Western Railroad Discussion > Stored Locomotives vs. Rolling Blackouts?

If a 4400HP is rated at 3.3 Megawatts(MW) ... aren't there strings of locomotives stored by the Class I systems presently?

Instead of a box-store generator in the side yard powering one house, why not a few locomotives by a crossing, energizing part of the grid powering dozens of homes? What would be required for the electrical output to sync with commercial power on telephone poles in residential areas?  How many such sites would be needed to light a suburb or two in Texas?

Just wonderin'

* JB *
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/21 04:55 by prr4828.

Odd you mention this. I can recollect an ice storm in the Montreal area about 22-23 years ago where CN purposely derailed a locomotive or two, moved them down a street and used them to provide power to a hospital.

CW

Posted from iPhone

There's a thread on TO where an expert talks about how this CN effort was done.

And, another thread exploring why you can't just plug in a nuclear air craft carrier and light up a city.

I will see if I can find them.

Posted from Android

If I recall correctly, they actually ran the locomotive under power right down the street (no rails).

Although I am way up in NJ, I can't think that snow and cold will last long enough that it would be worthwhile to get the locomotives where they are needed and adapt them to connect to the power grid.

Juniata Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Odd you mention this. I can recollect an ice storm
> in the Montreal area about 22-23 years ago where
> CN purposely derailed a locomotive or two, moved
> them down a street and used them to provide power
> to a hospital.
>
> CW
>
> Posted from iPhone

If I recall correctly, CN used ALCo/MLW switchers, which have a different electrical system than EMDs or GEs.  The ALCo system could be plugged into a grid.  The others can’t.  Limits options at present.  

Ted in OR

Link to a story about the unit used in Canada.

https://steemit.com/history/@kiligirl/remembering-canada-s-worst-ice-storm-ever-part-5-postscript-what-happened-in-my-home-town

 

There's an excellent thread from a few years ago which discusses these issues.  And notes that UP, NS, and others have "plug in" ports at various facilities specifically so locomotives can produce limited back up power to offices, shops, etc.  DC locomotives have different issues than AC locomotives, etc

It also discusses primary voltage versus secondary voltage, and why nuclear aircraft carriers aren't the best back up power sources. 

Better grid reliability, and forcing Texas to tie into the national electric supply grids at more than a minimum number of points would be a better short term solution to the current mess, however.

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,4356429,page=2

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
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> Better grid reliability, and forcing Texas to tie into the national electric supply grids at more than a minimum number of points would be a better short term solution to the current mess, however.

Not to mention actually following through on the lessons learned in 1989 and 2011.  Whoodathunk maintenance and winterization is more important that maximizing shareholder value?  I've seen reports that as many as 25% of the thermal power plants were knocked off line.

I've never heard of a gas well freezing before, but here we are,

"And so the system simply isn’t able to handle demand at the level it is, mostly because so many power plants are down right now. People are trying to keep their homes warm. Yet power plants aren’t able to operate the way they normally do both because they weren’t designed to operate well in freezing cold conditions and freezing rain conditions, and because many of the natural gas power plants aren’t able to get enough gas to burn."

The mind boggles.

Brian

A few years ago I was down in Lebanon, OH, and found what certainly appears to be a 'wide' locomotive body used as an industrial power plant, and it looked like it had been brought in by rail.    Current aerial photography doesn't show it but Streetview still does.    Big exhaust silencer, top radiators, side doors like a locomotive.

Yeah, like this....    https://www.powergenenterprises.com/ge-16v250gsu-3800kw-prime-power-diesel-generator.html   only under what looked like a widened locomotive hood.

No, you can't just plug it into a grid, but you still could be looking at a huge surplus supply of parked electrical generation capacity on wheels, ready to move, with some creative thought.   I also remember what they did after the ice storm in Canada, although I don't know the technical details.



 

Didn't the Sierra Ry buy some BN GE "B" units to market as portable electric generators?  Never happened but a couple of the units were used on the log trains to the mill at Standard.  The logs came from the AZ forest fires of 2002 or whenever it was.

Seems there is more to this message here overall the power grid is broken and using solar and wind doesnt work like the frozen wind machines down in TX.  I know that the storm took out power lines but many come from many miles away rather than having the source close to the demanad.
 

BAB Wrote:
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> Seems there is more to this message here overall
> the power grid is broken

The Texas power grid is broken.  Texas insists on being a unique snowflake, and is now reaping the results.
(to no surprise for me, the other unique snowflake in North America is... Quebec)

> and using solar and wind
> doesnt work like the frozen wind machines down in
> TX.

Solar works just fine.  In fact, solar LIKES the cold.  You just need to wait for the snow to slide off (which can take a day or two) or help it along (which is an impractically large task for grid scale solar fields).
 

