whatsoever, because converting corn into ethanol is immensely inefficient, and when peak oil hits the Army will be getting what little of it is made. The long-term future for railroading is under wire.

[sketerpot]

Whether they end up running on diesel or corn in the future is still up for grabs though.

Why the hell would you want to make ethanol out of corn, of all things? Use soybeans or (better yet) switchgrass or some other plant.

[Drewcifer]

The type of fuel isn't the point here, pick ethanol or diesel or vegetable oil or whatever. The Class I's will do whatever they have to do to move freight. And if that means stringing wire across thousands and thousands of miles of track, they'll do it. But right now, they're looking to gensets.

And the railroads are close with the government and military. Besides all kinds of goods that keep the economy going, somebody has to get all that coal to the power plants and also help move military assets around the country. The railroads will be one of the last to go under heavy fuel rations.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The type of fuel isn't the point here, pick ethanol or diesel or vegetable oil or whatever. The Class I's will do whatever they have to do to move freight. And if that means stringing wire across thousands and thousands of miles of track, they'll do it. But right now, they're looking to gensets.

And the railroads are close with the government and military. Besides all kinds of goods that keep the economy going, somebody has to get all that coal to the power plants and also help move military assets around the country. The railroads will be one of the last to go under heavy fuel rations.

They won't ever go under fuel rations--they're far to critical for that. What will happen is that they'll get fed the last stockpiles (and expect to see plenty of interim things, like every steam locomotive in the country which can be fixed being pressed into service, and new ones being built, and gas turbines powered on coal dust being experimented with again and so on) and continued rations of ethanol and limited amounts of gas still being extracted after that, with a priority at least equal to the military's; they will be the only thing keeping every city in the country from starving to death.

In the meanwhile, a crash programme to finish electrification will continue.

Obviously the more fuel efficient locomotives are when this goes down, the better, but the simple fact is that the government should be paying for the cantenary to go up right now.

[Broomstick]

Whether they end up running on diesel or corn in the future is still up for grabs though.

Why the hell would you want to make ethanol out of corn, of all things?

Because right now the American Midwest is corn from horizon to horizon, a mega-shitload of more corn than any country could eat.

Well, OK, we have the occassional soybean field, too.

But the main point is that the US talks about making fuel from corn because we grow so damn much. Whether we should be growing that much is a different question.

[sketerpot]

Whether they end up running on diesel or corn in the future is still up for grabs though.

Why the hell would you want to make ethanol out of corn, of all things?

Because right now the American Midwest is corn from horizon to horizon, a mega-shitload of more corn than any country could eat.

Well, OK, we have the occassional soybean field, too.

But the main point is that the US talks about making fuel from corn because we grow so damn much. Whether we should be growing that much is a different question.

Speaking as someone who lives in the sea of corn, it's obvious we shouldn't be growing this much. To name just one issue: Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, and Texas are facing a crisis in the next few years because of the insane aquifer depletion from corn production, and soon all hell is going to break loose in areas in the rain shadow of the Rocky Mountains.

The worst part is, anybody can see this coming and yet nothing is done. Sure, farmers switch to more efficient irrigation systems that reduce evaporation losses, because water is rationed and the politics are vicious -- but they keep on growing corn in the desert and pumping gallons of water out every second for each field. They act as if the aquifer is infinite and they actively resent those government types telling them they can't use all the water they damn well please.

There are other problems, but that's just the one I most wanted to rant about.

[Starglider]

Third rail electrification isn’t practical for long distances and especially not long distances with American sized freight trains. If you build overhead wires to a high standard, with big steel polls and only a small number of heavy duty bracing wires then you’ll have quite high resistance to storms. The key thing will be to keep trees cut well back from the tracks in hurricane prone areas.

Does third rail have anything going for it other than low cost and construction time?

[Sea Skimmer]

The worst part is, anybody can see this coming and yet nothing is done. Sure, farmers switch to more efficient irrigation systems that reduce evaporation losses, because water is rationed and the politics are vicious -- but they keep on growing corn in the desert and pumping gallons of water out every second for each field. They act as if the aquifer is infinite and they actively resent those government types telling them they can't use all the water they damn well please.

