Union Pacific to buy 20 battery-electric locomotives for yard service

https://railfan.com/union-pacific-to-buy-20-battery-electric-locomotives/

by geox • 4 years ago

131 179 4 years ago

Stevvo• 4 years ago

So ridiculous. Is private rail so dysfunctional that it actually makes sense to buy battery-electric locomotives in the US instead of installing overhead wires?

mushufasa• 4 years ago

maybe this is an incremental strategy plan: have battery power and future ability to also use wires, so that you can operate in situations where there is less than 100% coverage

jeffbee2• 4 years ago

This is for yard traffic. It makes sense to me. Which part doesn't make sense to you? For ports where they are double-stacking containers onto well cars, overhead wiring would be challenging, and you still need all-new locomotives.

gsnedders4• 4 years ago

For ports where they are double-stacking containers onto well cars, overhead wiring would be challenging, and you still need all-new locomotives.

That's not really a big challenge; this is something done globally on a daily basis. Typically you either have an entirely unelectrified siding and shunt in/out of it, or you have only the near end of the siding electrified and propel the cars into the siding.

gok3• 4 years ago

There are around 300,000 km of active rail in the US, essentially none of which is electrified. Then there are 10s of thousands of diesel locomotives that would need to be all replaced. This would cost trillions of dollars, more than any reasonable estimate of rail revenue for the several decades. Then those overhead wires would need to be maintained, which is much more expensive than just keeping rails functional.

dylan604• 4 years ago

Aren't they diesel-electric though? It's not like a diesel engine is turning the wheels. The diesel is just power the electric motor driving the wheels, or are these not the norm?

projektfu• 4 years ago

There's almost certainly a power law applying to which tracks are getting the most use. If you can electrify 50% of traffic you would make a great upgrade, and it wouldn't require anything near 150,000km of track.

trothamel2• 4 years ago

https://scag.ca.gov/sites/main/files/file-attachments/crgmsa...

According to this study from 2012, the cost of electrifying railroads in California is about $4.8M/track mile, and according to google, there are about 140,000 route miles of freight rail in the US.

I'd assume that doing this in bulk might drop the costs substantially, but we're still talking about a huge network.

bobthepanda8• 4 years ago

It's not necessarily doing it in bulk that would make it cheap, it's basically turning it into an assembly line capable of doing a small amount of miles every year for ever cheaper cost.

American infrastructure projects tend to be super big, then don't do anything for 10+ years before you kickstart everything up again. This is a fairly poor idea if you want to keep knowledge around from the last time it was done.

jsnodlin3• 4 years ago

Yes. It’s much, much cheaper to carry power with you rather than electrify hundreds of thousands of miles of rail.

Aloha4• 4 years ago

Indeed.

Nevermind how vastly more expensive MOW costs are for electrified lines.

deepsun3• 4 years ago

hundreds of thousands

You missed the point, that those locomotives will only be used in the yard (shuffling wagons). It's not gonna work to long-haul using battery power (too low power density).

NoSorryCannot• 4 years ago

I wonder what the economies are of splitting the difference between total electrification and battery power.

Strategically-located sections of electrified rail to charge trains as they pass through without stopping. Retractable catenary so still compatible with existing clearances. I'm sure someone has had this idea before.

You might not need nearly so much infrastructure, but you invite bottleneck congestion.

MattGaiser2• 4 years ago

If you want to do things incrementally it makes perfect sense.

xeromal• 4 years ago

Not sure if you realize how huge the US is, but overhead wire would be a ridiculously expensive effort for not much benefit.

konschubert• 4 years ago

The US has a much higher percentage of freight transported by rail than the EU. I would not be so dismissive of their way of operation.

jcranmer2• 4 years ago

It would cost hundreds of billions of dollars to string up the overhead wire by themselves, and that's using the lowest cost electrification jobs done world-wide. It would cost hundreds of billions more to actually clear bridges and tunnels for the extra height needed for catenary. Then you'd have to actually buy all of the locomotives (not even going to speculate there). And then there's probably significant extra cost in building out transmission infrastructure to the railroad tracks--I'd guess there's large slices of the West where there's nothing around nearby you could hook traction substations up to. All-in-all, you're talking about a trillion-dollar investment to do so.

At the same time... the performance benefits really aren't worth it for freight trains. Remember that diesel locomotives are already an electric drivetrain--the diesel is merely fueling a generator that's sitting on board to power the drivetrain. The big savings with electrification come with weight reduction--and with freight, the weight of the locomotive is a small component of that weight--or using EMUs that let you have every wheel being powered (and with freight cars, that's again never going to happen).

