BNSF Electrification?

In the tunnel itself, there's no reason BNSF couldn't use a conductor rail bolted directly (through insulators) to the ceiling. As long as there's room for a pantograph and there weren't issues with arcing to containers, it wouldn't be a big issue.

I think GE is best set up for building a new electric locomotive, probably in cooperation with one of the Europeans or Japanese concerns until they finish blowing off the cobwebs from their own collective memory. Their E60s were built up until 20 years ago, and correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they rebuild the E60PHs into E60MAs? One thing I am sure of, any locomotive will be built on the GEVO frame and will look like most GEVOs out there, unless someone gets a mind to stick a second cab on one. EMD would probably either go to Alstom for designs, eventually getting swallowed, or go back to ABB and build some hybrid of the ALP-44 and SD-70M-2.

Milwaukee_F40C wrote: Not that I'm a credible authority on this or anything like that, but I there is probably a minimal chance of this happening within ten or twenty years. It could be 2030 when we read something like this in Trains again and recall "didn't they do some kind of study on this like twenty years ago?" Fuel prices are probably high mainly due to inflation and would thus go back down somewhat again, and there won't be another word about electrification. The other thing is that they are trying to rely on handouts instead of finding investors to finance it the right way.

As a primary commodity, fuel is one of the drivers of inflation rather than a result of it. If jtr1962 is right about the break-even point for electrification, then the freight railroads have already waited long enough that they're pretty sure high energy prices are here to stay.

As for the handout, wouldn't you rather get electrified for free than have to pay for it? Even if BNSF were willing to pay for it from their capital program, it is still smart politics to talk as though you need federal money.

That having been said, it will still likely take ten or twenty years for this to happen, even if all things go well. They have to get the Congressional funding (or to be sure that Congressional funding isn't forthcoming), get a fleet of electric locomotives in place, build power infrastructure especially in more remote areas, etc.

Here's a real world example regarding the benefits and costs of electrification:

http://www.lightrailnow.org/features/f_lrt_2006-03a.htm

Note that this electrification was done in the 1960s, a time when diesel fuel was very cheap, and yet it still paid off. A factor often overlooked is that electric trains can get over the road faster than diesels. This can often mean fewer trainsets to do the same amount of work, even with freight operations. I have little doubt we're well past the point where electrification would pay for itself within a matter of a few years. Cost to electrify the approximately 100,000 miles of track in the US at roughly 3 million per mile is on the order of $300 billion. Spread over ten years, this isn't much over 1% of the federal budget. Not a huge cost by any stretch, yet it would return enormous benefits. My proposal-the feds pick up the tab for stringing wire, the railroads buy the electric locomotives.

Any particular reason we're discussing overhead catenary wire instead of a third rail power supply?


Maybe our East Coast friends can offer up the pro's and cons of each delivery system.


I'm thinking third rail may work better for freight applications, any thoughts?

Train speed: It seems most third rail applications "limit" train speed to 60-80MPH. Non issue for freight.

Maintenence: Easier to perform work/repairs to ground-level third rail as opposed to catenary. Less infrastructure (cat poles, etc).

Weather: Sub-zero temps with blowing snow/ice and 100+ summer days. I'm guessing catenary is more likely to fail during severe weather than third rail.

Is there any practical reason why a high voltage AC current third rail wouldn't work in freight operations?

SooLineRob wrote:Is there any practical reason why a high voltage AC current third rail wouldn't work in freight operations?

Yes, there is. It's called ohm's law. The highest practical voltage for third rail is about 1500 volts. As for amps, right now the LIRR and MNRR have to limit acceleration on their EMUs to keep the current with long trains down to approximately 7500 amps IIRC (although if they were a 1500 volt system instead of 750 volt this constraint wouldn't be as problematic). Anyway, the practical hard limits for third rail are 1500 volts and (I'm going out on a limb) 10,000 amps. Allowing for a conversion efficiency in the locomotives of about 90%, this means a hard limit at the rail of around 18,000 HP. And this in a system with substations spaced several to the mile. The cost of frequent substations in open territory would probably mean far fewer of them, and therefore much lower current limits due to the longer distances a locomotive might be from a substation. Add to that the fact that third rail passenger operation is usually high current while accelerating, followed by relatively low current. This means you can strategically place the substations near stations. Not so with freight which might be operating at full power for extended periods. Put all these factors together, and I'll bet you'll be limited to 5000 HP or less per train the majority of the time. Given North American freight railroading practices, this would never work. Indeed, even the aforementioned optimistic limit of 18,000 HP would be problematic in many cases.

