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Electric Trains minus the Infrastructure

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Mutant Lemming

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With the increased range and viability of battery cars and buses (and hybrids) will a battery operated passenger train service ever become feasible ? What infrastructure changes (if any) would be necessary to accomodate battery trains ?

....and would scaling up a clockwork train to full size be possible ?

Developing efficieint versions of either should provide a greener alternative without the vast infrastructure costs of overhead wires or third rail - along with substations, bridge re-aligments etc.
 
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thenorthern

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Don't think a battery train would work after a while the amount of charge it can hold decreases and also it would take a while to charge.
 

Mutant Lemming

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Don't think a battery train would work after a while the amount of charge it can hold decreases and also it would take a while to charge.

It was the same for buses although we are seeing advances (albeit Hybrids) which make them more viable.
 

Murph

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Not likely to be viable in the foreseeable future, for general purpose usage. It would just be far too heavy to have sufficient batteries for a full day's running. Also, unless the environmentalists would allow us to build a load of new nuclear power stations, it's all still fossil fuel powered anyway. The national grid actually uses a large number of locomotive-sized diesel generators to cover peak demand.

What might be feasible is to have small capacitor banks charged by regenerative braking, which could then be used to give some traction boost later.
 

Taunton

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Operated quite OK for several years 1958-62 from Aberdeen up to Ballater, about 45 miles each way. Several round trips daily, a dmu also ran to the same journey times, the two crossing en route. It's quite an uphill climb from Aberdeen up to Ballater in The Highlands. The current in Northern Scotland was entirely hydro-electrically generated. Has battery technology not advanced greatly since then?

http://web.archive.org/web/20101008041932/http://railcar.co.uk/hisOthers/BMUintro.htm

They were extensively used in West Germany in 1950s-80s, they got a full life out of them all

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB_Class_ETA_150
 
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Clip

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It may be a little OT on this but didnt a Liverpool tramway have electric studs in teh ground to recharge/power as they went over them?

granted that was a failed attempt but in the future could it be possible?
 

route:oxford

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Operated quite OK for several years 1958-62 from Aberdeen up to Ballater, about 45 miles each way. Several round trips daily, a dmu also ran to the same journey times, the two crossing en route. It's quite an uphill climb from Aberdeen up to Ballater in The Highlands. The current in Northern Scotland was entirely hydro-electrically generated. Has battery technology not advanced greatly since then?

One or two changes...

Probably more importantly would be the regenerative braking - unsure if they had that in the olden days.

But these days, there would be a reasonable recovery on the way back down from Ballater.
 

edwin_m

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It may be a little OT on this but didnt a Liverpool tramway have electric studs in teh ground to recharge/power as they went over them?

granted that was a failed attempt but in the future could it be possible?

Don't know about Liverpool but several tramways had a stud contact system. A magnet under the tram would operate some kind of switch under each stud to energise it, and it would drop back after the tram had gone (or sometimes not, much to the discomfort of the local horses). A skid under the tram was longer than the maximum stud spacing so would always be touching at least one live stud, so this wasn't actually an energy storage system. Crich has a couple of examples, needless to say non-operational.

There are two modern systems that do roughly the same thing in more advanced ways, produced by Alstom and Ansaldo, but there's no real reason to use them on a railway as the track is segregated. There was also the system used in central London with third and fourth rails in an underground conduit and a pickup connected to each tram by an arm going down through a slot in the road. Again none of these involves energy storage, though a couple of modern tramways have on-board batteries used for short sections where overhead line is considered too obtrusive.
 

Ash Bridge

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One or two changes...

Probably more importantly would be the regenerative braking - unsure if they had that in the olden days.

But these days, there would be a reasonable recovery on the way back down from Ballater.

Were not the Class 76 1500v DC Locomotives built in the early 1950s fitted with regenerative brakes?
 

Clip

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Don't know about Liverpool but several tramways had a stud contact system. A magnet under the tram would operate some kind of switch under each stud to energise it, and it would drop back after the tram had gone (or sometimes not, much to the discomfort of the local horses). A skid under the tram was longer than the maximum stud spacing so would always be touching at least one live stud, so this wasn't actually an energy storage system. Crich has a couple of examples, needless to say non-operational.

There are two modern systems that do roughly the same thing in more advanced ways, produced by Alstom and Ansaldo, but there's no real reason to use them on a railway as the track is segregated. There was also the system used in central London with third and fourth rails in an underground conduit and a pickup connected to each tram by an arm going down through a slot in the road. Again none of these involves energy storage, though a couple of modern tramways have on-board batteries used for short sections where overhead line is considered too obtrusive.


