Battery Wagons To Lower Mining Railway Emissions
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Railway Gazette.
These two paragraphs introduce the concept of the wagons.
Intramotev is to supply three ReVolt battery wagons to enable regenerative braking on a industrial railway.
The battery and automation technology company said this would be the first deployment of self-propelled battery-electric wagons in a traditional freight train, with regenerative braking and battery technology used to reduce locomotive diesel consumption and thus costs and emissions.
It may seem an unusual concept, but it’s one of those ideas, where if the maths and the costs stack up, it will work.
Intramotev’s web site gives more details on their Product & Technology page, where this is said.
Combining the low energy usage of steel wheels on steel rails with the efficiency of electric drivetrains to create the most energy-efficiency overland transport.
This article on electrek is entitled A Company Is Developing Self-Propelled, Battery-Electric Railcars You Can Control With Your Phone has two paragraphs, which describe their two current products.
In a few short years, the company has been able to develop unique freight solutions using software and battery-electric propulsion technology. This includes the TugVolt battery electric railcar (seen above and below), which can decouple from the consist (the group of railcars as a whole) and operate independently for first and last mile legs.
The company has also developed a ReVolt railcar that can be positioned to stay within the train’s consist and capture energy using regenerative braking to reduce diesel consumption from the line’s locomotive.
As a Control Engineer, I feel strongly, that this technology would work very well in the UK.
The Anonymous Widower 
Well it would work very well in the UK if you had automatic couplers on British freight trains but we don’t, we still have screw couplers.
Comment by fammorris | June 14, 2023 |
At one time gravity used to do what these Self-Propelled, Battery-Electric Railcars are intended to do, but then they did away with Hump Yards for the new US philosophy of Precision Scheduled Railroad which was intended to enhance efficiency through the need to marshall freight trains with the attendant infrastructure costs and waiting time. Now someone is proposing Self-Propelled, Battery-Electric Railcars which in terms of the North American railroad are not going to come cheap. I wait to see how this topic pans out.
Comment by fammorris | June 14, 2023 |
One of the freight companies recently bought a number of new wagons for containers. One article, I saw said they would be kept in fixed formations.
I also feel that a big diesel and three ReVolts could have a similar performance to a Class 93 locomotive.
Recently, I’ve noted that diesel Class 66s have been hauling container trains out of Felixstowe and they’ve switched at Ipswich for an electric Class 90, which has taken the train all the way to places like Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. I suspect some ReVolts might help here. Could they even haul a half-empty train into Felixstowe?
Comment by AnonW | June 14, 2023 |
I can’t find enough information to agree or disagree about the ReVolt as you imagine it, but it strikes me that rather like the Wabtec battery-electric locos being supplied to Australian mining companies ReVolt would have to depend on a similar topography where you got one half of the route going downhill to enable you to recover sufficient energy to make it worthwhile. Clearly no significant part of the British mainline’s Railway offers that.
One thing that made me laugh was the fact that Intramotev are supplying ReVolt to Iron Senergy, a company whose whole being is digging up coal from a Pennsylvania mine.
Comment by fammorris | June 14, 2023
I’ve search the maps and can’t find the railway!
As to your last point, I have been searching Google for Pittsburgh Carbon Capture. As the city is one of the major emitters, it looks like there’s a lot of research going on there.
Comment by AnonW | June 14, 2023 |