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| Early Conrail on NEC VIDEO (678003) | |
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Early Conrail on NEC VIDEO |
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Posted by transitgallery on Sun Sep 7 19:13:51 2008 |
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Re: Early Conrail on NEC VIDEO |
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Posted by Doctor B on Sun Sep 7 21:16:44 2008, in response to Early Conrail on NEC VIDEO, posted by transitgallery on Sun Sep 7 19:13:51 2008. Thanks for posting. Wow those GG1's could fly! |
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Re: Early Conrail on NEC VIDEO |
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Posted by Dave on Sun Sep 7 21:19:47 2008, in response to Early Conrail on NEC VIDEO, posted by transitgallery on Sun Sep 7 19:13:51 2008. Neat video! What engine was that EMD demonstrator? |
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(Sponsored) |
iPhone 6 (4.7 Inch) Premium PU Leather Wallet Case - Red w/ Floral Interior - by Notch-It |
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Re: Early Conrail on NEC VIDEO |
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Posted by trainsarefun on Sun Sep 7 21:32:39 2008, in response to Early Conrail on NEC VIDEO, posted by transitgallery on Sun Sep 7 19:13:51 2008. Wow - that was fun! |
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Re: Early Conrail on NEC VIDEO |
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Posted by WillD on Sun Sep 7 21:41:00 2008, in response to Re: Early Conrail on NEC VIDEO, posted by Dave on Sun Sep 7 21:19:47 2008. It was a GM6C. At the time it looked like Gonerail was going to keep their electric freight ops, perhaps even electrifying the West Shore line from North Bergen to Selkirk. Western railroads like UP, BN, and AT&SF were looking at electrifying their Powder River coal basin routes, or the LA-Chicago main in the case of the Santa Fe. UP actually strung several test installations of constant tension wire on their main line through Nebraska and Wyoming to test its resistance to weather (supposedly there are photos of a dead F unit with a pantograph on the roof which was towed back and forth through the test segments). The GM6C and the more powerful GM10B was a demonstrator for a new series of locomotives built to equip these proposed electric freight lines. The GM6C was supposedly quite similar to the AEM7 in that it used an ASEA designed traction system and DC traction motors. The GM10B was a 10,000hp unit, but used series wound AC induction motors of a type similar to the old P5, GG1, and such and thus had rather poor starting tractive effort compared to DC designs. In both cases the locomotive was designed to maximize the use of compatible components with standard diesel locomotives, to the point where the GM6C was basically just an electrically powered SD40-2 with 6000hp and E77 traction motors.GE developed the E60C at the same time to fulfill the same percieved market growth. BN supposedly allocated numbers for an order of E60CFs but scrapped the electrification scheme before the units were built. The only E60Cs for freight went to the Black Mesa and Lake Powell in Arizona and New Mexico, and the design served as the basis of Amtrak's E60CP.  
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GM10B (Re: Early Conrail) |
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Posted by timz2 on Sun Sep 7 22:37:26 2008, in response to Re: Early Conrail on NEC VIDEO, posted by WillD on Sun Sep 7 21:41:00 2008. "The GM10B was a 10,000hp unit, but used series wound AC induction motors of a type similar to the old P5, GG1, and such ..."The unwary reader might think "induction motors" means motors like an ALP46's or an AC diesel's. You didn't mean that-- right? |
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Re: Early Conrail on NEC VIDEO |
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Posted by Dave on Sun Sep 7 22:48:56 2008, in response to Re: Early Conrail on NEC VIDEO, posted by WillD on Sun Sep 7 21:41:00 2008. Thanks, WillD. |
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Re: GM10B (Re: Early Conrail) |
