The Anonymous Widower

It Gets Stranger On The Gospel Oak To Barking Line

I’ve just looked at the on-line National Rail  timetable for the next few days in trains per hour (tph)

  • Friday, Mar 22nd – Two tph
  • Saturday, Mar 23rd – Four tph
  • Sunday, Mar 24th – Four tph
  • Monday, Mar 25th – Twotph
  • Tuesday Mar 26th – Two tph

We shall see what happens.

 

March 21, 2019 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , | Leave a comment

Freight Diesel Traction Realities

The title of this post is the same as that of a comprehensive article by Roger Ford in an article in the April 2019 Edition of Modern Railways.

In the article Roger talks about the problems of decarbonising the freight sector on the UK’s railways.

Future Traction

This section in the article begins with this paragraph

Since the laws of physics and chemistry rule out pure battery or hydrogen fuel cell 3 MegaWatt (4,000 hp) freight locomotives from around 2035 we are going to need to start replacing the diesel locomotives for routes yet to be electrified.

The following actions are suggested.

  • More electrification, through a rolling program.
  • Research into and production of low-CO2 locomotives.
  • 4000 hp locomotives to run faster, longer and heavier freight trains.

These actions will apply to many countries in Europe and the wider world.

Hybrid

This section in the article begins with these two paragraphs.

Extension of electrification will reduce the length of the last miles beyond the end of the wires, making increased use of electric traction viable. Here the challenge will be to provide sufficient diesel traction power and range.  Stadler’s Class 93 ‘tri-mode’ locotive provides an interesting preview.

It builds on the Class 88, which adds a 700kW diesel engine to a 4MW Bo-Bo electric locomotive.

The Class 93 locomotive has a larger 900 kW diesel engine and a lithium titanate oxide battery.

I estimated the battery size at 126 kWH in Stadler’s New Tri-Mode Class 93 Locomotive.

Roger reckons that the battery gives 6-7 ,minutes of power to boost output to 1,740 hp or 1300 kW.

  • The boost from the battery would appear to be 400 kW
  • For 6.5 minutes this would need 43.3 kWH

Either Roger’s 6-7 minutes or my deduced battery size of 126 kWH is wrong. So I will assume both figures are wrong.

Suppose though, you wanted to boost the power of a Class 93 locomotive to the 2,500 kW of a Class 66 locomotive for an hour, which would get a freight train into or out of the Port of Felixstowe.

  • 1600 kW will be needed to boost the diesel engine.
  • 1600 kWH will need to be stored in the battery.
  • I will assume 75 Wh/Kg for the LTO batteries.
  • I have made no allowance for the use of regenerative braking.

This gives a weight of 21.3 tonnes for the batteries.

Roger says this in the article.

If you need to fit diesel engines and batteries into an electric locomotive for freight the a Co-Co configuration gives you another 20 tonnes on a 17.5 tonne axle load.

This leads me to believe that a hybrid locomotive with the power of a Class 66 locomotive and a range of one hour is possible.

 

 

 

March 21, 2019 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Have Bombardier And Transport for London Pressed The Publicity Button On The Gospel Oak To Barking Line?

This morning, both the National Rail and Transport for London Journey Planners are still showing a Saturday March the 23rd service of four trains per hour (tph) on the Gospel Oak to Barking Line.

To run a four tph service will need six trains, which is a bit difficult with only three four-car Class 378 trains.

There are only three possibilities.

  1. Both timetables are wrong. But they have been like that all week and surely a mistake would have been rectified.
  2. They have shortened three more Class 378 trains and these will be joining the party. But it is known that other lines are under pressure because of the smaller fleet, so this is unlikely.
  3. Three Class 710 trains will come to the aid of the party.

Possibility three is the only practical one.

There is also another event on Saturday. A steam train will be passing along the route, with these tiomings.

  • Barking – 8:42
  • Leyton Midland Road – 8:51
  • South |Tottenham – 9:02
  • Upper Holloway – 9:11
  • Gospel Oak – 9:15

The steam train will also be coming back later in the day.

Is it a coincidence that it appears the full four tph electric service on the Gospel Oak to Barking Line starts on the day that a steam train uses the route?

Think of all those publicity pictures!

Or has it been organised to see if the steam trains interfere with the sophisticated computing on the Class 710 trains?

 

March 21, 2019 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , | Leave a comment