MisterTea• 4 years ago

How does the overhead wire adjust height to compensate for varying car heights in the case of double stacked intermodal cars? An overhead cable is a limiting factor.

throwawayboise4• 4 years ago

It needs to be high enough to clear the tallest cars (plus enough distance to prevent arcing), and then the pantograph pickup on the locomotives needs to be tall enough to reach the overhead wires.

foooobaba• 4 years ago

UP is a freight railroad and has around 32k miles of track, and about 10k trains. Also, they need to operate 24/7 in harsh conditions all throughout the US, west of Mississippi river, so very hot and cold, mountains, desert ect.

bluGill4• 4 years ago

Yes. Overhead wires make the value of the rail go up and so the taxes the railroads pay is more and thus it isn't worth it.

For the busy routes it would still be worth it, but the is a lot of used just often enough to not abandon the tracks rail. Electric is all or nothing (not 100%,but close) in that if even a small line isn't electric you only run diesel engines so you can run trains one that one line.

It is easier to load and unload without electric overhead.

Still if the cost of diesel went to $15/gallon the us would put up those wires, but until then diesel is cheaper. Don't forget to adjust for inflation.

exhilaration• 4 years ago

Does anyone know who's manufacturing these locomotives? I'm surprised they didn't name a manufacturing partner. I have to assume it's not a US company.

MattGaiser2• 4 years ago

The railroad will spend $100 million on the Progress Rail-built locomotives and other infrastructure improvements, the largest investment into the technology ever made by a Class I railroad.

Progress Rail is at least building them.

SideburnsOfDoom• 4 years ago

That seems correct. Google also found this:

https://www.progressrail.com/en/Company/News/PressReleases/C...

Union Pacific Railroad will purchase 10 battery-electric locomotives from Progress Rail, a Caterpillar Company.

gsnedders4• 4 years ago

Specifically, they are these: https://www.progressrail.com/en/Segments/RollingStock/Locomo...

donarb2• 4 years ago

Progress Rail along with Wabtec (originally Westinghouse).

sixothree• 4 years ago

Who are they buying them from?

Aloha4• 4 years ago

Progress Rail

PaulDavisThe1st• 4 years ago

Well, that at least explains why they laid off so many of their private security personnel, and then helped shaped the "LA train crime" story to their advantage. Those battery-electric locomotives are not cheap.

[ EDIT: have any of you downvoting this actually read the backstory to the LA train crime story? Here are some links to the layoff part:

https://jalopnik.com/union-pacific-train-thefts-started-righ...

https://www.lataco.com/union-pacific-theft-police-laid-off/

]

bobthepanda8• 4 years ago

The lede is a bit buried here:

Union Pacific plans to purchase 20 battery-electric locomotives for yard service

If all they're doing is moving around a yard, they're not ever very far from a charging station and they're moving at very low speeds.

Aloha4• 4 years ago

Indeed, switching is a perfect application for this technology.

rPlayer6554• 4 years ago

It's an initial step. I'm not sure if the technology would work for their main routes, but this at least is a step to test and evaluate how this technology works.

bobthepanda8• 4 years ago

I'm not saying that this isn't a good step, but the headline just clipped off a pretty important piece of it.

toomuchtodo3• 4 years ago

Main routes are better served by combusting manufactured carbon neutral fuels airlines (United recently flew a route with 1 engine burning this fuel) are testing, using hybrid locomotives with smaller batteries for kinetic buffers. A big Chevy Volt essentially.

Electrifying US rail outside of switchyards won’t ever be practical, unless you could drive down the cost of electrified tracks with a third rail (overhead electric at this scale would be obscenely expensive).

api• 4 years ago

Put overhead lines on even sections of long range rail lines and you could use it for long haul. Battery could be used to bridge between sections with power.

seanp2k24• 4 years ago

Then generate power at a coal or natural gas power plant. Until we get further along with renewables, the total environmental impact of replacing everything with electric today probably isn’t worth it.

Example: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/when-d...

I remember having a heated discussion with someone about this at work, and it came down to where you were charging that Tesla and if you had rooftop solar (not even discussing the environmental impact of mfg + shipping + installation + support + useable lifetime of the solar panels, home batteries, and support accessories).

And at the end of the day, moving around a 5000# Tesla or 6500# F150 Lightning takes a lot more power in any form than a 3400# Civic / Camry.

seanp2k24• 4 years ago

Yep, battery energy density is still far off from fossil fuels.