Interesting stuff. Thanks
 

DXMachina

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Class 419 motor luggage vans have run (On Ashford parcels services) during diversions via the Redhill to Tonbridge using their reserve batteries, before that 20+ mile route was electrified

link
 

47802

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Isn't there a 379 which has been fitted with batteries to become a guinea pig for modern batteries?

Indeed and presumably Network Rail are not doing this for entertainment value, aren't they looking for a range of about 40 miles.

So maybe you could have a battery electric for instance that did Cardiff to Maesteg without the need to electrify the Maesteg branch, just put a short section at the end of the line in case the juice gets low.:lol:
 
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theageofthetra

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Wolverhampton had a stud contact tram system. Battery trains with very high capacity induction charging at each station stop could work. Rolls Royce had a prototype Phantom a few years ago that could fully recharge over a specially fitted induction pad in just over an hour.
 

The Ham

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Indeed and presumably Network Rail are not doing this for entertainment value, aren't they looking for a range of about 40 miles.

So maybe you could have a battery electric for instance that did Cardiff to Maesteg without the need to electrify the Maesteg branch, just put a short section at the end of the line in case the juice gets low.:lol:

Most battery cars can get to 80% charged in an hour, with old batteries being rated as being able to charge to 80%. That means routes of 25 miles in length would be the ideal. Either round trip or total length of gap in a route which had at least an hour on the wires before going over the gap again.
 

contrex

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Were not the Class 76 1500v DC Locomotives built in the early 1950s fitted with regenerative brakes?

Yes, and if the line was receptive (if, at the time, there was another loco drawing power in the same electrical section) then regenerated energy could be used by that other loco. If there was none, the energy was dissipated in resistor banks at the substations. This sort of scheme was quite common on DC railways, especially if there was a lot of freight traffic. I seem to remember a line in India where heavily loaded trains (iron ore?) running downhill limited their speed using regeneration which transferred power to help out the empty ones going back up, and saved (a lot!) on brake shoes. I have a feeling that with the technology of the time this sort of thing was only worth adding to an electrification scheme when there were significant inclines, plenty of traffic, and heavy trains, and there could be problems if conditions weren't exactly right - there could be fireworks on locos and at substations.
 
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swt_passenger

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Isn't there a 379 which has been fitted with batteries to become a guinea pig for modern batteries?

Yes there is, NR reported about it back in August:

We've successfully completed the retrofitting of our first battery-powered train with six battery rafts and have now embarked upon a programme of trials at a test track in Derby using an Abellio Greater Anglia Class 379 unit which normally operates using electricity drawn from overhead power lines. The tests will culminate with a series of high-speed tests at the Rail Innovation and Development Centre in Nottinghamshire later this year.

The battery rafts fitted to the Class 379 unit contain a battery box, isolation switch, power distribution control panel, battery charging inverter, batteries and battery monitoring system, all mounted within a bespoke, purpose-built rig. Their creation follows the successful testing of several types of battery technologies, including lithium iron magnesium and hot sodium nickel salt.

http://www.networkrail.co.uk/news/2014/aug/On-track-trials-of-prototype-battery-powered-train-begin/

and so there was a thread about it in the rolling stock forum at the time:

http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=104589

I think it may have been discussed in a more recent rollings stock thread as well but I can't find it at the moment.
 

NSEFAN

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contrex said:
Yes, and if the line was receptive (if, at the time, there was another loco drawing power in the same electrical section) then regenerated energy could be used by that other loco. If there was none, the energy was dissipated in resistor banks at the substations. This sort of scheme was quite common on DC railways, especially if there was a lot of freight traffic. I seem to remember a line in India where heavily loaded trains (iron ore?) running downhill transferred power to help out the empty ones going back up. I have a feeling that with the technology of the time this sort of thing was only worth adding to an electrification scheme when there were significant inclines, plenty of traffic, and heavy trains, and there could be problems if conditions weren't exactly right - there could be fireworks on locos and at substations.
London Underground O and P stock from the late 1930s had a similar method of regenerative braking.
 

contrex

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London Underground O and P stock from the late 1930s had a similar method of regenerative braking.

The O and P stocks were fitted with Metadyne control equipment which allowed for regeneration, but it was not a success. It was considered that four accelerating trains would be needed at any given time for any braking one, and if these were not present there was nowhere for the regenerated energy to go. Also the equipment proved unreliable and expensive to maintain. Over time all the Metadyne equipment was replaced with conventional control gear and the stock redesignated CO and CP.
 

