TORONTO — To build a better locomotive, you used to give it more speed and brawn. Now, you have to give it brains, too, according to the Toronto Star.
Across the country, both passenger and freight trains are being hauled by a new generation of locomotives that think. At the core of these “smart trains” are microchips, microprocessors and coded data transmission systems that deliver greater reliability, speed and pulling power.
In VIA Rail Canada 906, these technologies meet the need for speed. It is a P-42 or Genesis locomotive, one of 21 built last fall by General Electric in Erie, Pa. Sitting in the train shed of Toronto’s Union Station, on Windsor-bound VIA train 73, 906’s rakish exterior hints at the advanced technology under the hood.
Inside its teal, yellow and gray skin, that’s more apparent in the three glowing computer displays spread across the cab’s control console.
“Okay, VIA 73, you’re all right to leave,” radios the train movement director atop the John St. signal tower. When the engineer pulls back on the sleek beast’s throttle and releases the brakes, the display screens awaken with a stream of changing data: revolutions per minute on the main crankshaft; air pressure flowing through the brake lines; electricity being generated to pull, illuminate and air condition the train.
Those digital displays also indicate 906’s microprocessors are thinking about the engineer’s command. They decide how to convert its 4,250 diesel horsepower into electricity and feed it to the four traction motors geared to 906’s eight wheels. It’s like using a computer to control a mobile electrical generating station.
That doesn’t sit well with 906’s engineer. He doesn’t like the delay the microprocessors create as they translate his commands into the smoothest, most energy-efficient actions.
“A different breed of cat?” he asks. “I’d call them a different breed of rat.”
For more than half a century, Canadian railroaders have worked with diesel-electric locomotives equipped with heavy-duty, electro-mechanical control gear that arced, sparked and barked as their iron steeds took their orders without thinking.
It’s like adjusting to a car with an automatic transmission.
On a standard, the driver gets the sensation of being directly connected to the car through the stick shift and the clutch, accelerator and brake pedals, feeling an instant response. With the automatic, the driver adjusts to the techno-culture shock of letting the transmission shift gears.
“In both operations and maintenance, these locomotives are different from what they’re used to dealing with,” admits John Marginson, vice-president of VIA’s capital program and business development. “As they get accustomed to them, they’ll understand the benefits of that microprocessor technology. They’re smooth, fast and fuel efficient.”
Marginson points out the Genesis locomotives aren’t “technology for technology’s sake.” They deliver what VIA needs to provide 160 km/h rail services that will cut trip times, reduce costs and attract passengers. They’ve proved that in millions of miles of service on Amtrak, the U.S. equivalent of VIA.
Says Marginson, “As well as the higher degree of precision and reliability, you can do a lot of neat things thanks to the microprocessors. If you’re hauling a three-car train of our new Renaissance equipment instead of six, you don’t need as much electricity to light, cool or heat the coaches. The microprocessors sense the difference. They cut it back or divert it to the traction motors.”
He adds that, if VIA gets the go-ahead on Transport Minister David Collenette’s rail passenger growth plan, these high-tech locomotives will help realize the minister’s dream of expanded, 180 km/h rail passenger service. That wouldn’t be possible with the 1980s vintage, non-computerized workhorses previously in VIA’s stable.
VIA uses computer brainpower to give its locomotives the edge on speed. The Canadian Pacific Railway uses it to get more oomph. Since 1995, the CPR has spent more than $1 billion for 386 high-tech, high-adhesion freight haulers; 46 more have been ordered from GE.
Dave Meyler, the CPR’s general manager of technical support, says the microprocessors on these 432 locomotives are evolutionary replacements for the mechanical command and control systems on earlier locomotives.
“You’re just replacing a huge amount of hardware with compact, high-end, Pentium-type microprocessors and software,” says Meyler. “But that software allows you to do more revolutionary things, such as replacing direct current traction motors with alternating current.”
AC power is a more sophisticated system that demands switchgear that responds instantly in a way mechanical equipment can’t. DC-powered locomotives cost about $250,000 less per locomotive than AC, but are costlier to maintain and more prone to failure. Meyler says the combination of microprocessors with AC power produces a locomotive that is more reliable and efficient, converting a higher percentage of its weight and horsepower to pulling power.
