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Originally Posted by VRM
Wes,
I'll bite - I saw that earlier and meant to ask - too many distractions on my other PC...
So how do you manage to move coal that way?
Steve
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Originally Posted by Buzz
Coal fired locomotives - or am I plum loco?
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God, I'm glad you've asked. As you can tell, I'm bursting to tell you all.
Of course, I am full of sh!t as usual.
Here's the prelude:
As a progressive company, where the profit of the union of stockholders is pitted against the portion of income paid union labor, my company has done several things that seem to have potential to lower their labor costs, yet maintain or increase said profits. This is a given and just makes common sense.
The inclination seems to be towards intricate automation where the trains can be run individually by remote control from distant locations, or even pure computer control, but requires increasingly expensive complicated equipment and precision execution from afar to keep trains from running into one another.
But all this is entirely unnecessary.
In keeping with Warren Buffett's fondness for trains, including model railroading I assume, I have an idea to sell him. Below is a simplistic overview.
All need be done, is to create a large circular track like a simplistic model railroad. Basically, the track is already there in the form of parallel multiple main tracks and/or numerous main Corridors such as North, Central and South. The part that is missing, is there needs to be more cars, enough to fill the rail continuously in one giant loop. Trains simply can't collide if there is only one train, one big one. Loopy, I know.
There is already technology in place to periodically place locomotives throughout the train. We call it DP for Distributed Power. Normally I have one of my three locomotives now placed in back of the heavy coal train as a pusher, run by radio. Under hard, but slow acceleration, such as from a dead stop on a grade, the DP unit takes up some of the rear slack and prevents the shear weight of the entire train from being across the first knuckle (sacrificial coupler, hitch) with all three overloading it. It still happens on occasion. It's called a break-in-two, or "getting a knuckle", for obvious reasons.
But DP still isn't good enough. Locomotives burn expensive fuel going up intermediate hills and waste it with brakes down the other side. And they aren't necessary in this case either. Why? Because it is all down hill from the mines in a macro sense, that's why. So, in reality, the coal will deliver itself. Actually the process will run away, if not restricted. The idea is to load coal at the mines, and the weight of the loaded coal plus cars hauls the empty cars back up the hill to the mine in a continuous loop process.
So here is where I make the coal pay me. A long section of track needs a third rail. Instead of full locomotives, all we need do is have cabless slave traction motors, in
dynamic regenerative mode, generate electrical power back into the third rail instead of drawing from it. Then sell the electricity into the power grid. The coal ships itself and pays me to do it. Heck, I could make free money shipping dirt, at least until America was as level as the oceans.
Sure, there is probably some obstacles to this working. The inherent B.S. factor which I seem unable to escape.
Rats, called to work on a coal train at Glendive. I wonder how fast I could get it going if I let it roll?
Wes
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