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Posted by WillD on Sun Sep 7 23:16:07 2008, in response to GM10B (Re: Early Conrail), posted by timz2 on Sun Sep 7 22:37:26 2008. I am actually not certain now, other folks here have stated that the GM10B was an AC traction locomotive, but I'm not sure that was correct. First of all I believe I am muddling up the term induction motor with something else. Wikipedia says the GM10B had ASEA LJH108-3. According to this forum posting the RC series of locomotives and their export models (other than the AEM7 and ALP44) used ASEA LJH108-1, -2, and -6 through -10. Since the RC1,2,3,4, etc, locomotives used thyristors to rectify AC into DC for their traction motors the LJH108 would have to be a DC motor. According to the same posting the LJH108-3 and -4 were larger motors with bigger cores, presumably for applications like the GM10B. It seems somewhat unlikely that the same basic designation would be used for an AC version of an otherwise DC motor, but then I think the GG1's GEA-627-A1 motors were essentially universal motors. Given that the GM10B was designed to work on a variety of power sources between 12.5 and 50kv, and with frequencies between 25 and 60hz it seems likely that there was a full rectification system in it and that it was DC traction, not the older "PRR-style" AC traction system.But in reference to what you said: no, the AC motors of the GG1 and perhaps the GM10B bear no resemblance to those used on current AC motors. The motors in the GG1, P5, and other PRR electrics used a series of commutators or slip rings to power the motor's rotor while the permanent magnets remained fixed on the housing. Today's AC traction locomotives rectify AC power from the wire into DC, then invert it again into AC power with a square or sine wave of a variable frequency. The permanent magnets are attached to the rotor and thus the rotor does not need to be powered and there's no need for a commutator, slip rings, or any other rotary power transmission system. More on modern AC traction systems: http://www.railway-technical.com/tract-02.shtml A discussion of the GG1's motors: http://railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=96&t=49987 More on the GG1's motors: http://members.localnet.com/~docsteve/railroad/gg1.htm And if anyone else has some better info then please, please correct me. |
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Re: GM10B (Re: Early Conrail) |
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Posted by trainsarefun on Sun Sep 7 23:47:03 2008, in response to Re: GM10B (Re: Early Conrail), posted by WillD on Sun Sep 7 23:16:07 2008. Judging by the ASEA motors of the era alone, I would tend to guess on that basis that the GM10B used DC motors.And where were they planning to use 50 kV? |
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Re: Early Conrail on NEC VIDEO |
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Posted by Jackson Park B Train on Mon Sep 8 00:00:18 2008, in response to Early Conrail on NEC VIDEO, posted by transitgallery on Sun Sep 7 19:13:51 2008. nice to revisit the older cars, engines Not a Pennsy fan but I have a GG1 , a Virginian rectifier and hope Bachmann will do E44s cause I would get a pair. They were awesome! |
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Re: GM10B (Re: Early Conrail) |
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Posted by Bill West on Mon Sep 8 06:10:50 2008, in response to Re: GM10B (Re: Early Conrail), posted by trainsarefun on Sun Sep 7 23:47:03 2008. Will, where do I start? You contribute much knowledge and thought to this board but it always seems to invite us to dig up more info. Here goes:1. The Railway-Technical link only speaks of modern induction motor drives. AC locos until the 50’s used AC series motors. 2. The RRnet link is rather light on knowledge of AC series motors. 3. The Doc Steve link spends half the page on the wrong kind of motor and then calculates the motor RPM without actually saying anything about how it works. There is another site as well that has incorrectly calculated GG-1s as if they had synchronous motors. 4. All the Class I RR interest in electrification in the early 70’s was driven by oil prices. No long term noble, save the earth goal, BN’s fuel bill was a million dollars a day. 5. Permanent magnet fields are for small servo motors and the like. Rarely would they reach 1 horsepower. 6. Ac motors are: -synchronous, usually DC slip rings to a rotating field. Runs at a synchronous speed, frequency per second times 60 seconds divided by pairs of poles gives speed in revs per minute. -single phase induction, mainly home use. Not over 10 hp, becomes more costly than 3 phase. -induction, no rings or commutator. Field is induced to the rotor. Runs with a 3-20% slip below synchronous speed. This is the most common industrial motor. It is also in modern AC drive locomotives/cars with a variable frequency inverter giving the speed control. Because it doesn’t need commutator space it gets about 20-30% more winding and core between the wheels and so can have a higher rating or more overload reserve. -wound rotor induction, same as induction but the rotor winding is brought out through 3 slip rings to speed control resistors. This is an older industrial practice. -universal motor, this is the same as a DC commutator motor but it is only suitable for fractional horsepower home use. -single