On the other hand, with 25KVAC catenary, your currents are reduced by over an order of magnitude. Since heating due to current is proportional to current squared, your losses go down by a factor of over one hundred, or put another way you can space substations over 100 times further apart with similar losses compared to third rail.

If Phil Nasadowski happens to read this thread, I'm sure he'll add quite a bit to what I wrote. Bottom line-third rail is an obsolete system for mainline railroads. It works well for local urban transit systems, but poorly in most other situations.

With regard to the snow vs. Catenary vs. Third Rail.......you would be surprised

Nearly every winter, Long Island RR and Metro North RR experience pretty major delays related to snow and ice build up on the third rail. Meanwhile, NJT and Amtrak run along relatively unscathed.

Is it equipment vs. infrastructure, im not sure, but I know 3rd rail becomes problematic when it gets buried in snow.

the problem with catenary is sleet/ice, but in particular sleet. sleet totally encases the trolley wire (the wire the pantographs ride on) and arcs to the pantograph through the sleet. Arching is bad (think welding) and sleet causes SEVERE arching. so much so, that Amtrak (and Im assuming most OH catenary RRs) have "Sleet instructions" which most times both pantographs are raised, but the lead pan is isolated (not drawing any power) and scraping the wire so that the rear pantograph has a relatively clean surface to draw power from, and arching is kept to a minimum.

While i don't deal with 3rd rail powered equipment, im more familar with OH catenary, the substations and power issues listed above make OH catenary more desirable, not to mention, there have been electric freight locos not only here in the US, but all over the world. Much more experiece with catenary and freight compared to 3rd rail and freight. If the catenary is built correctly (constant tension wire in particular, which has weights on teh end of each wire section to keep the catenary taught, no matter the weather conditions) the risks from it are few. Sure, a pantograph can snag catenary and drag it down, but, espeically with constant tension, its a relatively easy fix, most times. Not to mention, keeping the power source away from wandering people/animals/vehicles, etc, etc.

jtr1962 and Jtgshu,

Thanks for the information on OH catenary and third rail delivery. I never realized the serious gap (get it?) in peformance between the two systems. We of course know mainline freight operations used OH catenary, but I for one never knew how limited a third rail was in performance. I speculated, in error, that advances in technology and hardware could make third rail a viable option for regional mainline freight electrification. I realize today's third rail that is in use by MNCR, LIRR, etc was designed many years ago and was "the best system of it's day", but was wondering if they could "make it better" for today's needs.

Single/dual locomotive consists, voltage/amperage limitations, snow and ice issues, gapping/arcing at gaps, and distibution requirements that third rail needs just won't work.

Conversely, advances made in OH catenary (such as constant-tension wires) and the little effect changing weather conditions have on said catenary clearly show OH AC current is the way to go. Dealing with sleet/freezing rain seems pretty straight forward.

My only reservation regarding mainline freight electrification (besides paying for it!) is clearance issues. How many overhead bridges will BNSF have to deal with to string up catenary over a 500+ mile Division ... high enough to clear today's (and tomorrow's) rail cars. Double Stacked containers consumed any free space that was originally in place, and now finding the head room needed to install new catenary may prove difficult at many locations.

On MBTA's Blue line, the tracks are third rail in the tunnel but overhead catenary outside. They just switch the power source at Airport Station. Maybe this could happen in the tunnels. But I don't know if the trains would have to stop like they do on the blue line.

SooLineRob wrote:My only reservation regarding mainline freight electrification (besides paying for it!) is clearance issues. How many overhead bridges will BNSF have to deal with to string up catenary over a 500+ mile Division ... high enough to clear today's (and tomorrow's) rail cars. Double Stacked containers consumed any free space that was originally in place, and now finding the head room needed to install new catenary may prove difficult at many locations.

