Western Railroad Discussion > New rail / highway / container interface idea, DOA at t

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/05/algae-powered-big-rig-that-transforms-into-a-locomotive.php

So let's see, two railroad employees handle 200 containers arount 250 miles per day while this new unit might find a single operator moving one container around 500 or 600 miles in a day. The railroads like single trains around 6000' or longer and not 200 individual loads of 40'. I cannot see this concept making any inroads with the railroads.

<<<<<<<concept>>>>>>>

Concept is just that. Ideas and engineering that are not subject to the harsh reality of business. Concept thinking is vital to the success of any industry because there are far too many nay sayers...."we've always done it this way".

Kind of reminds me of the last days of the caboose.

...or the inception of 2 person crews.....or the notion of a remote controlled locomotive.....or eventually 1 person crews. The future is hard to discern when always looking backward.

mustraline Wrote:
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> ...or the inception of 2 person crews.....or the
> notion of a remote controlled locomotive.....or
> eventually 1 person crews. The future is hard to
> discern when always looking backward.

There were lots of people who could tell you that the internal combustion engine would never replace the horse, that airplanes would never work, and nobody would go up in one, that electricity was dangerous, and on and on.

Machiavelli pointed out that resistance to change is always greatest among those who are heavily invested in the ways things are done now. The more things change, the more they stay the same...

Except in the examples mentioned the economics were skewed towards the railroads saving money. The highway to railroad changling vehicle will be vastly more expensive to the railroads in terms of crew costs per load and operational costs of dispatching the vehicle over the tracks. You won't see any Class 1 clamoring to adopt this concept to mainline operations.

The website name alone was enough for me. Ideas are like a certain part of our anatomy, everyone has one and sometime they stink.

Roger

Might not be such a bad idea, after all we already had those road railer trains where the truck converted into a car in a train. Like fore example the swift road railers. With this concept if the trucks had couplers, so that they could be strung together to form a train, then when a string of high-railers got to a siding, there would not be the extra cost to transfer the the containers from the double stack articulated container cars, onto trucks for the last mile of the trip, or to back the tractor in to hook it up to the trailers.

Seems like an added capital cost, to be hauling around these Algae Engines, to where they will be needed next, leading to a lot of down time for the actual engines. And a little added weight, hauling both the cab and the trailer on each trip, but perhaps the labor cost savings would be an advantage. I wonder if these things are designed so that they are Hump-able, probably never got around to that in this first stage of development, but that would add a great deal to their advantages. Maybe they could even switch themselves, if each of them were given a little remote control receiver, with out the need for a switching locomotive?

but perhaps the labor cost savings would be an advantage.

That is the point, the labor costs will massively increase both by crew size per load and operational costs for individual containers related to dispatching. Sure if things get tight you can deadhead 100 new driver somewhere out in the deserts to drive the containers out the dirt roads around a derailment or washout when needed. I doubt that will prove workable in the long term either.

It is a solution looking for a problem.

fbe Wrote:
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> but perhaps the labor cost savings would be an
> advantage.
>
> That is the point, the labor costs will massively
> increase both by crew size per load and
> operational costs for individual containers
> related to dispatching. Sure if things get tight
> you can deadhead 100 new driver somewhere out in
> the deserts to drive the containers out the dirt
> roads around a derailment or washout when needed.
> I doubt that will prove workable in the long term
> either.
>
> It is a solution looking for a problem.


I think the idea would be that when they are on the tracks, like the swift road railers,
you would only need one driver for the whole train. In other words while on the rails
coupled together you would only need an engineer and a conductor for the whole load
of many of these vehicles.

I know it only shows one vehicle in the picture which I agree is not very workable.

But why not string 100 of them together while on the rails.

Also not really clear how the truck gets the container underneath it?

Can the wheels pivot 90 degrees so that it can drive sideways onto the container.

And then somehow lower onto it and pick it up. I was thinking that there might be a way that
these gadgets could drive up on top of double stacks, if the right kind of ramps were provided
and unload them that way?

Like the old trailer trains used to have attachments that would allow the semi trailers to
drive right up on them.

I also noticed that these vehicles were running on electrified rails, suggesting that they were
operating on more of a light rail type inner city system, rather than heavy rails?

Of course this is all just an artists conception.

How is the algae motor supposed to work anyway?

I do not see any feature in the concept design which allows coupling these together.

An easy way to load the rig would be to allow the rear wheels and supports to spread apart so the driver could back over the container to lift it into the body.

The design shows an algae tank on the top where the sunlight can reach the algae to allow it to grow. There are connections from the tanks to a fuel cell lower in the body so they seem to be using hydrogen or some other gasses produced by the algae to make electricity. Note in the railroad mode there is a pantograph to power the vehicle.

fbe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I do not see any feature in the concept design
> which allows coupling these together.
>
> An easy way to load the rig would be to allow the
> rear wheels and supports to spread apart so the
> driver could back over the container to lift it
> into the body.
>
> The design shows an algae tank on the top where
> the sunlight can reach the algae to allow it to
> grow. There are connections from the tanks to a
> fuel cell lower in the body so they seem to be
> using hydrogen or some other gasses produced by
> the algae to make electricity. Note in the
> railroad mode there is a pantograph to power the
> vehicle.


I was looking at the picture of the shopping cart wheels,
on front and back making it look like this vehicle could drive
sideways for a while, the picture seems to show it pulling along side
a container and then driving onto it sideways, which looked like a
handy way to do it.

You are correct that the pictures don't show this idea as having couplers,
like the swift road railers do, that was my idea of how they could be improved.

With out couplers I think you are correct that this high-rail system does not
have to much of a chance.

I think you were the one that pointed out that it would be fairly poor use of
labor to have each one of these high railers having their own crew. The way to
make it work maybe is to couple these vehicles together while they are on rails
like swift does it, but lug along the algae motors along with the high-rail trailers.

That way they can sit on sidings basking in sun light, on their way across the country
making their own gas, then when they get to the last 20 miles they can get there on
their solar powered algae? Don't think the algae truck would get very far on its own
algae power, but then again as a high-rail type car it does not have to. The algae power
is to get the inter-modal vehicle those last few miles, after it has traveled across the
country on rails.

I was looking at the pantograph as well, and was wondering if that might work better
if it was running in some type of urban light rail system, rather than heavy rail?

Here in Sacramento, our light rail system is dormant for a long portion of its life.

There is a pretty large window where freight traffic could run on our light rail line,
in the evenings. Light rail works more like these algae trucks, in that it has power on
every car. Still I think they need couplers, or else someone else will come up with a
competitive design.

I could also see algae trucks riding on the upper deck of double stack trains, but mind you
this would have to be many years in the future, because they don't look like they would clear
most tunnels and other infrastructure. UP is just getting their Donner tunnels to support
double stacks, raising them another few feet to support the solar algae tank up on the top
of very container, would be a big expense, but once this job was done the algae trucks could
drive off and to the final destination on free gas? That is the idea at least, from what
I can gather.

On the other hand, strapping the containers to flying pigs, might be a little more practical?