phase series AC traction motors. At their most basic these look like DC series motors complete with a commutator and they do run on DC. But after that they are a very peculiar breed with much attention paid to commutation and starting torque. The transformer effect’s unintended coupling of power to the armature results in the brushes bridging and shorting turns, leading to very severe sparking unless the inventor really understands what he’s dealing with. It took GE’s Stienmetz many years to figure out even part of the theory. The shunting in the RRnet link was not just field weakening for higher speeds, it was to do with shifting the phase angle of the field to get adequate starting, commutation and power factor. There are several sub variations of the railway AC series motor. The use of twin motors was in part to help some of the problems. GE and WH’s numbering systems did not distinguish between AC and DC series motors as they were structurally so similar. 7. Then as you covered, for electronics era locomotives one has to be careful of the power supply and the final drive. In addition to using AC on AC motors and DC on DC motors one can use an AC source to power DC motors through a rectifier or chopper or a DC source to power AC motors through an inverter. If the power is coming from a diesel engine it could be driving a DC generator or an AC alternator giving DC through a rectifier. Lots of combinations. 8. ASEA’s toasters are indeed AC supply through thyristor(SCR) choppers to DC series motors. The design traces back to 1965 when SCRs were new and locomotive size inverters were unheard of. Many later received AC inverter/induction motor drives in rebuild. Your Tydall.nu link ties in the GM10B as having ASEA DC traction motors while the GM6C used EMD DC traction motors. 9. Try a library for reference books. “Standard Handbook for Electrical Engineers” has been published in various years from 1907 onwards with various editors, look in the railroad or transportation chapters. The writers of these chapters have included GE and Westinghouse’s head railway designers and in the 1949 edition the chapter is written by New Haven’s chief electrical engineer. Another is “Handbook for Electrical Engineers”, the 1922 edition is in the Internet Archive, unfortunately its chapters are not as conveniently divided. If your university library has AIEE Transactions, search the indexes about AC railway motors in the 1904 - 1940 era. The Internet Archive has also just added Westinghouse’s professional publication, The Electric Journal. It only covers 1904 -1921 but I’ve already printed about an inch of paper from it. Bill PS Trains, Penn Central would not have had a future need for 50kv but it would have been nothing for ASEA to adjust the little bit of high voltage switchgear and design the transformer input winding for 50kv if any other customer had a use for it. I suspect that if that Wikipedia entry is correct about 50kv, it should be 60hz not 25hz. |
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Re: GM10B (Re: Early Conrail) |
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Posted by WillD on Tue Sep 9 00:37:57 2008, in response to Re: GM10B (Re: Early Conrail), posted by Bill West on Mon Sep 8 06:10:50 2008. Wow, thanks for that. I really need to stop pretending I know what is going on inside an electric motor, or at least check out those books you recommended. Those links unfortunately betray my late night, dead tired posting habits and were just lazy research tacked on to the end to explain my though processes. For now I'll stick to the "there are components, here's a flowchart, it works on PFM" theory of electronic traction systems for locomotives. Thanks for the precise explanation of what exactly sets an induction motor apart from a synchronous motor. For some reason because they're commonly called asynchronous motors I always thought the two were related in some way.All the Class I RR interest in electrification in the early 70’s was driven by oil prices. No long term noble, save the earth goal, BN’s fuel bill was a million dollars a day. I don't really care if they want to do it to more effectively zap squirrels that would otherwise get into covered hoppers and eat the grain, so long as they string some wire and use it. Of course as soon as oil prices dropped in the 1980s those electrification schemes evaporated. PS Trains, Penn Central would not have had a future need for 50kv but it would have been nothing for ASEA to adjust the little bit of high voltage switchgear and design the transformer input winding for 50kv if any other customer had a use for it. I suspect that if that Wikipedia entry is correct about 50kv, it should be 60hz not 25hz. That's definitely correct, I know of no low frequency 50kv installation. However, the Black Mesa and Lake Powell and BC Rail's Tumbler Ridge branch both used a 50kv 60hz power supply. I know from mid-1970s Railway Age magazines (which proclaimed nationwide electrification "right around the corner") BN and UP were looking at 50kv systems, likely quite similar in structure to what the BM&LP and BC Rail finally installed. |
