alternates to diesel haulage for freight in the uk in the next 10 years

[mikejames]

hello
I want to ask people to think about (and comment on) the future for rail based freight in the UK. 
I believe few people would argue with the statements
1) we wish to move as much freight as possible by rail and
2) we wish to reduce the ammount of diesel(and petrol) fuel used as far as possible.

A few years ago, many would have argued for a rolling (overhead) electrification program of the railways but, for various reasons, this now seems unlikely. 
In the passenger context, various bimodal (and trimodal) units seem the likely way forward, and the various versions of the 230 series illustrate a range of possibilities, at least over shorter distances.

But nothing similar seems to avaiable for freight.

So I invite thoughts and suggestions for the way forward for freight haulage in the UK.

Should we be aiming at new freight lines
What are the practical alteratives to the diesel loco.

Mike James
 

Edited April 21, 2020 by mikejames
spelling correction

[Davexoc]

The way I see it is a trimode in a twin body set-up. The problem with freight locos is you need a lot of space for either the electrical gear or an engine, and you don't want to swap over locos when going on and off the juice.

So a twin unit where one is primarily electric and the other is primarily diesel, single cab to each, but with some shared auxilaries might leave enough space for some batteries for shunting or limp home mode.

 

Think of a pair of 91s back to back (or front to front), but one with a diesel engine in, and no intermediate cabs, semi-permanently coupled together and the spare space filled with batteries. Fit it with third rail shoes too and you've got a quadmode that could go almost anywhere....

[Nova Scotian]

I'd like to see greater modularity. Locomotive class with two main variants, a shorter Bo-Bo and a longer Co-Co. They'd share cabs, control software and just about everything possible. The Co-Co would have four "sleds" for equipment, the Bo-Bo would have three. Multi-use, multi-functional jack of all trades locos to replace the remaining 47s, 37s, 73s and all legacy etc. For that reason you'd be looking at axle loadings of 17t, and can ballast to 20t. Leave higher weights to the 60s/66s/70s of the world. All would be capable of push-pull.

 

You'd want to designate the Co-Co more as freight, with the Bo-Bo more for higher speed mixed traffic. To make the Co-Co useful you ensure a short wheelbase and maybe a radial steered bogie to reduce flange wear.

 

Co-Co would have three options:

Power option: Four V12 MTUs (an an example, say 700-900hp engines) installed on sleds that can be pulled in and out of the loco body for rapid repair and replacement. Gives 3000hpish for freight usage, or 2400ish for passenger with hotelling power. Electronic control shuts off the powerunits not in use as and when needed, under light load, running light engine etc.

 

Rural routes option: 3 diesel engines as above on the sleds, one battery pack. Peak HP can be 3000hp plus for rapid (but brief) acceleration, with 2000ish hp continuous power, at least 1500 if hoteling.

 

Bi-mode: 1 diesel engines on sled, one batter pack, and the space for the other two used up with electrickery required to run off OHLE.

 

Bo-Bo would also have three options:

High speed mixed traffic: Three diesel engines on sleds.

 

DMU replacement; two diesel engines, one battery sled, operate rural push-pull services for on-hire companies (eg - you're not operating the franchise full-time with them, but can bring them in when other classes are out of service).

 

High speed mixed traffic with last mile capability Bi-mode: 1 diesel engine on sled, and the space for the other two used up with electrickery required to run off OHLE. 

 

 

Advantages:

- Peak power is only used for relatively short periods, with long periods of low or trailing throttle; shutting down engines to reduce pumping losses and only turning on the power units you need makes a lot of sense

- Rapid repair and overhaul of powerunits being able to disconnect and slide right in and out

- Standard parts for inventory control

- Standard cabs for training

 

Disadvantages:

- Complex control systems

- Four small engines is more expensive than one big one

- Still assumes diesel is main power source

- UK likely does not have the volume to generate sufficient orders for such a family of locos.

 

You'll notice I think diesel still has life in it; it's going to be very difficult to identify anything with the energy density of diesel, to produce high power in a compact package with long range and high reliability in a way that diesel can. 

