Pensey GG1 wrote:
You're still getting excellent acceleration out of them.
Excellent? Go ride a real train in the industrialized world some day. I.e., get a passport, leave the US and travel on a 1st world rail system. Heck, a few third world systems out there come to mind in terms of equipment that would wipe the floor with NJT's slugs...
The point is that because third rail runs at a lower voltage, the amperage is far higher, and thus it's impractical to pick up a whole train worth of power off of a single locomotive's third rail shoe footprint.
It's a constraint overall. Go back and study Ohm's law some more, and the reasons why third rail sucks become blindingly clear.
That just says that you need MUs in NYC, it doesn't say anything about the merit of EMUs or loco-hauled in places like Philly where you can run either equally well on the electrification system.
The laws of physics disagree with you, but go on. This is interesting...
NJT can handle 10-14 ML's with a single ALP. It's pretty impressive.
You have a pretty low bar for what impresses you. In Sweden, the RC series (.e. ALP-44, AEM-7, et al), is a freight motor. I don't think the Class 101 in Germany is used in freight service, but that's a gearing and usage issue more than anything else.
Oh wait, whoops:
http://www.abload.de/img/101_096_090908_fkau_80zero.jpg
Guess they use it for that, too!
They should be just as fast.
No, they shouldn't. You fail at basic physics.
They are faster top-speed wise, but if you look at acceleration, which matters more to everyone except MARC Penn Line, then run with two locos for the longer, heavier trains. Like Marc Penn Line does.
They still accelerate slower than an MU (there was a video of a set of 2 ALPs and 6 or maybe it was 8 comet cars. Its performance out of a station was close to, say, the S Bahn Munich. That's an awful lot of power to throw at a train to get that result...)
Top speed of 100mph is useless in a system where the top speed is less than 80 for all but a few miles of track. It's 0-80 where things matter, and an MU will clobber a locomotive hauled train there.
I'm talking US. SL V or M-8 is all we've got to compare to.
Hopefully that will change in 2015, but still, I bet even a piggy M-8 can beat out a multilevel set to 80mph.
Single level necessitates the 3x2 seating that is hated by everyone. The NJT MLs run 2x2.
You are aware the RABe 514 is a double decker, right?
What I'm saying is that they can run with a diesel or an electric or a dual-mode depending on what the route demands. EMUs are limited to one type of propulsion. NJT's MLs are just as at home behind a PL42 as they are behind an ALP-46a.
Who gives a crap? The only reason NJT even runs diesel in this day and age is because of the ass-backwards attitudes toward mass transit in this country.
NJT MLs can seat 127-142, depending on configuration. An SL V can seat 108-110. M-8's average 105.5 between the A's and the B's.
So, in other words, a double decker train holds more than a single decker train? This has
nothing to do with the propulsion system / method!
Because of the tunnels and Penn. Definitely not because of their class-leading equipment.
Class-leading? Yeah, maybe it would have been in 1960. Seriously - go out and ride a real rail system some day.
EMUs aren't going to magically help you with Penn and the tunnels. The Push-pulls get 30% more people into Penn with the same number of train movements.
And they kill capacity by being far slower than MUs.
PP isn't any slower than EMU's. All of these systems have a LOT that could be done, given appropriate levels of funding to speed them up to the maximum possible within their ROWs. However, EMUs aren't going to help them.
Push pull is slower, period. Or maybe you can explain why the Swiss often put
three locomotives on a single 9 car push pull train? And why they're retiring this for EMUs? And, I'm not talking about some wimpy 3000HP wheezing diesel here, I'm talking electrics with continuous ratings north of 4200HP
at the rail
If you really want a rocket, skip the EMUs and put a loco at each end, like Acela, just using conventional equipment. That would beat anything else on heavy rail. Over 17,000HP would pull you right back in your seat, as well as double the adhesion to the rail with well north of 200 tons on the locomotives!
Acela's HP:weight ratio is very low for a HST. In fact, I think only the Pendolino is that low, and FS is constrained by their 3kv system.
You'd still have acceleration issues, since you'd have that power on 8 axles. Spread it out over 2 dozen axles, and suddenly it's a LOT more manageable.
And, electricity isn't free - you're talking about a power level north of what the Shinkansens use. I believe it even exceeds what Amtrak's system can reasonably supply.
Even New Haven Line EMUs are "only" 1,000 HP per car, and they give you a pretty good pull when accelerating.
SBB runs lighter (124,000lb vs 155,000 lb) double deckers with more HP than those things.