Flame red CPR locomotives 9606 and 8564 have that power. On a brisk afternoon, the two GE AC4400CW locomotives are at Lambton Yard in west-end Toronto on Chicago-bound train 417. It consists of 78 empty freight cars and 14 loads, including newsprint for the Chicago Tribune. A train this size required three DC diesels. Even so, at 8,800 horsepower, this one is overpowered. The second locomotive is taken off line for this segment of the journey, making 9606 single-handedly pull 92 cars weighing in at 4,240 tons.
“We’re not high priority, so we’re restricted to 70 km/h to conserve fuel,” says engineer Shawn Humphrey as he opens the throttle and 9606 interprets his command to move. “But she’ll be working hard when we hit the grade west of Milton.”
Climbing the Campbellville notch through the Niagara Escarpment, 9606’s 16-cylinder diesel engine roars and the traction motors whine angrily as they deliver their maximum pulling power, known as tractive effort. This is the force driven down through the locomotive’s 12 wheels to grip the rails.
The microprocessors watch for wheel slip as 9606 claws at the hill. They instantly spray a thin layer of sand on the rails and redirect power from wheels that are slipping to those that are gripping. This prevents searing the rails, flattening the wheels and stalling the train.
Cresting the grade, Humphrey puts 9606 into dynamic braking mode, a system that minimizes the use of the air brakes to reduce thermal wear and tear on the train’s 1,520 brake shoes, 16 per car, 24 on each locomotive. The traction motors become generators, resisting the weight of the train as gravity pulls it down the hill. It’s like the driver of a manual transmission car shifting down to use the car’s engine as a brake.
On 9606, this generates electricity that is sent to a giant, toaster-like grid, where it is converted to heat and vented out the locomotive’s roof. A microprocessor controls this, too, and delivers more than twice as much dynamic braking as older locomotives.
With grades twice as severe over the western mountains than on rival Canadian National’s lines, these traction and braking improvements are blessings to the CPR. Meyler says the new locomotives basically flatten the mountains, ending the previous practice of adding more and more locomotives as the grades get steeper.
Adds Meyler, “You can go further through distributed power, putting locomotives part way down or at the tail end of the train. The additional units are controlled by a Locotrol coded radio transmission system relaying command data from the lead locomotive. You save money by operating fewer locomotives on fewer trains that are longer and heavier.”
Distributed power also reduces the stress on the couplers joining the freight cars together, keeping the slack between them properly bunched or stretched as the train accelerates, brakes and goes over hills. This prevents damage to freight. As well, adding too many locomotives at the head end creates dynamic forces powerful enough to rip the couplers out of the cars.
Used on 15,000-ton western coal trains, distributed power will be applied to transcontinental freight trains to and from Toronto, beginning early in 2003. These new technologies also give the CPR a better grip on train management, maintenance downtime and costs. They create data capture tools to analyze and improve deployment of the locomotive fleet.
Sitting in the cab of one of 9606’s siblings, about to take 5,574 tons of automobiles and containers to western Canada, CPR road manager Doug Elen says, “I can plug my laptop into the event recorder and download every detail of the locomotive’s movement over the last seven days. I can check speed, fuel consumption and every throttle and brake action the engineer has taken.”
CPR operations managers, working with train performance software, use this data to design the most fuel-efficient methods and speeds for operating the trains, as well as accurately matching horsepower to tonnage and scheduling maintenance.
This self-diagnostic electronic sleuthing pays off in reduced maintenance time and costs, says CPR mechanical specialist Eric Schmidt, as he stands inside the locomotive’s spotless electrical room. The computers troubleshoot the locomotives during visits to the diesel shop. In emergencies, they can also produce data out on the main line for radio relay to the “diesel doctors” stationed at the network management centres in Calgary and Montreal. The CPR has tested a GE global positioning satellite system that does this automatically.
Schmidt says, “It’s probably like the difference between working on an Airbus and an old DC-9. By punching in various codes, they tell you what’s wrong with them or how they’re behaving and where they’re going to need some attention. You spend a lot less time hunting for problems and they spend less time in the shop.”
The payoff on the CPR’s $1 billion investment in microprocessor-equipped, AC traction locomotives? They’ve replaced about 700 older models, reducing the fleet by almost 300. The high-tech growlers with the big golden beaver decals on their flanks have also improved reliability and on-time performance. Since 1996, they’ve reduced fuel consumption by 21 per cent while freight volume has grown by 15 per cent.
Says Meyler, “You don’t have to be an economist to figure out the return on that investment.”