Re: Fate of 85/86 class

["chris@enet21.com.au" <chris@enet21.com.au>]

this may not be relevant but did anybody else email R Carr  and  the  greens
with the email address I gave earlier?

Greg Hunter wrote:

> Maybe this newsgroup has had a win - FreightCorp has started running elec
> hauled coal trains from the Blue Mtns to Pt Kembla again.
> There was one 4 loco train on 8/2 (about 0145 through Sutherland) and two
> on 9/2  (0130 & 2130)
>
> Just to answer some of the recent questions:
>
> To move equal size trains over the same route, electricity costs about 1/4
> to 1/3 that of diesel fuel. But the savings in fuel costs must be enough to
> cover the Capital and maintenance costs of the electrical infrastructure.
> For new electrification, this is only likely to break even if you're moving
>  over about 50 million tonnes pa.(maybe a bit less)
>
> But for using 85/86s under existing wire, it's pure savings.(assuming FC
> aren't being charged anything for the maintenance of the wire - I don't
> know about this)
> To take 3500 tonnes from Lithgow to Pt Kembla and the empties back again,
> uses about $800 worth of electricity at current rates. (expected to rise by
> about 20% soon.) So the savings over diesel would be around $2500 per trip.
>
> Apparently FreightCorp reckons this amount doesn't cover the cost of
> changing locos twice at Lithgow. Hmmm?
>
> Others have mentioned that the 1500V system limits the number of locos you
> can ultimately use and that the losses in a dc system are must larger than
> a high voltage system.
> The first bit is true - the Como- Heathcote section can handle 9 megawatt
> trains (12,000 HP) of 4 electric locos in series parallel.  And this is
> about as big as any 1500V system could ever go.
>
> The losses in the two systems, running big trains, are not all that
> different and not really significant in either case. Electrical systems are
> designed to be pushed to their limit by single big trains and ultimately
> this means big losses for short times. For the 4 loco trains on the Como
> bank losses on the dc system are about 13% but on the overall return trip
> less than 5% all up.
> An AC system would be designed for the volts to fall to maybe 18 kV so the
> losses would be not that much less than dc.
>
> Greg