 

Problem here is that sticking a new traction package in an old loco is cheaper, and you don't need to meet the same emissions standards. So you're not going to be able to get firms to drop their 73 for a new fangled loco. The UK's weight restrictions are not seen as much across Europe; so a nice 17t axle load that can handle the sharp curves of the west highland way is great for us, but apparently not many other places.

 

[newbryford]

I'm surprised that the existing Class 88 with it's "last-mile" diesel engine and the proposed tri-mode Class 93 haven't been mentioned yet.

 

 

[Reorte]

Not being terribly serious here, but a return of the tender, except this time it's just a big battery on wheels? Although if you can do that how viable is a couple of hydrogen tanks behind the loco? Space isn't quite as much of a premium as it is with passenger trains. How that'll cope when it needs to run around the train though, hmm.

Edited April 21, 2020 by Reorte

[Edwin_m]

You'd probably need a permanently coupled set of two or three vehicles with a cab each end, including the power unit and sufficient storage for hydrogen.  I believe a fuel cell tends to need to be hybridized with traction batteries too, as it isn't very good at changing its power output rapidly, so find some space for them too.  Losing a couple of wagons off each train to stay within length or weight restrictions would be bad considering the tight margins freight operators run on, and even with this configuration running round would be a problem as various stub tracks would need extending and signals moving.  

 

Consensus in the industry is that diesel and electric (from an overhead supply) are the only two viable options to supply enough power and range from a small enough traction unit to manage either fast passenger or freight of any sort.  

[newbryford]

 

 

3 minutes ago, Edwin_m said:

You'd probably need a permanently coupled set of two or three vehicles with a cab each end, including the power unit and sufficient storage for hydrogen.

 

Maybe a bit like this? In this case, the centre wagon is a LPG tank.

 

 

Edited April 21, 2020 by newbryford

[mdvle]

4 hours ago, mikejames said:

2) we wish to reduce the ammount of diesel(and petrol) fuel used as far as possible.

 

People say this, but any attempts to reduce fuel consumption (through higher taxes) is met with protest or defeat at the polls.

 

Thus I am not sure it is as much of a given as assumed.

 

4 hours ago, mikejames said:

A few years ago, many would have argued for a rolling (overhead) electrification program of the railways but, for various reasons, this now seems unlikely. 
In the passenger context, various bimodal (and trimodal) units seem the likely way forward, and the various versions of the 230 series illustrate a range of possibilities, at least over shorter distances.

 

bi-mode and tri-mode units only exist for political reasons, they really aren't that great for a number of reasons.

 

4 hours ago, mikejames said:

But nothing similar seems to avaiable for freight.

 

Freight is a low margin business, barring political interference they won't increase their costs by playing games with half measures like bi-mode/tri-mode with a couple of minor exceptions.

 

4 hours ago, mikejames said:

Should we be aiming at new freight lines

 

Nope.  Look at the trouble of building a new passenger line, there is no way you can build a new freight line.  Beside, much as with the case with HS2, you are better of building a better passenger line to allow the existing lines to have additional freight capacity.  See the endless repetitious discussions on this in the 2 HS2 threads for the reasons why.

 

4 hours ago, mikejames said:

What are the practical alteratives to the diesel loco.

 

Overhead electric.

[brack]

Biodiesel

 

(vegetable oil)

Edited April 22, 2020 by brack

[DavidB-AU]

6 hours ago, Reorte said:

Not being terribly serious here, but a return of the tender, except this time it's just a big battery on wheels? Although if you can do that how viable is a couple of hydrogen tanks behind the loco? Space isn't quite as much of a premium as it is with passenger trains. How that'll cope when it needs to run around the train though, hmm.

 

Inline fuel tanks are common in places with very long distances to cover, such as in Australia.

 

 

 

And a big battery on wheels powering the locos is effectively the flip side of the engineless slug unit.

