According to the Electrical Engineers' Handbook - 1949 (Harold Pender,
William Del Mar):

"The pantograph collector, as generally used, consists of one or two
flat sliding shoes, mounted on a collapsible frame of pantograph form.
Adjustable pressure is provided by springs, compressed air, or both. ...

With relatively small current values, 150 to 200 amp, a plain steel shoe
is used, without lubrication.  For higher values, steel shoes are fitted
with renewable wearing strips of copper, copper and steel, or copper
alloy and are lubricated.  It is practicable to collect from 1,000 to
2,000 amps with one collector, with shoes so fitted and lubricated, and
with suitable overhead construction.  Pantographs have been manufactured
with operating ranges as high as 129 in.  Pantograph pressures vary from
10 to 20 lb. per shoe."

the total fuel cost of running a diesel was half the cost of running an
electric in the same location.  we are talking the NEC where electric
prices are fairly consistent (and high)

yup was good for a laugh, Amtrak was the only game in town and didn't feel
like looking at the meters I guess, couldn't hardly run an extension cord
to your engines.

Bob

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In article <v06gr03oh95...@corp.supernews.com>,
 Access Systems <acces...@smarty.smart.net> wrote:

I thought all that catenary WAS an "extension cord." <grin>

Anyway, I think the commuter RRs buy electricity from Amtrak by the
kilowatt, not by the number of engines.  If someone has some comfirmation
of, or correction to, this, my ears are open.

Merritt

I was thinking of the incident in Germany a few years ago where a e-lok
stalled on an iron ore train and the driver did not promptly shut down the
power and the fire services were required. I realize that it was an older
electric involved (Class 103?).

John Beaulieu
Grantsburg, WI - USA

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The Milwaukee tended to run two or three electric locomotives on the
front of a train, and used diesel-electric helpers over the steeper
sections.  Thus, the current draw would be something like a third of
that.  That probably added somewhat to the cost, since they would have
had to maintain both types of equipment.  On the other hand, their
energy costs were low for the electrics, because of the use of
hydro-electric power generated in the mountains.

In half-hearted defense of Amtrak, I can imagine that they would have
had difficulty measuring the power usage.  In the first place, their
metering system is probably based at each substation, so they would
likely have more than one train drawing power at a time, and would not
be able to easily separate the usage.

An alternative might be to put kW-hr meters on the locomotives, but then
again they would have to somehow separate the power used on Conrail's
own lines from that used on Amtrak. Beyond that, there might be
different rates for different sections of the NEC, since Amtrak seems to
buy power from a number of sources.

Class 103 almost only pulls fast passenger trains. (No more
regular services since 2002-12-15, though some locomotives are
still in working order and could be reactivated if a shortage
occurs, such as a sudden problem with newer locomotives.)

The heavy iron ore trains are pulled by class 151 (two of them
per train). Technologically it is the same generation as class
103, and they have a number of things in common, just that one
is a fast express locomotive and the other a "fast" freight
locomotive (the 151 reaches 120 km/h, which is the fastest for
regular freight trains - faster than the 150 anyway, its
predecessor). It seems that freight services don't wear out the
locomotives as quickly: Both the 150 and the 151 are still in
service.

Sorry, I don't know anything of the incident that you mentioned.

--
tobias benjamin köhler ____________________________ t...@uncia.de
_________ ______________ ______________ ______________ __>_____
========H|H============H|H============H|H============H|=H=====`)
------oo-^-oo--------oo-^-oo--------oo-^-oo--------oo-^o-o--o-o=

In article <3E03E2B9.411E4...@mailcircuit.com>, James Robinson

I did find that US Navy report about what they are charged at various
locations in the East.  It perhaps gives some comparison as to how prices
change from place to place in that region.

The report is titled "ENERGY COSTS AT LANTNAVFACENGCOM ACTIVITIES" and it
is located at:

http://www.efdlant.navfac.navy.mil/criteria/GuideSpecs/graphics/16273...

Is the US Military the only organization that could come up with an
abbreviation such as LANTNAVFACENGCOM?

--
-Glenn Laubaugh
Personal Web Site: http://users.easystreet.com/glennl

It would be most impractical to use meters to measure commuter train NEC
current consumption for two reasons.

First, commercial/industrial electricity is priced not only by the
KWH, but also time of day.  Depending on the customer's plan, different
times of day and different times in the year have different rates.
This is because utilities want to encourage industry to use power when
they have spare capacity (like during the winter or overnight) and
minimize use when demand is high (like during the daytime in the

  So, all commercial meters have not only the regular meter, but a
timegraph plotter as well to measure by time of day and date.