Bridges are pretty much a non-issue. You just don't have catenary under the bridge, and make sure trains have no reason such as signals to completely stop right before bridges. It's not like the trains can't coast for the 50 or 100 feet needed to get under the bridge. Tunnels are obviously more problematic but that was already discussed a few posts back.

jtr1962 wrote: Bridges are pretty much a non-issue. You just don't have catenary under the bridge ... It's not like the trains can't coast for the 50 or 100 feet needed to get under the bridge.

That would be a problem for freight.

Can't have one unit dropping off line for 50 feet or more under no catenary bridges. A freight train climbing a hill at 15 MPH under full load and having a unit momentarily drop off line, then come back to full load will damage equipment (busted knuckles and yanked out drawbars).

And while we're on the subject of disrupting the power supply, what's the reason for "phase gaps"? Why are they needed, and how would you get a 3 unit electric loco consist through one?

On NJT, there are phase gaps and what it is doing is seperating the various power that comes from different substations. Amtrak has a few PGs (west of NY) but not like NJT which has them every few miles. Im not really sure why Amtrak doesn't, but I guess it has something to do with the high voltage transmission lines above providing the power....

but anyway, right before the Phase Gap, there is a magnet inbetween the rails. What that does is open the main circuit breaker and shuts down the loco. there is another magnet on the other side of the PG, and that magnet automatically closes the MCB and the loco livens back up. Operating rules state that the engineer must put the throttle/controller in 0-idle before hitting the PG, but the magnet SHOULD open it up so there shouldn't be any problem if the engineer "forgets" or "misses" his mark to throttle off. Once the loco clears the PG, it will liven back up and be ready to pull for power again. NJT puts markers in the catenary so you know how far away from the PG you are so you konw if you are clear of the PG.

I dunno how PGs would work in the mountains though - that would be a problem, unless a system was built that sectioned the catenary without using Phase Breaks....how did the Milwaukee Road do it? did they have PGs or no?

Also one of the worst problems of a third rail system is the need for absolute grade separation of Trains and Cars. As far as I know you can't have a grade crossing with third rail for obvious reasons, and the cost of having bridges and tunnels built in urban areas would be outrageous. However, in general its a good idea to get rid of grade crossings, but it is not very practical.

mannybrown wrote:Also one of the worst problems of a third rail system is the need for absolute grade separation of Trains and Cars. As far as I know you can't have a grade crossing with third rail for obvious reasons, and the cost of having bridges and tunnels built in urban areas would be outrageous. However, in general its a good idea to get rid of grade crossings, but it is not very practical.

This would come as a surprise to a lot of people on the MNRR. The trick is to make sure you have the gap shorter than the length between paddles. For a single locomotive that may be about 60' or so. For MUs, basically unlimited.

In any case, for something like the BNSF you'd want catenary because of the higher voltages you can carry which permits more power to be delivered to the locomotives and further distance between the substations.

This subject has been discussed in threads on a couple of other forums, but I believe it bears repeating, simply because so much of our nation's future depends upon a resolution of the petroleum issue.

The cost of both electrifying and rebuilding a core rail system is just too great, and the time needed to recover that investment too long, for the major freight roads to show much enthusiasm. While it is, in my view, misguided, the current viewpoint within the financial community is that any major capital expenditure has to generate a respectable return on investment within a few years. The firm that lags behind because it plowed more of its profits back into the property might get lip service, but the beneficiaies of the institutions which hold most rail stock depend on regular earnings, with the prospect of steady, if moderate growth.

But that having been said, occasionally a change or opportunity arises which is so fundamental that the picture is never the same again. The building of the Erie Canal in the 1820's, which made low-cost transportation of western grain to the Eastern seaboard practicable , and established New York, rather than Philadelphia as the nation's undisputed financial center, is still the cardinal example.

So what is needed, in this wrter's opinion, is a demonstration project, preferably with the joint participation, by some means, of all the major carriers, with an existant Federal agency as the co-ordinator. It would not "make money" for a long time, but it might serve as a labaratory, in the financial as well as the engineering sense, for the development of a peranemnt and practical response to the certainty of the coming end of the Petroleum Age.

When did GN take down the catenary through the cascade tunnel?