 

 

[Edwin_m]

8 hours ago, mdvle said:

People say this, but any attempts to reduce fuel consumption (through higher taxes) is met with protest or defeat at the polls.

 

Thus I am not sure it is as much of a given as assumed.

It's the usual thing - people want things but they want someone else to pay for them.  Another issue the government hasn't tackled is that the widespread use of electric vehicles will leave a big hole in their tax revenues but the road network will still need maintaining (probably more as EVs tend to be heavier than their IC equivalents and people may use them more as they are cheap to run) and there will still be congestion and pollution (mostly from tyres).  When these effects are considered it's possible that keeping passengers and goods on a diesel railway is still preferable to putting them into EVs on the roads - depending how you define "preferable"!  

[Reorte]

8 hours ago, mdvle said:

Nope.  Look at the trouble of building a new passenger line, there is no way you can build a new freight line.  Beside, much as with the case with HS2, you are better of building a better passenger line to allow the existing lines to have additional freight capacity.  See the endless repetitious discussions on this in the 2 HS2 threads for the reasons why.

I rather suspect that a lower speed freight line wouldn't have anywhere near the impact and hence anywhere near the complaints that HS2 has had. It might be better to compare it with something like the Borders Railway, although that has the advantage of definitely providing a service directly to the people living near it, which always helps to reduce protests which a freight line wouldn't get.

Edited April 22, 2020 by Reorte

[Reorte]

7 minutes ago, Edwin_m said:

It's the usual thing - people want things but they want someone else to pay for them.  Another issue the government hasn't tackled is that the widespread use of electric vehicles will leave a big hole in their tax revenues but the road network will still need maintaining (probably more as EVs tend to be heavier than their IC equivalents and people may use them more as they are cheap to run) and there will still be congestion and pollution (mostly from tyres).  When these effects are considered it's possible that keeping passengers and goods on a diesel railway is still preferable to putting them into EVs on the roads - depending how you define "preferable"!  

Although I do get the impression a significant proportion of the population are quite keen on the idea of electric cars, or would be if they were reassured on some of the practical aspects and the prices came down. If some future has a large proportion of road vehicles are electric though then we need to ask - have we done enough? Is there any reason then not to keep diesel trains? Sometimes we get too stuck thinking it has to be all or nothing which can get in the way of doing enough.

[Zomboid]

Really the answer is more electrification. Hard to justify for solely freight reasons using existing thinking, but otherwise it's some kind of self powered system for many routes.

 

A lot of freight trunk routes are already electrified though, so a lot of what might be needed would be infill type schemes rather than grand GWML type things.

 

Multi-mode traction doesn't really stack up in my mind. Loco changes where appropriate mean you're not dragging unused traction systems around the whole time. The only multi-mode systems that don't suffer too badly from that are dual voltage electrics, and last mile capability like in 73s and 88s make sense if it really is last mile stuff. But  effectively permanently coupling a 90 to a 66 would be a waste of both and would add dead weight to the train.

[PhilH]

Stick a nuclear reactor in some 73s....

[Reorte]

12 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

But  effectively permanently coupling a 90 to a 66 would be a waste of both and would add dead weight to the train.

 

It's not quite  that bad surely? I'm sure saying an electric train can be a diesel train but with a pantograph going straight to the traction motors is a grotesque oversimplification but it's not quite lugging around two locos and only using one at a time.

[Edwin_m]

1 hour ago, Reorte said:

Although I do get the impression a significant proportion of the population are quite keen on the idea of electric cars, or would be if they were reassured on some of the practical aspects and the prices came down. If some future has a large proportion of road vehicles are electric though then we need to ask - have we done enough? Is there any reason then not to keep diesel trains? Sometimes we get too stuck thinking it has to be all or nothing which can get in the way of doing enough.

Again, people are quite happy to drive an electric vehicle if it preserves their lifestyle and someone else pays any extra cost.  Latest thinking is that even with all road vehicles going electric, a significant reduction in their use is necessary for a sustainable future.  Issues include tyre particulates but also the amount of rare and difficult-to-recycle materials needed for all those batteries.  

