What does everyone think about the Green Goat, the Green Kid and CINGL? I'm excited about the possibilities here both in cost reduction and fueland environmental savings. I think that modern Diesel Electric locomotives are a much more cost effective and easier to work with technology for implementing hybridization compared to automobiles. Think about it, the very nature of the Electric transmission is the first stumbling block hybrid cars have been struggling to overcome. The electrics are already there. Granted, battery life is the paramount issue, but size and fixed distance runs makes it much easier to understand usage and expected battery life. What really excites me is the possibility to reuse aging hardware. Railroads already make slugs. even road slugs. Imagine a slug with batteries in it so the mother's prime mover is really only providing a portion of the electrical effort. suddenly a 3000HP GP-40 with slug becomes the equivelent of a 4000 HP loco. The only major drawback I see is mountain railroading. The strain on the powercells would be tremendous, but a world where gasguzzling polluting expensive deisels are only use din the roughest tarrain is still a brighter future. What does everyone else think? Sure, the black soot coming of an Alco is memorable, but in terms of real economics and moving forward, I think this could be the next breakthrough.
BNSF tried out one of these hybrid units from GE on Crawford Hill last summer. It was MUed to a helper set. It made it halfway up the hill on its' first shove when the reserve batteries blew up in it! It was set out and later picked up dead in tow for transit back to Erie PA.
Like I said, it's not completely there yet, and certainly not for mountain railroading. but what about flat areas and such?
I think it has some application in yard switching which seems to be the route RailPower is taking in its marketing. As for long hauls over the road replacing SD70's and AC4400's I think we have a long wait. The power density is just not there. It would proabably be easier/faster to electrify the railroads. But that seems to be too cost prohibitive too. What we need is dilithium crystals!
