Solutionary Rail's recommendations to federal rail regulators at the Surface Transportation Board (STB) connect the dots on mode shift and electrification, public interests vs Wall St. greed.
FYI friends - The STB video had a tiny thumbnail and then the slides did not advance as planned. So, after my last meeting at the Senate, I edited a version to get you the slides. But then I uploaded the old version... Ugh. I am in the Dulles Airport about to board - fingers crossed - the new edit will appear soon. It's been an exciting trip and I've been honored to have the company, help and solidarity of members of the Moving Forward Network team.
Many nations hold their railroads as a public asset. We should be easing our way towards public railroads. We could also use the idea to put railroads under pressure to advance the broader public interest.
The most urgent one is that there is a scheme where storage batteries are the size, shape, and weight of shipping containers. I will dig up the details if somebody is interested. The scheme is: you have a solar farm or a wind farm or some other primary source of electricity that is near a railroad track. Storage batteries are charged, loaded on a train just like any other container, sent to their destination, unloaded, plugged into the grid there, and drained into the local grid. Once drained of every coulomb, the storage battery is loaded on a train and sent back to get recharged. This scheme requires no fixed infrastructure other than track at each end, the wind or sun farm, and the wiring.
I looked at the heat map of San Bernardino and realized that switching in a yard is an ideal first application for a battery powered locomotive. If anything goes wrong with the locomotive, it will be easy to find, recover, repair, and return to service. This was the first assignment for the first diesel locomotives. The microclimate around San Bernardino is such that it would be a "large bang for the buck" demonstration.
Finally, one of the advantages of national toll railroad, as I understand it, is it makes reciprocal switching agreements easy to create. The is no contract between railroads. The railroad has a contract with the infrastructure company which allows it to pay some money in exchange for the right to go from one track to another track at a certain date and time.
That was a very nice presentation. We will see what comes out of it.
I exchanged E-mail messages with ESS inc. They are aware of the possibility of moving electricity by rail.
Unfortunately, their batteries are not vibration resistant. I can how that would be a major problem. If the electrolyte in a battery broke down, then there would be a current flow, perhaps a very large current flow, between the plates of the battery. I can see that would cause a catastrophic fire. So this is not a good idea.
FYI friends - The STB video had a tiny thumbnail and then the slides did not advance as planned. So, after my last meeting at the Senate, I edited a version to get you the slides. But then I uploaded the old version... Ugh. I am in the Dulles Airport about to board - fingers crossed - the new edit will appear soon. It's been an exciting trip and I've been honored to have the company, help and solidarity of members of the Moving Forward Network team.
Forward Together!
Bill
Many nations hold their railroads as a public asset. We should be easing our way towards public railroads. We could also use the idea to put railroads under pressure to advance the broader public interest.
A couple of comments.
The most urgent one is that there is a scheme where storage batteries are the size, shape, and weight of shipping containers. I will dig up the details if somebody is interested. The scheme is: you have a solar farm or a wind farm or some other primary source of electricity that is near a railroad track. Storage batteries are charged, loaded on a train just like any other container, sent to their destination, unloaded, plugged into the grid there, and drained into the local grid. Once drained of every coulomb, the storage battery is loaded on a train and sent back to get recharged. This scheme requires no fixed infrastructure other than track at each end, the wind or sun farm, and the wiring.
I looked at the heat map of San Bernardino and realized that switching in a yard is an ideal first application for a battery powered locomotive. If anything goes wrong with the locomotive, it will be easy to find, recover, repair, and return to service. This was the first assignment for the first diesel locomotives. The microclimate around San Bernardino is such that it would be a "large bang for the buck" demonstration.
Finally, one of the advantages of national toll railroad, as I understand it, is it makes reciprocal switching agreements easy to create. The is no contract between railroads. The railroad has a contract with the infrastructure company which allows it to pay some money in exchange for the right to go from one track to another track at a certain date and time.
That was a very nice presentation. We will see what comes out of it.
Jeff
I exchanged E-mail messages with ESS inc. They are aware of the possibility of moving electricity by rail.
Unfortunately, their batteries are not vibration resistant. I can how that would be a major problem. If the electrolyte in a battery broke down, then there would be a current flow, perhaps a very large current flow, between the plates of the battery. I can see that would cause a catastrophic fire. So this is not a good idea.