 

By contrast railway electrification is a known quantity, at least if ways can be found of avoiding the problems of GWML etc which were mainly about trying to do things too quickly from a standing start.  We know it works, can be built with today's technology and offers significant decarbonization (and other) benefits.  

38 minutes ago, Reorte said:

 

It's not quite  that bad surely? I'm sure saying an electric train can be a diesel train but with a pantograph going straight to the traction motors is a grotesque oversimplification but it's not quite lugging around two locos and only using one at a time.

The transformer on an electric loco is a similar size and weight to the engine of a diesel, although the electric probably has a lot more power.  A permanently coupled set could allow either power source to drive the traction motors on both sections, improving tractive effort which is important for freight.  This means it could haul the same load on diesel power as on electric, but would be slower especially on ascending gradients.  The "last mile" diesels are similar in terms of haulage capability, but slower still in diesel mode, and I imagine they only have small fuel tanks therefore limited range.  

Edited April 22, 2020 by Edwin_m

[Reorte]

41 minutes ago, Edwin_m said:

Again, people are quite happy to drive an electric vehicle if it preserves their lifestyle and someone else pays any extra cost.

I believe a significant number of people are prepared to accept some extra cost. Very few can obviously accept any additional cost. That said though, a constant stream of "like it or not we need to do this" isn't going to get people enthusiastic. Personally I find an awful lot of change getting pushed for has that effect. I can see it might be needed but it paints a pretty depressing vision of the future. I'd like to have a future to look forward to, not dread with only the slight benefit of "it's not as bad as it might've been"!

 

Quote

Latest thinking is that even with all road vehicles going electric, a significant reduction in their use is necessary for a sustainable future.  Issues include tyre particulates but also the amount of rare and difficult-to-recycle materials needed for all those batteries.

No chance of that happening without fewer people, all the pressure goes towards more people and building things around more and more centralisation and hence more and more travel. What individuals are prepared to do is largely irrelevant here, maximising economic concerns steamrollers everything else.

 

Quote

By contrast railway electrification is a known quantity, at least if ways can be found of avoiding the problems of GWML etc which were mainly about trying to do things too quickly from a standing start.  We know it works, can be built with today's technology and offers significant decarbonization (and other) benefits. 

 

Yet just on the carbon aspect not terribly significant compared to road. So even if you electrify every line you've still not achieved much there, and if road travel is electrified then there's no real additional gain (again, just from that perspective, there are certainly other reasons for considering electrification).

Edited April 22, 2020 by Reorte

[Pandora]

Railway locos on heavy freight work are quite efficent in use of fuel, and diesel fuel for loco use is tax-free,  I think it is 65p per litre.

 

Moore's Law for Computers is 2 years/cycle, where a cycle is a doubling of capacity or halving of price per unit of capacity.  Battery makers think the Moore cycle analogy for battery is 7 years.

If the battery makers are correct int their predictions then 14 to 21 years down the line we may have high capacity  / low cost battery packs similar in purchase cost to a diesel engine prime mover and with considerable range between recharges

If the battery packs are self-contained and quickly removable in the manner of a freighliner box , then a  depot refuelling point could be an overhead crane and a battery exchange/ charging point.

 

Genset Technology has crept up without being noticed,  a Genset is a diesel / alternator unit housed in a container.  When Ashford Works had the grid feed condemned due to deterirated cable,  a Genset ran the  Works for about 12 months.  The genset was about the size of a feightliner container and was  positioned in a carpark  and successfully powered the entire works for the duration.   The silencing of the  Genset was so good you could stand near the unit  not even tell is the dieselengine  was running

 

Edited April 22, 2020 by Pandora

[The Johnster]

It's not far off that bad, which is why it isn't done much.  A diesel prime mover and generator set to provide equivalent power to the traction motors as a comparable straight electric is effectively another loco, which is why we are talking about twin units.  I can't see the current stock of 37s and 47s being replaced by anything other than diesel electric locos of similar capacity, as we'll still need them to run off OLE for considerable distances.  Their replacements will no doubt be more fuel efficient and have better emissions credentials, but they will be diesel powered with generators supplying current to electric traction motors.  

