Battery powered Electrostar to go into passenger carrying trials

[cjmillsnun]

There is no heat generated between a wheel and a road or rail unless the two are slipping. Please go away and read up on the difference between force and work.

Au contraire.

There is always some heat generated even if it is negligible and forces are always involved in movement. One of which is friction. :roll:

As has been mentioned correctly by downsouth the term for the overall effect is rolling resistance.

 

[HSTEd]

50 miles and 2 hours to charge...

Know of anywhere with a 50 mile gap in the wire with an 45 minute to an hour-each way legs at each end?

 

[snowball]

Deleted

 

[Greybeard33]

50 miles and 2 hours to charge...

Know of anywhere with a 50 mile gap in the wire with an 45 minute to an hour-each way legs at each end?

A couple of examples that might be feasible:

• Hyde Jn to Rose Hill Marple and back is 14 miles round trip. A typical diagram spends 40 minutes under the wires Hyde Jn to Piccadilly and back, including recovery time.
• Hazel Grove to Buxton and back is 32 miles round trip. A typical diagram spends 68 minutes under the wires Hazel Grove to Piccadilly and back.

 

[Class 170101]

To date it has only run in service on one day. Most trips have been ECS move up and down the Harwich branch. Quite a few have been cancelled due to technical problems with the battery packs. Yesterday it went back to Ilford. It is due to have all the battery gear removed soon and put back into normal service. It was only a trial to see how viable the battery pack idea was. From what I have heard it will do around 50 miles on the batteries and then need 2 hours under the OHLE to charge them up again. Give it another few years and they will crack it. I can definitely see it being standard fitment on all EMU's and a solution to ending all diesel passenger trains sooner with strategic OHLE placement.

It goes back to Ilford for weekend maintenance. Whilst it may have batteries in addition to other 379s the other bits still need maintenance.
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50 miles and 2 hours to charge...

Know of anywhere with a 50 mile gap in the wire with an 45 minute to an hour-each way legs at each end?

Seems a bit tight if you ask me. thats one mile a minute without taking account of station stops and acceleration and braking for them. No recovery margin for delays or unscheduled, perhaps non station stops. Hence the test under OLE. If the train stops for too long just put the pan up and carry on normally.

 

[edwin_m]

Au contraire.

There is always some heat generated even if it is negligible and forces are always involved in movement. One of which is friction. :roll:

As has been mentioned correctly by downsouth the term for the overall effect is rolling resistance.

Friction is a force, but unless there is movement between the two surfaces involved (ie slipping or skidding), no work is done at this particular interface so no heat is generated. There may be a small amount of micro-slipping, but if this is negligible they by definition is can be ignored compared to other heat sources nearby. If the friction between wheel and road/rail generated heat, then the wheels of vehicles stopped on slopes would also get hot, as the same friction force is preventing them rolling away.

Heat is generated in the rubber of a tyre because work is done flexing the rubber as the wheel rotates. The rubber returns to its original shape but the amount of energy this recovers is nowhere near 100% of the energy put in. If you don't believe this then try dropping a tyre and see how much lower the bounce is than the height it was dropped from. The rest of the energy goes into heat in the tyres. You can call this friction between the molecules of rubber if you like. And incidentally it's why you can reduce your fuel consumption on the road by putting more air in the tyres - the higher pressure reduces the amount of flexing.

Steel is much less compressible in the first place, and the proportion of energy lost through flexing is very much lower. Think of those desk toys where steel balls swing on strings and bounce off each other - they can carry on for quite a long time before their energy is dissipated. If you made one of those out of tyre rubber it would be much less successful!

This is the main reason for the much higher rolling resistance of road vehicles compared with trains.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_resistance

 

[jopsuk]

that rubber tyres heat up is hardly controversial- after all, racing cars rely on it for grip...

 

[dmncf]

Only runs between the peaks.

To date it has only run in service on one day. Most trips have been ECS move up and down the Harwich branch. Quite a few have been cancelled due to technical problems with the battery packs. Yesterday it went back to Ilford. It is due to have all the battery gear removed soon and put back into normal service. It was only a trial to see how viable the battery pack idea was. From what I have heard it will do around 50 miles on the batteries and then need 2 hours under the OHLE to charge them up again. Give it another few years and they will crack it. I can definitely see it being standard fitment on all EMU's and a solution to ending all diesel passenger trains sooner with strategic OHLE placement.

Thanks for your replies. I don't want to incur the cost of travelling from London to Harwich if the train is often not on its scheduled off-peak weekday services. I think I'll follow this thread to find out how consistently it appears during the next few weeks, and probably aim to see it towards the end of the trial (which ends on Friday 13 February 2015).

 

[SpacePhoenix]

If they can perfect the tech, could it be used potentially on Merseyrail for the tunnel loop?

 

[jopsuk]

why though? Even if the rest of Merseyrail went OHL it would probably be cheaper to use dual-voltage trains and retain 3rd rail in the loop.

 

[Murph]

If they can perfect the tech, could it be used potentially on Merseyrail for the tunnel loop?

why though? Even if the rest of Merseyrail went OHL it would probably be cheaper to use dual-voltage trains and retain 3rd rail in the loop.

