by Russel Norman
The Greens have oranised a public forum on electrification of the Auckland rail network. Time is of the essence. ARTA has to make a decision soon about whether to order large numbers of electric or diesel rail units.
Electrify NOW!
Monday 2nd April 2007
7:30pm Methodist Mission Hall
370 Queen Street
Auckland (opposite the Town Hall)
Speakers include Jeanette Fitzsimons, Mike Lee (Chair ARC), Keith Locke, Joel Cayford (Chair of the ARC Transport cttee) , Cam Pitches (Campaign for Better Public Transport).
Published in Environment & Resource Management by Russel Norman on Thu, March 29th, 2007
Tags: environment
More posts by Russel Norman | more about Russel Norman
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Is there plenty of parking at this venue?, this is one meeting I really must attend.
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yeah bb..
queen st is good for parking…about now..
you’ll be fine..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Does anyone know why the current diesel trains have a big freight-style engine pulling/pushing them. Most other places I’ve been commuter trains, even diesel ones, are built with the “engine” gubbins integral to the carriages – like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_multiple_unit
Is it because of big hills and poor trackwork or something?
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Can’t use them for both purposes and they weren’t available the last time anyone bought a train set here in New Zealand ???
respectfully
BJ
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It is actually quite common when the rolling stock you buy it is not equiped with engines. Cheap way to have a train unit. (and quite efficent as you can hook up another locomotive when mainteence is required without taking the whole train out of service. Some commuter trains in the States run engines on both ends except one has its motive power removed and becomes a baggage car. That way you have a cheap train set utilising older freight engines that are no longer suitable for heavy duty haulage.
Having the engines under the trainsets makes them harder to service. (remeber the Fiat railcars that used to break down all the time?)
Most long distance trains run seperate engine and carriage configurations. While commuter trains are a mixture of both. I guess we still have a large number of DA locomotives hanging around which are no longer suited to heavy haulage but can finish their useful life as commuter engines. Any reason we are not building carraiges in Lower Hutt or Dunedin instead of having to import second hand pommie stuff?
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Efficient, Gerrit?
How’s the diesel consumption compare? Not very well, I expect.
On my train line into Lyon, about 80% of the trains are electric, the others are diesel because they originate or continue to un-electrified parts of the network. Although they are flash modern units with the engine inside, they are noisy and smelly compared to the electrics, a bit of a turnoff.
A train hauled by a great noisy stinking freight locomotive would be a major turn-off, these factors should not be underestimated with respect to building patronage.
… The idea of second-hand British rolling stock is pretty frightening, when you consider the appalling state of stock in the UK compared with the continent… I suppose we’re prisoners of our rail gauge in that respect? In the same way that driving on the left makes us the place where Japanese cars come to die.
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Remember Alistair that a diesel ELECTRIC locomotive is an electric locomotive that carries its own generator on its back. All you need to do is add diesel.
Now an electirc only locomotive (or train set) requires you to have an external power station, high voltage grid line to a sub station, high voltage overhead (or in the british case extra rails) to carry the current to the locomotive.
The Diesel Electric locomotive also generates the TOTAL heating, lighting, etc. electirc power requirement for the trainset.
In terms of efficiency the diesel electric is more efficient and to my mind less visually impacting on the TOTAL landscape.
Rail gauge in New Zealand is 3′ 6″ as this is the most efficient gauge in hill and mountanous country. You can get tighter turns, steeper transitions for grades, etc. Your footprint on the country side is narrower as well. The Rimutaka Spiral (to save building an expensive tunnel) could never have been built using the wider gauge. No we are not prisoners to the rail gauge as it is a widely used gauge around the world. I think Queensland has the same gauge as do most South American countries in the Andes plus Japan and Thailand has as well, but I could be wrong.
While the 4’8″ gauge is better for load carrying capacity and higher speed it cant have as tight a curves. Hence when you see the high speed european and american trains their track footprint on the country side is massive.
I guess it is all a balancing act, high speed electric trains that cut a wide swath through the country side, require massive tunneling and bridge building projects to keep the curves and transitions at their maximum, have unsightly power lines to feed the system and train set
Or lower speed trains Diesel Electric units that are visually less obtrusive.
I think you are getting emotive with your “great noisy stinking freight locomotive”.
The visual and physical impact of fully electric trains “should not be underestimated with respect to building patronage”. While we want to electrify Auckland rail be prepared to have overhead gantries everywhere.
Be intersesting to do a carbon foorprint on electric versus diesel electric. Taking into consideration the carbon used to make the steel and copper wire used for the gantries and lines, the cost of installation, maintenance and eventual replacement. The visual impact on the country side (does that get a carbon cost or are we happy to despoil the country side to save a few carbon credits) by having to build more bridges, tunnels, etc.?
We tend to measure carbon credits by usage but forget about how many are used in the implementation of any carbon saving scheme.
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Gerrit,
There are quite a few advantages to pure electrics over diesels, and that is why almost all new rail projects now utilise electrics.
For example, it’s pretty well known that electric trains are capable of faster acceleration than diesel-electrics. This is probably because electric trains don’t have to lug a diesel motor, generator and fuel supply everywhere they go.
With faster acceleration, electrics can service railway stations that are closer together. Diesel-electrics spend too much time getting up to speed, making closer stations unviable.
Electrics can also be used underground (where diesel-electrics can’t) and on steeper gradients, making possible the Auckland city loop that would connect Britomart to the Western line.
They also tend to be far more reliable, given that there are far fewer systems and moving parts on the train.
Finally, electricity generation is something that NZ can afford to be more self-sufficient in than as opposed to diesel fuel, where we’d be more susceptible to the fluctuations of the international markets.
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Totally agree Spokey and that is the long term answer. The short term answer is that we have diesel eclectric loco’s lying around that can be used in the meantime to build a public transport system.
The money can be spent now on track and stations. The next lot on overhead? electrification.
I’m sceptical of achieving a public transport system with all the ducks lined up. The initial infastructure cost will be enormous. Dont know if we need a new power station but we need an awful lot of copper wire.
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The fastest accelerating trains have traction motors at intervals the length of the train, rather than just at the front. Modern specimens have electronic traction control to prevent wheelslip.
The presence of an on-board generator is wasteful, but not disasterous. On the other hand they belch like buggery.
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Switzerland has standard gauge electric trains and they’re not short of mountains.
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Absolutely RPA,
But lets get all the tracks down in stage one and use diesel electric to get people used to a reliable train network and then in stage two electrify the lot and add all new electric train sets.
Cant see the government doing the lot in one big go. even with a 9-12 Billion dollar surplus.
By standard gauge you mean 4’6″. Notice also how many tunnels and bridges the Swiss have? We can do the same but 4 million people in a country the size of the UK dont have the money to rebuild to the new gauge.
Lets go with what we got, build a network and develop from there. My concern remains if we wait to line up all the duck in a row, nothing will get done. The total cost will be prohibitive.
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I heard on the radio today that there are two reasons for the high price of milk (and hence conversions to diarying): demand and ethanol being made from corn.
jh
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