 

I can't see the need for any more Bo-Bo locos for a considerable time; we can't provide work for the relatively recent 67s and 68s we already have.  The 37/47 replacement is probably something like a shorter and lighter 66 Co-Co putting out around 3k hp with sophisticated traction limiting 59 style.  They will have two 1,500 hp engines, and be capable of handling lighter loads, say below 750 tons trailing, on one, with the ability to fire up the other on banks or if time needs to be made up.  In fact, not a million miles removed from an updated version of Ivatt's twins but in one loco bodyshell.

 

I am discounting hydraulic transmission on the basis that a standard traction motor will be specified, that can be interchanged across the fleet regardless of whether traction is diesel or electric.  I also envision a standard plug in cab for all locos.

 

There will be no new freight routes built, but HS2 will go a long way to increasing both freight and stopping passenger capacity on the existing network; this is, in fact, it's primary benefit.  It may be that the CV-19 pandemic will be a sea change in the concept of working from home, which will reduce demand for commuter passenger traffic but not eliminate it.  Another CV-19 effect will probably be a massive increase in online ordering and delivery at the expense of high street shops, many of which are doomed.  This may need a new parcels rail network, and this will provide a possible need for Bo-Bos, of which as I said we have a surplus.  

 

There may be older routes reinstated and upgraded for heavy freight traffic; the GC main line comes to mind and the Southampton-Midlands corridor is already being worked on.  Cross country routes from Felixtowe like the M & GN Jt and even Woodhead could be brought back into the game (this would have to be electrified), all taking pressure off the WCML, which is rammed.  The North to West main line also has some spare capacity.  

[Zomboid]

1 hour ago, Reorte said:

 

It's not quite  that bad surely? I'm sure saying an electric train can be a diesel train but with a pantograph going straight to the traction motors is a grotesque oversimplification but it's not quite lugging around two locos and only using one at a time.

It pretty much is. Some kit would be repeated if you did such a simple thing as couple two locos together, but not that much.

 

I'm not familiar with the inside of a 66, but I do know my way around a 45 (ok, very old technology, but bear with me) and there is no space in there for the extra equipment which would be needed to add electricity as a power source. To provide a "full power" diesel (ie 3000hp or so) as well as electric capability would basically require two locos.

 

I see no reason to imagine that GM left loads of empty space inside a 66, so no doubt the same would apply.

 

Why else would 88s only have 900hp on diesel power? That's probably as much power as there's space for in there.

[MJI]

The only sensible answer is electrification.

 

Beyond that I can see 37s hitting 70 years old in service.

 

Oh and biodiesel

[newbryford]

26 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

 The 37/47 replacement is probably something like a shorter and lighter 66 Co-Co putting out around 3k hp with sophisticated traction limiting 59 style.  They will have two 1,500 hp engines, and be capable of handling lighter loads, say below 750 tons trailing, on one, with the ability to fire up the other on banks or if time needs to be made up.  In fact, not a million miles removed from an updated version of Ivatt's twins but in one loco bodyshell.

 

T

 

 

 

I believe a certain class of 22 locos built in the early 60s would satisfy that criteria........ (apart from being shorter)

And I'm sure there's a more up to date traction package than that of the 1980s tech fitted to the 59s......

[Reorte]

11 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

Why else would 88s only have 900hp on diesel power? That's probably as much power as there's space for in there.

Good point.

[The Johnster]

19 minutes ago, newbryford said:

 

I believe a certain class of 22 locos built in the early 60s would satisfy that criteria........ (apart from being shorter)

And I'm sure there's a more up to date traction package than that of the 1980s tech fitted to the 59s......

Their fuel consumption and maintenance regime would preclude them, though they do satisfy the twin engine requirement.  As do a class of 74 WR hydraulics with a higher nominal T.E better suited to freight work...