  Secondly, commuter trains are often pretty short, such as two cars.
That means, every pair of cars (or single cars) would have to have
this meter system to measure the train's current consumption.  And
all these meters would have to be read.

  SEPTA, NJ Transit, and MARC run lots of trains.  That's an awful lot
of meters and meter readings.

At least in Northern California, electric utilities are installing meters
that are read by radio transponder. There are at least two registers that
read power at two different times, and both registers read out simultaneously
when interrogated by a radio beam from a handheld or truck=mounted unit.

Installation of these meter transponders on a railroad would be even easier
than on residences and industries.  A stationary transciever mounted at the
entrance to a yard would interrogate every train that passes, similar to the
AEI system except that the returned information packet would contain the
cumulative power usage.  (A simultaneous AEI signal would return the loco's
ID.)  A single location would do for most commuter systems, where trains
converge on a single downtown station.  Mobile transmitters might be needed
for rare beanch services like the Princeton Dinky.

                                                Silas Warner

In article <3E0526A5.98C15...@value.net>,
 Silas Warner <si...@value.net> wrote:

Of course, if Amtrak could do this, they'd make a much better case of
being an energy reseller, and thus maybe be able to get access to those
nice, low bulk rates, which would save them a lot of money, and commuter
RRs too.  I wonder if they proposed this to the energy regulators, they
could get better rates?  Seems to me if you're metering and charging,
you're a reseller, not an end user...

--
To email me, change 'usermale' to 'usermail'

Am I missing somthing or can the system just be metered
at the point where the grid feeds in.

hanco...@bbs.cpcn.com (Jeff Nor Lisa) wrote in <qA6N9.136$zi2.149835
@newshog.newsread.com>:

--
Just my $0.02 worth.  Hope it helps
Gordon Reeder
greeder
at: myself.com

In article <92EBD7CCAgreederworldshare...@216.168.3.44>,

How do you tell the difference between the electricity that is going to be
used by a commuter train and the electricity that is going to be used by
an Amtrak train?

--
Jon Bell <jtbell...@presby.edu>                     Presbyterian College
Dept. of Physics and Computer Science        Clinton, South Carolina USA

Anything is technically possible, but this can get messy really quickly.
It becomes a question of how much you want to spend on the metering
equipment, and what extra value you get from it.  There are alternatives
that might be less expensive, and require little investment or
management effort, such as simply allocating consumption by the
ton-mile, or the car mile, with appropriate weighting for the type of
train.  Amtrak probably already has these figures to calculate track
maintenance expenses, so it just becomes a computing exercise to work
out the apportionment of power consumption.

Looking at metering, the charges for the industrial use of power are
usually based on metered intervals of something like 15 minute periods.
One reason for this is that the rates for electricity often vary several
times throughout the day, and can also vary according to the demand on
the rest of the power grid, so the rates might not even be the same on
different days at the same time of day. As an example, an industry might
agree to a varying rate that encourages them to shed load when air
conditioning demand peaks on the rest of the power grid.

Another reason for the short metering intervals is because about 1/2 of
the total user charge is what is called a demand charge.  This charge is
intended to pay for the necessary capacity of the infrastructure. The
demand charge is typically based on the highest metering interval in the
billing period.  

As an example, it might be that Amtrak and the local commuter agencies
have a bunch of trains accelerating away from stations at about the same
time.  This will cause a peak in the power consumption during that
metering interval. Now let's say that a freight operator coincidentally
runs a number of heavy trains during that same interval.  This will send
the instantaneous consumption through the roof for that one 15 minute
period, and it will likely become the basis for the monthly demand
charge, which as previously mentioned, can add up to about 1/2 of the
total power bill.

So, getting back to metering, it is critical that all the clocks on all
the equipment be set to an identical time to assure that the charges are
properly collected.  That would be a real challenge on equipment
scattered around the countryside.  There would also have to be some sort
of backup technique to account for locomotives that had a failed power
metering system.  No railroad would prevent a train from running because
the meter was not working, and somehow the accounting system would have
to make up for the lack of data.

In addition to the above realities, agreements would have to be worked
out for the allocation of any joint costs.  Using the demand charge as
an example, given how high that charge can be, and recognizing that a
freight operator might not have much control over how their trains are
run on Amtrak's corridor, they might strongly battle against accepting a
major portion of the charge, claiming that otherwise they can't control
their costs.  They could probably find an agreeable solution, but it
would not be easy.

