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Keep in mind that those trains don't use diesel engines to drive a generator to power electric motors because it is efficient. They do that because it is the only way to move them. If the diesel engine is turning 500 rpm's and you wanted to direct drive that to the train wheels it would kill the engine. You can't accelerate the train fast enough to not kill the engine, and there isn't a clutch out there that wouldn't burn up trying to get the train to move.
Hmm... About 30 years ago I was in canoe with a buddy paddling along some scenic river near Banff Alberta. RR tracks ran along one side of the river and a freight train stopped for some reason or another. I saw the engineer looking out from his window towards the back of his train. So I yelled out "How many miles to the gallon?" to which replied "3 gallons to the mile!"
A tractor-trailer rig might burn 6 miles per gallon, and have a capacity of 8000 lb, or 4 tons.
The maximum GVW for a semi truck and trailer is 80,000 lbs. or 40 tons without special permit. The average payload seems to be around 45,000 lbs. or 22 - 23 tons. Steve
Letitroll98, Nicely put, however I disagree with the logistical problems. We built those freeways durring a ressesion it helped us out. We built a space program that took us to the moon seemingly out of competition only. Now as we lag behind the rest of the developed world in alternative energy production I beleive that it is time for some more, healty competition. It is estimated that a Solar thermal producing system capable of powering two thirds of the U.S.A. would cost in the ball park of 400 billion Thats halve of the financial bailout. Wich do you believe would have a more benificial and stimulus effect on this country? As for the petroleum I feel that it is only logistical because it is the system we use currently. It is rudementery, sloppy, archean, massively inefficiant (think of the process in witch it is recoverd from oil to gasoline) and detremental to the planet. The technologie in wich we use these fuels (internal combustion engines) was invented over 100 years ago and remains largly unchanged. I feel that in todays world of inventions the internal combustion motor would be obsolete if Ideas were alowed to flourish and meet fruition before beeing purchased and squashed.
I still can't believe they added an on board engine to turn a generator, that makes electricity, that is then stored in batteries, that then is used to power an electric motor to move the car... talk about inefficiency. That is dumber than dumb. That's malignant dumb.
Keep in mind that those trains don't use diesel engines to drive a generator to power electric motors because it is efficient. They do that because it is the only way to move them.
Danny, your wrong, they do that because IT IS the most effcient way to move them and their associated carloads.
Danny, you are completely wrong with respect to the rail industry, buy your rebuttal given it's obvious you know little about an industry that I have been apart of for longer than you've been on this planet.do you even now the difference between AC and DC propulsion, how it works, etc ??
Again you're missing the logistics. How do you get the product from the railhead to the market? Trucks. It's a no brainer that shipping bulk quantities by rail is extremely efficient. It's the tracks that don't go enough places that's the problem. In the 50's when fuel was cheap we decided to build an interstate highway system in order to truck everything everywhere. We ignored the rail infrastructure because we deemed it obsolete. The brave new world would be supplied by highways and trucks. In hindsight perhaps not the best solution. By far the largest number of new railcars are intermodal, meaning the car can be pulled from the train and hooked up directly to a semi truck. Most of the standard railcars in the US are 40 or 50 years old. It doesn't matter how efficient railroads are, we've missed the boat there, it's too late.
The problem with doomsday predictions about oil is that it ignores the fact that supply and demand don't just suddenly drop off the face of a cliff. There's a lot of oil out there that's too expensive to profitably extract currently because of all the cheap supply. As the cheap stuff runs out, costs will ramp up to match the cost of getting to and using the more expensive stuff. This will occur over time. And as price for oil ramps up, the alternatives to oil will finally have a "fighting chance". They will be embrace on a large scale only as and when it makes sense, economically.And, it might end up being that most or all of the alternatives are going to be more expensive over the long term than oil is currently, but that doesn't mean we "run out", energy will still be abundant, just not as cheap.
I'm not sure who you are referring to in this post, but if it is me, you're wrong. I haven't "missed the logistics" because I wasn't aiming at the logistics. Prompted by previous poster's casual comment (humorously intended, I think) about mpg of a railroad train, and my own curiosity, I dug up some numbers that I thought some might be interested in. My post said nothing beyond those numbers, nothing more was implied, and nothing more was intended.
