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Originally Posted by PDUB
First, let me apologize to the group for such a long post. Right now, I intend it to be my last, accepting the fact of Jamo's friendly heads-up on us being out in the weeds on this thread. That said,...
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PDUB,
Yeah, I should apologise too. Although this is the Lounge. Usually everyone is fairly subject-tolerant until it comes to an all out screaming barfight. Less than sober discussion is pretty common. Sorry if I was condescending. I appreciate you bothered to think and reply about it at all.
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Originally Posted by PDUB
You feign that this is just B.S., and then continue to go after it. What's up with that... more B.S.  ? |
I think I tend to get caught up in the core principle of things. It's a curse. I did ponder whether it would work, or not, for quite a while; trains do seem to roll better than rivers right beside us, and ...what might that mean.
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Originally Posted by PDUB
Good, then don't take offense if I don't spend anymore time on it... already spent too much  ! But I know it can be fun to dream-big! Run the numbers and get back to us...  . |
I'm thinking about the numbers. Railcars do have amazing low drag per pound, even better when they are loaded heavy. But I think you might be right; accumulated losses would be too great in reality. Existing track is not too straight etc. In my last post, towards the end, I did "run some simple numbers" in speculating that it would certainly work, because I claimed it is a one percent grade. Then I got to thinking about a one percent grade and how steep that really is. Whoa.
A one percent grade would be a 1 foot drop in 100 feet. There is quite a bit of excess kinetic energy in a 1% grade. Most all of our intermediate grades are less than 2%, which is considered mountain grade, just about max for railroading. Certainly the overall cross-country grade is not all that steep as 1%, unfortunately.
What I did is a glaring error. I roughly supposed a 1500 foot drop in 1500 miles and surmised 1 foot per mile as a 1% grade. In reality, a mile is 5280 feet, not 100 feet, so the average macro grade would only be about a .0001893 grade, pretty durn flat. At best, a large circle train would probably run with comparatively low constant power consumed because it is
very slightly downhill for 1500 miles, from the mine to various eastern power plants.
So in essence, you were right from the beginning. There doesn't seem to be a need to run any more numbers. Thanks for your spirit of adventure, in discussing this, though.
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On a different note, it still makes sense to me that America could benefit from sending the energy, contained in coal, cross-country by a new investment in interstate powerlines, perhaps along rail corridors. Along the way, the powerlines may pick up energy from nuclear power, hydro-electric and some minor amounts from windfarms etc. The coal fired, mine located, mega-plants may replace several smaller plants spread all over the country-side and be made more efficiently "clean". And all of you would not have to pay me to haul it because the energy would ship itself.
So how is Limbaugh involved? For some reason, he majorly helped defeat McCain, the
non-ball-playing nuclear advocate, who might have been the next Ike in building such far-sighted energy distribution structure. The result is, Obama will likely cave into coal/rail interests first. IMO.
The advent of Ikes interstate highways hurt the railroads market share because it enhanced trucking. So would interstate powerlines also kill our coal contracts. But would it be good for America, as competing economies grow ever stronger? I think so. But I've been wrong before.
Wes
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