When all is said and done, it might cost $50,000 or $100,000 to equip
each locomotive with the system, plus wayside equipment to collect the
data, and a major accounting package to sort out all of the issues and
allocate charges.  Technically, nothing is impossible, but the question
would be if it was all worth it.

On Sat, 21 Dec 2002 09:43:15 -0000, brasi...@despammed.com

If you have trouble with the terminology, may I refer you to the
little publication by the U.S. Naval Institute, titled "Dictionary of
Naval Adjectives - DICNAVADJ" published some years ago.  I suspect it
is still in print.

You probably don't want to thear about the command I once visited,
pronounced "Fic-de-stick-pac" which, IIRC was something like Fleet
Combat Direction Systems Training Center Pacific or
FLECOMDIRSYSTRACEN-PAC. (Or comething close to that.)

Richard
Albuquerque

I make calls with a calling card (that does not need my number when I call from
my home phone and pay 2.5 cents per minute anywhere in the USA. International
rates look very decent (eg. 6 cents to UK) to me although I don't make
international calls that much.  There are no surcharges, fees, taxes,
exclusions, slamming, extr charges, exceptions, nor expirations. And it is a
very good deal. It is prepaid, which is absolutely fine with me, especially
since ten bucks of prepaid lasts quite a while at 2.5c/minute.

My state has such a do not call list and I almost never get calls anymore.
When I do it is usually for some march of dimes or something which is
apparently excempt as a non-profit.  I believe Pennsylvania's list only went
into effect this year, a few months ago.  The lists do take about 90 days to
begin taking effect. It's worth it.

Hans-Joachim Zierke schrieb:

It still added power *and adherence* to the traction.

Why not?

If some trains make full use of the catenary, why not add extra power if
needed?

By the way, this is my proposal for some really steep railways with weak
catenary in Europe, too: Béziers - Neussargues, Toulouse - Puigcerdà.
Should work in multiple units. Should work even better if there was a
power line between the electric and the diesel-electric locos, to make
use of the full adherence in case one of the power modes cannot be used
(catenary switches off, or diesel turned off in a tunnel).

Might also work on ligne de Médoc (quite flat but very weak catenary).

Does work on a Deutsche Bahn AG line between Warburg and Altenbeken for
a private freight train with electric loco and diesel helper(s), IIRC.

By the way, I experienced the other model: an electric helper between
Krasne (non-commercila stop) and L'viv on a Moscow - Budapest train
before completion of the Krasne - Zhmerynka electrification...

Regards & X-Post, ULF

In article <slrnb0ej2j.uc.Usenet...@hersland.Zierke.com>,
 Hans-Joachim Zierke <Usenet...@Zierke.com> wrote:

No kidding.  Calculating power use is a trivial task, transmitting it in
real time to a central system is equally trivial, generating a bill is
1st year comp sci.

I bet the ALP-46, HHP-8, AEM-7AC, Acela, etc already *know* what their
power consumption is.  Sending it is the 'hard' part, i.e., you need to
figure out where to stick the antenna.

--
To email me, change 'usermale' to 'usermail'

In article <v06gr03oh95...@corp.supernews.com>,

And electricity is taxed while diesel is (mostly) exempt.

In article
<nasadowsk-27306B.22170521122...@241.in-addr.mrf.va.news.rcn.net>,

They tried--they aren't allowed to by the regulators.

In article <3E00A574.57C36...@mailcircuit.com>,

And in Philadelphia too, IIRC.  I remember Jericho Park (BG&E territory)
being the location of one solid-state convertor, and another at Port
Richmond (Peco)

My equally hazy recollection is that PRR owned several 25Hz single-phase
generators at the Conowingo hydro station and a couple at Schuylkill
Station in Philadelphia, roughly across the river from Arsenal.
Presumably these went to Amtrak with the rest of the railroad.

I don't remember hearing about PRR owning a whole generating station,
just some individual generators (and their associated transformers and
switchgear) in Philly Electric plants.

73,
JohnW

The book on Pennsy electrification says that the original deal with
Philadelphia Electric was for the power company to supply all the
necessary power at 25 Hz.  It was only when the electrification beyond
the Philly area that they entered into different types of agreements.
If the bits in the generating stations were eventually owned outright by
the Pennsy, that had to have been a later deal.

Which book is that?

I don't think the Pennsy ever owned generating capacity, they
depended on Phila Electrict and others from their start up.

In the 1930s, a lot of industries used 25 Hz current and even
DC current left over from early Edison installations.  Eventually
industrial users of 25Hz dried up except for the railroads.

Today, do the providers still generate 25 Hz, or does it get converted from 60
Hz somehow?