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Re: GM10B (Re: Early Conrail) |
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Posted by WillD on Tue Sep 9 01:00:45 2008, in response to Re: GM10B (Re: Early Conrail), posted by trainsarefun on Sun Sep 7 23:47:03 2008. Just for the sake of posting some other fun info:The Black Mesa and Lake Powell used 50kv 60hz power from its inception in the 1970s. Chances are if BN, UP, or ATSF had electrified their installations would look similar to this:    There also was the Tumbler Ridge branch in British Columbia and operated by British Columbia Rail which ran a 50kv 60hz operation up into the 1990s. It was installed in the early 1980s to move export coal from the Canadian Rockies down to Vancouver for transhipment to Japan. Tunnels on the Tumbler Ridge branch made it difficult to operate diesel helpers on heavily laden coal trains, so the line was electrified. The design of the catenary and such is notably more European (actually very similar pole design to contemporary German installations) than the BM&LP's wooden poles and simpler span poles. The GF6C locomotives used on the BCR electrification were likely quite similar to the earlier GM6C, especially in their relation to the SD locomotives and the use of Asea components.    Railpictures.net GF6C photos There's also an IEEE article on the GF6C from the May/June 1986 IEEE Transactions on Industrial Applications. It appears to answer many of the questions relating to the GM6C as well, assuming the two are closely related. However, it doesn't answer many questions about the GM10B, but I think Bill West covered that quite sufficiently. A direct link to the .pdf Link to IEEE Xplore site Click on "Full Text" in the upper lefthand corner. |
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Re: GM10B (Re: Early Conrail) |
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Posted by SelkirkTMO on Tue Sep 9 01:16:29 2008, in response to Re: GM10B (Re: Early Conrail), posted by WillD on Tue Sep 9 01:00:45 2008. The higher the voltage, the further it goes without substations ... that's probably why ... |
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Re: Early Conrail on NEC VIDEO |
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Posted by Newkirk Images on Tue Sep 9 08:29:36 2008, in response to Early Conrail on NEC VIDEO, posted by transitgallery on Sun Sep 7 19:13:51 2008. Those GG-1's were a sight to behold in person. Photos and movies don't do justice to the size and power of those behemoths.I only caught a double headed E-44 freight drag once by surprise at Trenton, NJ in the late 70's. They made some impressive sounds too. Bill "Newkirk" |
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Re: GM10B (Re: Early Conrail) |
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Posted by trainsarefun on Tue Sep 9 10:25:19 2008, in response to Re: GM10B (Re: Early Conrail), posted by WillD on Tue Sep 9 00:37:57 2008. I don't really care if they want to do it to more effectively zap squirrels that would otherwise get into covered hoppers and eat the grain, so long as they string some wire and use it. Of course as soon as oil prices dropped in the 1980s those electrification schemes evaporated.Hasn't diesel mileage garnered from locomotives increased appreciably from 1970-levels as well? |
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Re: GM10B (Re: Early Conrail) |
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Posted by trainsarefun on Tue Sep 9 10:35:41 2008, in response to Re: GM10B (Re: Early Conrail), posted by WillD on Tue Sep 9 01:00:45 2008. That was a indeed a FUN post! Thanks.The wires through the wilderness imagery is great. I wonder if with the lack of maximal connectivity in our electrical grid whether it would be feasible in the future to use RR ROW for long distance transmission, and then sprig for an electrified rail corridor while one's at it. |
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Re: GM10B (Re: Early Conrail) |
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Posted by trainsarefun on Tue Sep 9 10:38:54 2008, in response to Re: GM10B (Re: Early Conrail), posted by Bill West on Mon Sep 8 06:10:50 2008. I suspect that if that Wikipedia entry is correct about 50kv, it should be 60hz not 25hz.Indeed, other than stepping up the voltage on the first electrified portions of the NEC, were that ever to be done, I can't imagine why one would go with 25 Hz. |
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