Once upon a time all of the big engine builders (Alco, EMD, Fairbanks) all made mobile power units in truck trailers and railcars designed specifically for emergency and municipal/industrial power generation.. .

jello Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> BAB Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Seems there is more to this message here
> overall
> > the power grid is broken
>
> The Texas power grid is broken.  Texas insists on
> being a unique snowflake, and is now reaping the
> results.
> (to no surprise for me, the other unique snowflake
> in North America is... Quebec)
>
> > and using solar and wind
> > doesnt work like the frozen wind machines down
> in
> > TX.
>
> Solar works just fine.  In fact, solar LIKES the
> cold.  You just need to wait for the snow to
> slide off (which can take a day or two) or help it
> along (which is an impractically large task for
> grid scale solar fields).
>  
And it wasn't the wind turbines that froze -- in fact they were producing more energy than was expected in winter conditions. It was the gas and coal fired plants that suffered from the cold (equipment and instruments froze; moisture in gas lines shut down the lines)

from https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/02/16/ercot-texas-electric-grid-failure/
In the single-digit temperatures, pipelines froze up because there was some moisture in the gas. Pumps slowed. Diesel engines to power the pumps refused to start. One power plant after another went offline. Even a reactor at one of the state’s two nuclear plants went dark, hobbled by frozen equipment.

WP17
 

Over twenty years ago the Museum of Scince and Industry in Los Angeles CA were to do a major construction project that needed a backup generator. A friend was one of the head guys and I suggested a diesel locomotive could be used. The Museum liked the idea but either theCalifornia Air resouces Board CARB or the South Coast Air Quality Management District SCAQMD nixed the idea. reason being that a used locomotive would be to dirty for air standards. Mind you that  it would rarely be used if ever. Also they said a large deep concrete foundation would be needed to support the locomotive weight. Seems rail with good deep ballast would work fine.

Get ready for this to happen . . .  A LOT.  I was around back in the 1970's when there actually was a natural gas shortage.  Here is how it went:  all kinds of businesses and industries were on what was called "interruptible service."  They got a lower gas rate, but, if a natural gas shortage developed, the customer could have his/her gas supply cut off until the shortage abated.  For example, the college that I attended had a central boiler plant to heat all the buildings on campus.  When the college's natural gas supply was interrupted, which happened fairly regularly during the winter, the boiler plant could switch over to coal.  One could always tell immediately when the gas supply was interrupted, as there would be a huge initial cloud of black smoke come out the stacks of the plant as the coal boilers were fired up.  The whole idea of interruptible service was to conserve natural gas supplies for home heating and smaller commercial customers who had no alternative for fuel to heat their premises.  

Fast forward to today, we now have all kinds of "base demand" for natural gas for power generation that is not interruptible, so, if a natural gas shortage develops, there is no "cushion" in the system to reduce demand.  Brownouts, blackouts, and retail customers actually having no gas to heat their homes and businesses will be the result.  That is why this country should NOT be relying on natural gas for base load power generation--coal is abundant (if the politicians weren't obstructing its mining and use) and natural gas could be conserved for the uses for which there is no practical substitute.  Instead, the current regime is destroying natural gas production, destroying coal production, destroying coal-fired power plants, hoping that--somehow--alt-fuels can somehow make up the 60%-80% of electricity generation needs of this country currently provided by natural gas and coal.  Oh, and while they're at it, the regime is destroying capital formation that would make it even remotely possible to fund the massive capital expenditures necessary for such a mass conversion of electricity production.  This kind of policy is a prescription for disaster and this current cold wave is like a pin-prick compared to what may lie ahead for us in this country.  It's a warning that we should heed.

One final note: some years back, an electric utility executive described the entire U.S. power transmission grid as "rickety."  He said then that the only reason that the grid was not facing real disastrous problems then was because so much high-demand electricity users in industry had moved off-shore.  If anything, the power grid is now in even worse shape.  Again, a lot of that has been caused by capital starvation, and that problem is going to get worse, not better. 

Here in the UK I can remember Class 47 #47155 was used as a static generator at West Thurrock power station in 1976

Posted from Android

Way back in the day, the Union Pacific had three U30C's modified to allow "plug-in power" of, I believe, 480 volts.  IIRC the numbers were 2827-2828-2829.  Anything is possible with the right commitment and expenditure.

In order to feed the grid, the locomotive's output would have to be regulated to specific voltage and frequency. Locomotives are not designed to do that.  In today's locomotives, the engine throttle and alternator excitation are controlled by the computer.  I doubt there's an easy way to trick the computer into doing what you'd need it to do.

Then there's the issue of having the needed step up transformers, cabling, and switch gear available to do it.  That stuff isn't readily available.  There are just too many details involved to make this practical.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/21 10:53 by radar.

WW Wrote:
>  Oh, and while they're at it, the regime is destroying capital formation that would make it even remotely possible to fund the massive capital expenditures necessary for such a mass conversion of electricity production.

I'd be facinated to hear your solution to the capital formation issue since the recent trillions of dollars in tax cuts to the richest folks who have ever walked the planet Earth was supposed to take care of us all.

Brian