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> Hybrid turbine/electric propulsion has been used on trains for decades… I'd love to see a citation for this statement—it's far more accurate to say that turb
by tod222 13y ago
> Hybrid turbine/electric propulsion has been used on trains for decades…
I'd love to see a citation for this statement—it's far more accurate to say that turbine/electric propulsion has been tried for decades. Since 1969 there have only been a few test units built. [1]
The largest fleet of gas turbine-electric locomotives was operated by the Union Pacific until 1969. "Fuel economy was poor" and the units were not considered a success. [2] These units are quite well-known in railroad circles.
If gas turbines were as good as you say they'd be in heavy use on railroads today. Instead the dominant motive power is electric for lines already under catenary and diesel/electric everywhere else.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_turbine-electric_locomotive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_turbine-electric_locomotive
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Pacific_GTELs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Pacific_GTELs
- zackmorris 13y agoYa true, I guess you are right. I thought trains used turbines because it would just make sense (there's no transmission, so the engines can run at one optimal speed). I'm thinking that maintenance costs/reliability issues make turbines impractical in most cases except aviation and power plants. On that note, I've never been much of a fan of turbines anyway, because they are outrageously complex/expensive. I think a Tesla turbine would be fantastic for applications like this though. For one thing, the disks could be cast out of ceramic. There must be some reason why they aren't being used (especially in hybrid electric systems like this) but I can't think of one.