Steam & Excursion > Grand Canyon Railway Building Electric Locomotive

Instead of seeing news sites that might give a misleading idea here's a link to a video directly from Grand Canyon Railway featuring their CMO talking about his idea to convert one of their many F40's (pretty sure it will be one of them) into a battery operated  locomotive using regenerative braking to help charge it. 
That Tube Site: /WogJ102bK-0?si=wpUc8n_vZ71DxoI2

ATSF1129 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Instead of seeing news sites that might give a
> misleading idea here's a link to a video directly
> from Grand Canyon Railway featuring their CMO
> talking about his idea to convert one of their
> many F40's (pretty sure it will be one of them)
> into a battery operated  locomotive using
> regenerative braking to help charge it. 
> That Tube Site: /WogJ102bK-0?si=wpUc8n_vZ71DxoI2

Link didn't work but just search Grand Canyon Railway and it should be the first one.

Yes it could be done. Our old friend the 3000 would run about 45 minutes up the hill from Bakersfield
on battery. So you need two F40s, one for power the other for the battery. You need to drag them to
the Canyon so they can come back down the hill to charge which won't quite get you back to Williams
but it'll be close. See, simple, huh?

Out 

Pop Up Metro anyone?

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,5327256

Which brings me back to my first thought - if you're gonna remove the prime mover of an F40,
why not start off with something in a pretty /more iconic shell?   Pop Up Metro aside, lol.

/Mitch

Before commenting on this watch the video because they do a reasonable job of explaining what they have in mind.

I watched the video that's why I'm commenting. Guy sounds like he believes in perpetual motion. The downhill charge
isn't anywhere 100% efficient you're still using power for the parasitic operations in the locomotive. You'll be lucky if
you've got enough stored power to make it across the flats to the uphill to Williams then you're back on whatever 
else is powering the train plus you still need HEP to power the cars. It's a great idea and it cetainly will contribute to
the fuel savings but you're gonna have buy better diesels if you want to truly reduce your overall emissions. You
can buy a Tier IV Knoxville for the money you're talking and have much better overall performance course that does
not come with a federal grant-yet.

Out 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/24 21:05 by callum_out.

Progress could bring the F40s up to Tier 3 by installing a 12-710 ECO. Would gain 300 hp too !
callum_out Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I watched the ivdeo that's why I'm commenting. Guy
> sounds like he believes in perpetual motion. The
> downhill charge
> isn't anywhere 100% efficient you're still using
> power for the parasitic operations in the
> locomotive. You'll be lucky if
> you've got enough stored power to make it across
> the flats to the uphill to Williams then you're
> back on whatever 
> else is powering the train plus you still need HEP
> to power the cars. It's a great idea and it
> cetainly will contribute to
> the fuel savings but you're gonna have buy better
> diesels if you want to truly reduce your overall
> emissions. You
> can buy a Tier IV Knoxville for the money you're
> talking and have much better overall performance
> course that does
> not come with a federal grant-yet.
>
> Out 

Exactly, and you could do 2, maybe 3, for the $3.5M grant money.

Out