there was an article on this company in todays local newspaper the Vancouver Sun. It went on to describe the company and the hybrid yard switching locomotives for the rail industry. I had talks with another Prius owner who told me about it and I've seen their Prius Classic with the sign painted on the side that say's " my other hybrid is a locomotive" driving around and I go by their shop on my way to work but never gave it much thought till today. Here is a URL from a Google I did on Rail Power Green Goat. It makes interesting reading http://www.railindustry.com/coverage/2002/...2/2002g02a.html
Hi Frank, enjoyed that reading over breakfast and the fact that they used the Prius technology to boot. Think I'll put the proper wheels on my 2005 and use the E & N railroad for commute from Duncan to Victoria. Lots less traffic and the scenery is better. :roll:
That company has a new office here in Erie, PA., probably due to the big GE Locomotive facility here. I haven't heard of any plans for manufacturing here yet but we do have a lot of people with the skills needed. It sounds like the type of thing that will really take off over the next few years. Hybrid technology is proving to be good in a lot of transportation types.
All diesel locomotives in North America are really diesel-electric hybrids. The diesel engine drives a generator which drives the electric traction motors. I think it's the max torque at zero rpm of electric motors and the difficulty in designing a mechanical transmission to handle the loads that drove the design of the diesel-electric locomotive 50+ years ago. What's different about this locmotive are the batteries for storage, and the smaller turbine engine to keep the batteries charged.
A turbine engine is kindofan unfortunate choice. Turbines get decent efficiency only when running at full power. And, regardless of their turbine's actual performance, having a second type of prime mover to maintain incurs additional overhead and is an impediment to new customers. They really ought to offer a small modern Diesel engine as an option.
The turbofan in this setting is probably ok as the generator will run at full speed as it's only there to charge the batterys. If it was driving the loco I'd have to say, wrong choice, but sitting there at full operational speed driving a generator to charge the batterys good use of it. The little yard swithcher just uses a small Cummins diesel driving a generator. When you see a conventional loco start of you can see why the average municipality doesn't want them there. Huge clouds of black smoke and the accompaning soot and NOx and all other assorted green house gasses not to mention hte noise. Pretty forward thinking for a small company. I hope their bottom line rewards their efforts.
