The Anonymous Widower

Parallel Thinking From Bombardier

Bombardier’s New Talent 3 Electrical Multiuple Unit

This is the data sheet on Bombardier’s web site announcing the new Talent 3 EMU, which has recently been announced at Innotrans 2016. It is the successor to the Talent 2.

These are some phrases picked from the sheet.

• Flexible and efficient when operating as commuter, regional, or intercity train.
• The use of proven and optimized components, recognized in operation in several European countries,
• For the first time a TALENT EMU train is compatible with the BOMBARDIER PRIMOVE Li-ion battery system.

Reading the data sheet the train seems very similar to the Aventra, except that in the case of the Talent 3, they mention batteries.

Primove

This Bombardier press release is entitled New PRIMOVE battery for rail presented at InnoTrans exhibition.

This is said.

The TALENT 3 EMU with PRIMOVE battery system will provide an environmentally friendly alternative to diesel trains operating on non-electrified lines. The results will significantly reduce noise pollution and emissions while making rail passenger transport cleaner and more attractive. Operators and passengers will also benefit from a battery technology that eliminates the need to change trains when bridging non-electrified track sections.

Other documents and web pafes emphasise how Primove is for all tranport applications. Thjs is the Primove web site.

In their data sheet, Bombardier said this.

For the first time TALENT EMU train is compatible with the BOMBARDIER PRIMOVE Li-ion battery system.

Reading about Primove, it would appear to be various standard modules.

Supposing you fit a train with the a standard Primove battery. This will give a defined range and performance to a p[articular train or tram with a specfic size battery.

As an electrical engineer and a control engineer in particular, I would suspect that the connections and the control system are the same for all batteries and that provided the battery can fit within the space allocated, all sizes will fit all trains.

So a suburban trundler would probably have less battery capacity, than a fast regional express, that stopped and started  quickly all the time.

If you want more range and performance, you just fit a bigger or more efficient battery.

I suspect too, that if an innovative company came up with another battery design, perhaps based on something like several miles of strong knicker elastic, so long as the plugs fit and it goes in the standard space, Bombardier would at least look at it.

So it looks like the fitting of batteries could be totally scale-able and future-proofed to accept new innovative battery technologies.

Aventras And Batteries

There has been no direct mention of batteries on Aventras

This is the best information so far!

This article in Global Rail News from 2011, which is entitled Bombardier’s AVENTRA – A new era in train performance, gives some details of the Aventra’s electrical systems. This is said.

AVENTRA can run on both 25kV AC and 750V DC power – the high-efficiency transformers being another area where a heavier component was chosen because, in the long term, it’s cheaper to run. Pairs of cars will run off a common power bus with a converter on one car powering both. The other car can be fitted with power storage devices such as super-capacitors or Lithium-Iron batteries if required.

Bombardier have confirmed the wiring for onboard power storage to me.

But you have to remember that the Talent 3 is for the more generous European loading gauge.

So could it be that Bombardier’s standard Primove system fits the Talent 3 and it’s too big for an Electrostar and an Aventra designed on standard lines?

But possibly, splitting the various heavy electrical components between two cars, as indicated in the Global Rail News article, gives more space for fitting a standard Primove battery and distributes the weight better.

Perhaps they can even fit a standard Primove battery into an Aventra, if it has the underfloor space to itself!

Obviously, using the same batteries in a Talent 3 and an Aventra must have cost and development advantages. Especially, if you can size the battery for the application.

Electrostars And Batteries

It has always puzzled me, why some Electrostars with an IPEMU-capability have not appeared. Could it be, that the amount of electrical equipment required is too much for a standard design of train running on a UK loading gauge?

Bombardier must have a target range for a train running on batteries. Perhaps, the Electrostar can’t get that range, but the Aventra with its twin power-car design can!

I wonder if the Electrostar with batteries and an IPEMU-capability will borrow from the Aventra design and have twin power-cars. That could be a much more major modification than that performed on a Class 379 train to create the BEMU denonstrator early last year.

But it could enable the use of a standard Primove battery and obtain the range needed for a viable Electrostar with an IPEMU-capability.

Crossrail And Energy

Crossrail is unlike any other railway, I’ve ever seen, with the exception of the RER under Paris.

• Crossrail will be deep and all stations will have platform edge doors.
• Crossrail will have twenty-four trains per hour.
• A fully loaded Crossrail train going at the design speed of 145 kph has an energy of 105.9 kWh.

All of these and other factors will lead to lots of energy and heat being introduced into the stations, trains and tunnels.

One way of minimising problems is to design the the tunnels, trains, stations and electrical systems together.

As an example of how systems interact consider this. A train pulling away from the station needs a lot of energy to get to line-speed. In a traditional design, there could be a lot of energy wasted as heat in the overhead wires getting the electricity to the train. This heat would then need more air-conditioning to cool the platforms and the train.

So in this and many ways, saving energy, not only saves costs, but leads to further energy saving elsewhere.

Because of enegy problems, railways like Crossrail have to be designed very carefully with respect to energy usage.

Class 345 Trains

A few facts about Class 345 trains, for Crossrail, from their fact sheet.

• They have been specifically designed for Crossrail.
• Regenerative braking is standard.
• High energy efficiency.
• Acceleration is up to 1 m/s² which is more than an |Electrostar.
• Maintenance will be by the manufacturer in purpose-built depots.

From this I conclude that it is in Bombardier’s interest to make the train efficient and easy to service.

I also founds this snippet on the Internet which gives the formation of the new Class 345 trains.