This is from 2012 but still relevant and why we don’t have electric commercial passenger planes, and probably never will until we make 10x gains in energy density:

“”” Stored energy in fuel is considerable: gasoline is the champion at 47.5 MJ/kg and 34.6 MJ/liter; the gasoline in a fully fueled car has the same energy content as a thousand sticks of dynamite. A lithium-ion battery pack has about 0.3 MJ/kg and about 0.4 MJ/liter (Chevy VOLT). Gasoline thus has about 100 times the energy density of a lithium-ion battery. This difference in energy density is partially mitigated by the very high efficiency of an electric motor in converting energy stored in the battery to making the car move: it is typically 60-80 percent efficient. The efficiency of an internal combustion engine in converting the energy stored in gasoline to making the car move is typically 15 percent (EPA 2012). With the ratio about 5, a battery with an energy storage density 1/5 of that of gasoline would have the same range as a gasoline-powered car. We are not even close to this at present. “””

https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201208/backpage.cfm

atlasunshrugged3• 4 years ago

Part of the issue is not just the density of the fuel but also the fact that the weight remains the same no matter how much of it you use. With gasoline/coal/etc. when you use the product it then decreases the weight of the amount of fuel stored, you don't get that loss with batteries so while you get "additional" gains with e.g. aviation fuel the further you are along your trip and the more you've burned, you don't get that with batteries.

nradov• 4 years ago

Eviation is about to start testing a prototype small electric commercial passenger airplane. It will only be suitable for short flights with a few passengers, and it's not clear whether the economics will work out.

https://www.flyingmag.com/alice-electric-commuter-airplane-p...

For larger airliners there could eventually be a role for plug-in hybrid propulsion systems. Use a fairly small battery pack and electric motors to augment the turbines during take-off and climb, then switch them off during cruise. There would be a weight penalty but it might deliver a net fuel savings for shorter flights.

epistasis3• 4 years ago

While I agree about aviation, rail is an entirely different problem, and big heavy things move great.

For freight in the US, the worst case segment I know about is ~700 miles. This can be handled with about 400-500 feet of battery cars, which is probably 5%-10% of train length. So the worst possible scenario is pretty close to feasibility with current tech.

If railroads were to start investing in this level of battery, beyond saving a lot of fuel costs, they'd have a couple hundred MWh of battery at every rail station. This would be a significant grid asset, at least at the moment. In a decade, that level of storage is probably going to be extremely common. But in any case, there's significant opportunity for demand response payments, if not using the batteries for replacing peaking power on the grid.

donarb2• 4 years ago

Yard service is a perfect application for these types of locomotives. Diesel fired locomotives tend to sit around idling and burning fuel many more hours than they are being used every day. Diesel locos also tend to not be very fuel efficient when constantly stopping/starting around the yard.

zeusk• 4 years ago

AFAIK, most "diesel locos" are really diesel electric, with the diesel engine feeding a generator. Hybridization of locomotives seems like a no brainer since they can recover so much more energy with regenerative braking and can plan for braking to be recovery efficient.

Animats2• 4 years ago

These new locomotives are from Progress Rail, division of Caterpillar, and from Wabtec, which is Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies, 150 years old. They're just Diesel-electric platforms with batteries replacing the Diesel.

"Replacing" may be just that. Few locomotives are built for yard work today. Most US switchers are old road locomotives, often half a century old. Sometimes they have a new power package. Progress Rail started as a locomotive rebuilder, changing out power packages for new ones, usually Caterpillar Diesels. Their electric seems to be a repower job of a classic General Motors Electro-Motive Division GT. Here's a video of their standard new Diesel repower job.[1]

Lithium iron phosphate batteries, at least in the Progress Rail version. The heavier weight of lithium iron phosphate is a feature, not a bug, in a locomotive. Locomotives are built heavy to improve traction.

The end result is not just a yard locomotive. Some of these are in test elsewhere for short-haul lines. Range maybe 300 miles.

Another boring, but useful, technology, from old-line industrial companies. This is what makes the world go.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Kth3i2PGE0

scsilver• 4 years ago

Awesome, love to see this tech develop in these yards and expand as viable.

dang• 4 years ago

Ok, we've unearthed the lede in the title above. Thanks!

stubish• 4 years ago

Progress also make freight trains, which is a bit more impressive than shuffling railcars around (easily electrified) yards:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30113639

deepsun3• 4 years ago

Locomotives would also have much easier time using hydrogen fuel cells. They already have fixed custom gas stations.

KennyBlanken3• 4 years ago

Switching to fuel cells would only achieve a slight efficiency improvement; large diesels are pretty efficient.

Trying to maintain hydrogen fuel systems in railroad environments would be a nightmare; hydrogen leaks out of everything. What it doesn't leak out of, it embrittles.

Fuel cells require ultra-pure source gasses, not something you really find in railroad environments.

It seemed like the future 2-3 decades ago but it just hasn't matured sufficiently, and we'd have to develop an entirely new production and distribution chain for it.

deepsun3• 4 years ago

Leaks -- yes, but it's much easier to maintain in regularly professionally maintained commercial-only bulk equipment, than in personal cars and garages.

Embrittlement is a known problem, and pretty much any alloy of steel helps against it. Various coatings are used as well (e.g. organic compounds). It's a well-researched area, so it's possible to estimate and engineer around it.