More efficient irrigation is the very problem; central pivot sprinkler irrigation uses much less water then flood irrigation per unit of land area. However at the same time it let farmers irrigate millions of acres which aren’t flat enough for flood irrigation to work leading to a huge boom in pumping.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Speaking as someone who lives in the sea of corn, it's obvious we shouldn't be growing this much. To name just one issue: Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, and Texas are facing a crisis in the next few years because of the insane aquifer depletion from corn production, and soon all hell is going to break loose in areas in the rain shadow of the Rocky Mountains.

The worst part is, anybody can see this coming and yet nothing is done. Sure, farmers switch to more efficient irrigation systems that reduce evaporation losses, because water is rationed and the politics are vicious -- but they keep on growing corn in the desert and pumping gallons of water out every second for each field. They act as if the aquifer is infinite and they actively resent those government types telling them they can't use all the water they damn well please.

There are other problems, but that's just the one I most wanted to rant about.

Well, if we had enough electricity we could just build water pipelines from desalination plants. The problem is that we don't have enough electricity to build massive numbers of desalination plants. We'd need nukes and massive geothermal installations (both for power generation and large numbers of very small ones for heating and cooling of buildings to reduce power demands from those sources) to accomplish that.

Of course it doesn't deal with the problem of soil depletion.

[Sea Skimmer]

One interesting idea is seeing if a Stirling Cycle railroad engine could be developed--that could provide considerable flexibility in fuel used while still gaining efficiencies over existing diesels.

Given a fuel preheater, which many locomotives already have, you can burn just about any flammable liquid or gas in a diesel engine. Even olive oil will work.

A stirling engine can work off any source of heat, but you still have design limits on how you can fuel any given example of stirling engine. You’ve got to have a way to supply the heat to the cylinders from its source. Stirling engines have already been made to work in the AIP component of Gotland class submarines, but they only run off diesel fuel and compressed oxygen for example.

[Drewcifer]

[....] What will happen is that they'll get fed the last stockpiles (and expect to see plenty of interim things, like every steam locomotive in the country which can be fixed being pressed into service, and new ones being built, and gas turbines powered on coal dust being experimented with again and so on)

[....]

...but the simple fact is that the government should be paying for the cantenary to go up right now.

Agreed. Now is the time. Not later.

As far steam being used again, there's not much, if any, steam left in the US that would usable these days for revenue freight, even with massive retrofits*. There's no parts and there's few people left who really know how to service and maintain steam. If we see steam on US rails again, they will either be purchased from China, or like you mentioned, new one will have to be built.

And coal dust turbines? Only if material sciences have caught up enough -- coal dust has a bad habit of shredding things like steel turbine blades**.

But moreover, turbines aren't suitable for use as motive power. They're too loud, they gulp fuel and air, and most importantly are really only efficient when running at full throttle, which rail locomotives rarely do. I can see turbines being used as small local power plants (to supply power for catenary), rather than as motive power.

* The UP occasionally runs #844 on revenue freights, but only when transferring the loco to another location, ie ferry service.

** Legend has it that when N&W's coal-fired turbine, the Jawn Henry, was running, you hear the turbine blades pinging with regular frequency as they were chewed up by the coal dust.

[Starglider]

But moreover, turbines aren't suitable for use as motive power. They're too loud, they gulp fuel and air, and most importantly are really only efficient when running at full throttle,

The noise problem may or may not be an issue depending on whether anyone is still paying attention to protests at that point. The efficiency issue is solved by the hybrid systems mentioned in the OP; the turbine has enough power for a fast cruise plus minimal battery charging, the batteries deliver extra kick for acceleration and steeps hill, for low speeds and idle the turbine gets shut down and the batteries power the train. Ultracapacitors would be more efficient and longer lasting if the price can be brought down enough and the density raised high enough.

I can see turbines being used as small local power plants (to supply power for catenary), rather than as motive power.

I don't see how that would help; demand on a truly local plant would vary at least as much as demand on a single train, depending on how many trains are on the track segment and what they're doing.