When operating as nine-car trains, the Class 345 trains will have two Driving Motor Standard Opens (DMSO), two Pantograph Motor Standard Opens (PMSO), four Motor Standard Opens (MSO) and one Trailer Standard Open (TSO). They will be formed as DMSO+PMSO+MSO+MSO+TSO+MSO+MSO+PMSO+DMSO.

As the article from Global Rail News  said earlier, the power system of an Aventra is based on two cars, with the heavy equipment split. So as each half-train seems to have be DMSO+PMSO+MSO+MSO in a Class 345 train, could the trains be using a three-car power system, with one car having the converter and batteries in the other two, all connected by a common bus.

It should also be noted that most Electrostar pantograph cars, don’t have motors, but the Class 345 trains do. Thus these trains must have prodigious acceleration with thirty-two diving axles in a nine-car formation.

There are also sound engineering and operational reasons for a battery to be fitted to the Class 345 trains.

• Handling regenerative braking in the tunnels. As a train stops in a tunnel station, the regenerative brakes will generate a lot of energy. It would be much more efficient if that energy was kept in batteries on the train, as the tunnel electrical systems would be much simpler. There could also be less heat generated in the tunnels, as the overehead cables would be carrying less power to and from the trains.
• Remote wake-up capability. Trains warm themselves up in the sidings to await the driver, as doiscussed in Do Bombardier Aventras Have Remote Wake-Up?
• The depots could be unwired. I’ve read that the main Old Oak Common depot is energy efficient. Batteries on the trains would move the trains in the depots.

But the biggest advantage is that if power fails in the tunnel, the train can get to the next station using the batteries. In a worst case scenario, where the train has to be evacuated, the batteries could keep the train systems like air-conditioning, doors and communication working, to help in an orderly evacuation via the walkway at the side of the track.

How do you open the doors on a boiling train with fifteen hundred panicking passengers and no power? An appropriately-sized battery solves the problem.

Incidentally, I have calculated that a Class 345 train, loaded with 1,500 80 Kg people travelling at 145 kph has an energy of 105.9 kWh. As s Nissan Leaf electric car can come with a 50 kWh battery, I don’t believe that capturing all that braking energy on the train is in the realm of fantasy.

One big problem with regenerative braking on a big train with these large amounts of energy, must be that as the train stops 105.9 kWh must be fed back through the pantograph to the overhead line. And then on starting-up again 105.9 kWh of energy must be fed to the train through the pantograph, to get the train back up to speed.

As this is happening at a crowded station like Bond Street, twenty-four times an hour in both directions, that could mean massive amounts of energy flows generating heat in the station tunnels.

Remember that London’s tube train are smaller, have similar frequencies and have regenerative braking working through a third-rail system.

Surely, if the train is fitted with a battery or batteries capable of handling these amounts of energy, it must be more efficient to store and recover the energy from the batteries.

Batteries also get rid of a vicious circle.

• Feeding the braking energy back to the overhead wire must generate heat.
• Feeding the start-up energy to the train from the overhead wire must generate heat.
• All this heat would need bigger air-conditioning, which requires more energy to be drawn by the train.

Batteries which eliminate a lot of the high heat-producing electricity currents in the tunnels at stations, are one way of breaking the circle and creating trains that use less energy.

After writing this, I think it is obvious now, why the trains will be tested in short formations between Liverpool Street and Shenfield.

The trains could be without any batteries during initial service testing, as all the reasons, I have given above for batteries don’t apply on this section of Crossrail.

• Regenerative braking can either work using two-way currents on the upgraded overhead wiring or not be used during testing.
• Remote wake-up is not needed, as the trains will be stored overnight at Ilford depot initially.
• Ilford depot is still wired, although the jury may be out on that, given the depot is being rebuilt.
• There will be no need to do rescues in tunnels.

Once the trains have proven they can cope with herds of Essex girls and boys, batteries could be fitted, to test their design and operation.

You have to admire Bombardier’s careful planning, if this is the way the company is going.

Could the following be the operating regime for Crossrail going from Shenfield to Reading?

• The train runs normally between Shenfield and Stratford, using regenerative braking through the overhead wires or batteries.
• The train arrives at Stratford with enough power in the batteries to come back out or get to a station, if there was a total power failure.
• The train uses regenerative braking with the batteries between Whitechapel and Paddington.
• In the tunnels, the power levels in the batteries, are kept high enough to allow train recovery.
• Once in the open, regenerative braking could use overhead wires or batteries as appropriate.
• The train even handles complete power failure and perhaps a problem with one pair of power cars, as the train is in effect two half-trains coupled together, with at least two of everything.

Has there ever been a train design like it?

Conclusions

It looks to me, that the Aventra and Talent 3 trains are just different-sized packages for the same sets of components like Flex-Eco bogies and Primove batteries.

One train is for the UK and the other for Europe and the rest of the world.

But have the two design teams been borrowing ideas and components from both sides of the Channel?

You bet they have!

Brexit? What Brexit?

The engineers of Crossrail, have not only dug one of the biggest holes in Europe for a long time, but with Bombardier’s engineers, they could also have designed a very efficient and different way of getting passengers through it.

I am very strongly of the opinion, that putting batteries on the trains to handle regenerative braking in tunnels, is almost essential, as it is simpler, possibly more affordable and cuts the amount of heat generated in the tunnels.

September 24, 2016 Posted by AnonW | Travel | Aventra, Bombardier, Class 345 Train, Crossrail, Electrostar, IPEMU, Remote Wake-up | 3 Comments