I agree with jopsuk, it seems to me that there's a lot of thinking here which seems to be closer to having a solution and trying to create problems for it, rather than having problems and looking for a solution. I think there are situations where a EMU with battery could be useful, but that it's the wrong approach to look at it as a way to avoid electrification where there's already a good case for electrification. If there's a significant problem with keeping the loop electrified, maybe there is a use here, but without that the correct thing is to keep the electrification.

 

[dgl]

surely a good use for this is if SWT ever operated some through services to Swanage once the work is done.

 

[aylesbury]

Lets hope this project is a success as it will save a great deal of money in putting up wires and attend back up plus give an extremely quiet ride for passengers,

 

[90sWereBetter]

The 379 was in the Manningtree bay platform at about 11:03 this morning. I assume it was supposed to form the 11:00 to Harwich Town, but it appeared to be in some strife, with doors open and AGA staff around it, from what I could see from the 360 I was on.

Assuming all is well with the unit next Wednesday, I intend to get a journey upon it.

 

[SpacePhoenix]

Lets hope this project is a success as it will save a great deal of money in putting up wires and attend back up plus give an extremely quiet ride for passengers,

Trouble is (as has been point out by someone else) is that by the time that the overhead section is put in at the other end of the line and the feed to it, that's a very sizeable chunk of the cost of converting a line to overhead so they mas as well put the money towards installing overhead all the way

 

[306024]

The 379 was in the Manningtree bay platform at about 11:03 this morning. I assume it was supposed to form the 11:00 to Harwich Town, but it appeared to be in some strife, with doors open and AGA staff around it, from what I could see from the 360 I was on.

Assuming all is well with the unit next Wednesday, I intend to get a journey upon it.

It worked the 11.00 to Harwich Town with about a 10 late start, but due the batteries misbehaving had to put the pan up at Mistley. A couple of photographers at Mistley had a good morning, 6 trains within half an hour, including the North Walsham tanks and a class 90 light engine in Mistley loop.

 

[edwin_m]

Ian Walmsley is pretty cynical about this train in February's Modern Railways.

 

[306024]

Has anyone here travelled on the 379 IPEMU yet?

I'm keen to visit the Harwich Town branch to see it, but I would like to know if it really does work a full timetable every weekday on the Harwich Town branch as the Network Rail press release suggests.

Unless something goes wrong it does the 11.00 / 12.00 / 13.00 and 14.00 Manningtree to Harwich Town and return trips. Look in RTT to see the days it runs, the clue is there is an ECS from Harwich International to form the 11.00 MNG - HWC, and an ECS from Manningtree to Harwich International after working the 10.28 from HWC to swap the units over. (The 11.00 departure is retimed to 11.03 to allow time for the swap).

Apart from the novelty of a 379 on the Harwich branch, there is little to get excited about though. The train is deadly quiet, and the line speed is max 60mph. At the moment it runs pan down on the down working from Manningtree, and pan up on the up working from Harwich Town. Parkeston Yard however is busier than usual as the High Output Ballast Cleaner train is based there at the moment.

 

[ringi]

I think the best case for these is when there is on-going electrification, but new trains are needed to cover short distances on lines that have not YET been upgraded. Saves buying trains that would need replacing as soon as the electrification is done.

 

[WatcherZero]

To give an idea of the technological hurdles still to go, a S70 tram converted to battery power had just set a world distance record for one charge with pantograph down. 15 miles covered in 50 minutes, to increase endurance they limited its speed to 25mph for the record attempt.


http://www.globalrailnews.com/blog/2014/11/10/san-diego-tram-sets-guinness-world-record/

 

[Greybeard33]

To give an idea of the technological hurdles still to go, a S70 tram converted to battery power had just set a world distance record for one charge with pantograph down. 15 miles covered in 50 minutes, to increase endurance they limited its speed to 25mph for the record attempt.


http://www.globalrailnews.com/blog/2014/11/10/san-diego-tram-sets-guinness-world-record/

That was in July 2014 - hardly breaking news!

 

[WatcherZero]

Record achievement wasn't announced till November.

Siemens Press release:

Siemens rail business helps set Guinness World Record in San Diego
Wednesday, November 5, 2014 2:08 pm EST

 

[ringi]

To give an idea of the technological hurdles still to go, a S70 tram converted to battery power had just set a world distance record for one charge with pantograph down. 15 miles covered in 50 minutes, to increase endurance they limited its speed to 25mph for the record attempt.


http://www.globalrailnews.com/blog/2014/11/10/san-diego-tram-sets-guinness-world-record/

Even a 2 mile range, could radically reduce the cost of converting some lines.

 

[TheKnightWho]

Even a 2 mile range, could radically reduce the cost of converting some lines.

It could, but what would work for passenger lines would not necessarily also work for freight. Plus intercompatibility between stock types (i.e. including those that don't have batteries) is always desirable.

I can't see any more than the tiniest gaps in electrification such as swing bridges being viable. Even these are now more viable with conductor rail, which I think is going to be used for the Selby swing bridge for example?

 

[HSTEd]

I would be very surprised if it wasn't - considering the swing bridge at Norwich uses conductor rail.