Re. ultra-pure source gasses, I don't know, maybe, but I don't see any difference with gasoline or Jet-A fuels. Airports aren't ultra-clean environments either.

_hypx2• 4 years ago

It's already happening: https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/cp-to-buil...

You're just outdated on your info.

csours• 4 years ago

Disclosure: I work for GM, not on this.

https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/gm-sup...

_hypx2• 4 years ago

Other companies are buying hydrogen locomotives: https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/cp-to-buil...

ethagknight2• 4 years ago

Since current locomotives are diesel electric hybrids anyway, seems like US Railroads could electrify certain potions of track, maybe steep changes in grade or places where trains frequently stop/start, yielding an opportunity to cut diesel consumption 50% or more on certain routes, since maintaining speed requires modest effort.

Also, while reduced fuel consumption is nice, another major beneficiary would be the environment, specifically when operating in urban centers. I’ve lived near heavy-use railways and currently a switching yard for most of my life, and some days the diesel exhaust is quite strong, depending on the prevailing winds. The engines are usually pretty clean burning for the amount of work they produce, but not always…

tamcap• 4 years ago

"another major beneficiary would be the environment, specifically when operating in urban centers"

But you see, they don't care. If there is no incentive for them to do it, why would they? Good neighborhood-will will pay for a donation to a local charity cause, etc, but will not make meaningful expensive changes to the SOP.

Ideally this is the point where a regulator (of some kind) steps in and nudges the change. We all know what the political problems behind that are - despite mounting evidence of how damaging diesel exhaust particles are to us, and our children.

ethagknight2• 4 years ago

You are correct, i started to make the point that the environmental argument is probably the best way for legislation to coerce Railroads to modernize where it makes sense. Rather than paint the Railroads as baddies, makes more sense to approach the narrative collaboratively, that technology and some thoughtful complexity could help them save a lot of money and save our lungs along the way.

bell-cot• 4 years ago

An un-mentioned advantage for battery-electric locomotives, especially for yard duty - trains are already composed of many heavy modules (locomotives and freight cars) which are pretty quick & easy to switch in & out. If (at least to start) you put the batteries in old gondola cars (roughly, a flat car with low sides, designed to carry heavy scrap metal & such), then it'd be easy to have a few "battery cars" charging on a special siding somewhere, while the locomotive and currently-in-use battery car are working.

Side note on supplying power to battery-electric locomotives from overhead wires (via pantographs): The railroad industry has a lot of experience with pantographs, overhead wires, and the infrastructures needed to power said overhead wires. That stuff is expensive to build and maintain. And if your RR depends on it, then you can be utterly screwed when a large blackout occurs. Or (say) when all the power lines in an area have to be turned off, because the wildfire danger level is too high.

seanmcdirmid• 4 years ago

I've seen (non-passenger) railroad yards in Switzerland, and they seem to get along fine with overhead wires. But the infrastructure there is much better in the USA, I get why we can't do it here (nor in Canada or in Australia for many routes).

CalChris• 4 years ago

Interesting. The EMDJoule locomotives use regenerative braking.

https://www.progressrail.com/en/Segments/RollingStock/Locomo...

The batteries are 1,800 kWh or about 18,000 kilo-Teslas.

dreamcompiler2• 4 years ago

Here's a Wabtec video [0] about their battery-electric locomotive. They are not limited to yard service; they're also marketing them as "hybrid consist" pullers, which means that if you team them with a standard diesel-electric locomotive they reduce the diesel fuel needed to pull the train and they capture some of the train's braking energy to recharge the batteries.

Left unstated is whether the diesel-electric locomotive in the consist could recharge the batteries of the battery-electric locomotive as the train is rolling. I expect it could but it's probably pointless because it's more efficient to let the diesel-electric pull the train.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIgmNOxa5aI

dtgriscom• 4 years ago

Well, if you could store electricity from the diesel to the batteries on a level run, then you could use the stored electricity to help the diesel up a hill.

dreamcompiler2• 4 years ago

It's almost certainly possible to create dedicated "battery cars" to extend the range of these locomotives enough to use them on long-haul trains. I expect the only downside of that today is cost, but as batteries get cheaper it will probably become a common thing.

sandworm101• 4 years ago

Only if they can be charged. Many rail yards are in remote locations. A battery-powered train is useless if you are charging it using diesel generators because your rail yard doesnt have enough grid capacity.

snowgrove• 4 years ago

Not the first “fireless locomotive” to see service in railyards. Historical versions ran on steam reservoirs or compressed air, replenished by a central power plant. Some are still in use today:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fireless_locomotive

swamp_cypress• 4 years ago

I would have thought it was easier to electrify the yard and use pure electric powered prime movers instead.

Union Pacific to buy 20 battery-electric locomotives for yard service

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