Mutant Lemming

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No mention of any clockwork options. I know it probably sounds ludicrous but could it actually work ? With resources becoming limited apart from the increasing number of people it would be a good way to employ the idle time of many as winders to wind up the mainsprings. It would solve the unemployment problem and help the fitness of the nation if the mainspring winders were designed on the lines of exercise machines. Three problems solved in one - reduce unemployment, improve the nation's health and provide a cheap, green transport solution.
 

najaB

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No mention of any clockwork options. I know it probably sounds ludicrous but could it actually work ? With resources becoming limited apart from the increasing number of people it would be a good way to employ the idle time of many as winders to wind up the mainsprings. It would solve the unemployment problem and help the fitness of the nation if the mainspring winders were designed on the lines of exercise machines. Three problems solved in one - reduce unemployment, improve the nation's health and provide a cheap, green transport solution.
Wouldn't it be more effective to hook the exercise machines up to generators and use the electricity to supplement the grid supply? That way we could use unemployed northerners, but transmit the power down South where it's needed. :|
 

contrex

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That way we could use unemployed northerners, but transmit the power down South where it's needed. :|

There are an awful lot of southern chavs, Cockneys and people from Essex, etc, who could be put to to work doing this, at last they could be useful in some way and it might do them good and make them a bit less pasty looking. Also it might shut them up for a while, which would be good.
 
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eMeS

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It was the same for buses although we are seeing advances (albeit Hybrids) which make them more viable.

Milton Keynes now has one route operated by electric single decker buses. They're not hybrids as far as I know.

The buses are recharged at each end of the route using a contact-less system. How the recharging works I've no idea, but at each end there's a large area, 1.5 x 2.5m (??), set in the road over which the bus sits. A "collector" is lowered from the bus to within a few cms of the clearly marked area of road, and recharging takes several minutes. As someone with a degree in electrical engineering (many years ago), I've no idea how it works or what the efficiencies are!

What is very obvious is that these new buses are struggling to cope with the many humps along the rote, and though introduced only 6 months ago, the buses are now very prone to serious rattles.

Here's the PR puff:
http://www.arup.com/news/2014_01_ja...st_demanding_electric_bus_route_launched.aspx

No mention of bumps in the road or rattles.
 

snowball

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As someone with a degree in electrical engineering (many years ago), I've no idea how it works or what the efficiencies are!
My degree was in maths but surely it must be induction, like a transformer but without a single core. The primary is in the ground and the secondary is in the bus's probe.
 

starrymarkb

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They work through induction. An AC current in the charge plate induces a current in the collector under the bus. Much like how Electric Toothbrush chargers work.

I understand the scheme hasn't been a big success.
 

eMeS

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My degree was in maths but surely it must be induction, like a transformer but without a single core. The primary is in the ground and the secondary is in the bus's probe.

Yes, but I remember our lecturers stressing how important it was to keep the air gaps down - something which is quite impossible in the electric bus situation. On the link I provided there's a graphic, and this indicates a large gap.
 

starrymarkb

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Yes, but I remember our lecturers stressing how important it was to keep the air gaps down - something which is quite impossible in the electric bus situation. On the link I provided there's a graphic, and this indicates a large gap.

The collection plate lowers to a couple of cm over the plate and retracts before the way the bus pulls away. I'm guessing there are a lot of coils in the plates to make up for the gap.

I understand the system has been 'problematic' so your lecturer may have been right ;)
 
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eMeS

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The collection plate lowers to a couple of cm over the plate and retracts before the way the bus pulls away. I'm guessing there are a lot of coils in the plates to make up for the gap.

I understand the system has been 'problematic' so your lecturer may have been right ;)

Yes, I remember them stressing that air gaps in transformers should be really small (~1/1000 inch if possible), and that's why we see bands around the laminations to pull them together, and get the lowest air-gap possible.

However, what we're seeing is a demonstrator, so hopefully Mark II will be better.
 

DXMachina

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I'd imagine in a production battery bus fleet, the best backup would be a 100-hp motorbike engine set to rev like crazy, ganged to as large an alternator as can be fitted and mounted somewhere under the floor. After generative and transmission losses it'd probably only get 50-hp at the wheels but thats enough to move a bus when allied to storage batteries for load smoothing.
 

Shimbleshanks

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No mention of any clockwork options. I know it probably sounds ludicrous but could it actually work ? With resources becoming limited apart from the increasing number of people it would be a good way to employ the idle time of many as winders to wind up the mainsprings. It would solve the unemployment problem and help the fitness of the nation if the mainspring winders were designed on the lines of exercise machines. Three problems solved in one - reduce unemployment, improve the nation's health and provide a cheap, green transport solution.

Frustratingly, I can't find anything on Google about it, but I'm sure I've read in a book somewhere that there WERE clockwork trams. Not sure how successful they were.

Also, according to the book, 'London Underground's Strangest Tales: Extraordinary But True Stories', By Iain Spragg, clockwork underground trains were seriously proposed, though never actually built.
 
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