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Train Cancelled Due To High Pollen Count

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A0

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I beg to differ - it is largely about engine power.

A diesel engine is around 30-40% efficient - depending on load and engine speed - at turning the chemical energy in the fuel to useful work in moving the train. Ignoring the heat lost through the exhaust gases this means that some 60-70% of the energy in the fuel has to be dumped by the cooling system. So a 500bhp engine has to dump over 1000hp worth of heat through the radiators.

Because of the limited space available for underfloor engines the radiators are constrained in size - which means that in order to dump these quantities of heat on a hot day the cooling system has to work very effectively. Any reduction in the ability of the cooler group to dump the heat will be noticeable.

Unlike road vehicles there is no ram effect in trains where the vehicle's forward motion forces air through the radiator. In road vehicles the fan is often only needed when the vehicle is stationary or slow moving whereas the only way that air is drawn through the radiator matrix in a rail vehicle is by a fan.

Cars only use much or all of their maximum engine power when accelerating - and this only last a few seconds (0 to 60mph in 10 seconds or less...). At constant speed the engine power needed is in the order of a few tens of horsepower so the quantity of unuseable heat which needs to be dumped is comparatively small - in the order of 100hp or so. Lorries are slightly different in that high or maximum engine power is needed for longer periods or when climbing long inclines - these are more akin to rail vehicles and the radiators are sized to cope.

I am not surprised that difficulties arise in the cooling of underfloor engines in hot, dusty weather.

You miss the point - if you go back to the old DMUs they were running engines like the Leyland 600 / 680 which were 11 litres but only generating 150hp.

Now 150 hp is in the ballpark of most family cars nowadays, yet their cooling needs are far less in part because they are doing it with 1.5 - 2 litre engines.

The basic fuel / air requirements of an engine are normally greater the larger the engine is - so whilst power output may also be a factor, the reality is an 11 litre engine is going to have a greater demand for fuel and air as well as cooling demands than a 1 litre.
 
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Horizon22

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Well, for one, the engines on road vehicles tend to be smaller and less powerful (less heat). Taking the most popular cars at the moment (by registration) such as the Vauxhall Corsa and Ford Fiesta you're looking at between 70 and 140 horsepower (there is a very sporty model of Fiesta that 197 but I think it's safe to assume most Fiesta are using more stock engines!). Even for something a bit bigger like a Mercedes-Benz A Class or Nissan Qashqai you're talking between 100 and 300 horsepower (with some of the premium engine configurations on the Mercedes getting up to 400).

Meanwhile the 195 has over 500 horsepower whilst the 80xs and 180s are pushing 750 horsepower (though they may be de-rated below level usually). These are big powerful (hot) engines. We're then cramming them into a space which is basically a tiny box under the floor where there is some natural ventilation and trying to cram in radiators and all the associated cooling systems around them. Which means you're need your radiators operating at peak efficiency to make sure they're getting the maximum amount of cooling possible. Meanwhile our car whilst it is also cramming the engine into a small space has the advantage of sticking the radiator right up front with a nice gaping hole meaning that as you go faster more and more air can be rammed through it helping to bleed off more and more heat even as the engine is working harder.

To be honest I think it's a minor miracle that these modern diesel engines are able to be cooled at all outside of cold days!

Indeed and the 80x fleet having generator units out of action is not uncommon and has spiked up a bit again this summer which can lead to short formations, especially if you've got a train on a long diesel run (Penzance for instance).
 

wobman

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I see how pollen and leaves etc have are a big cause of problems for tocs every year, it's an ongoing problem especially in the more rural areas of the rail network.
One 158's the fitters turn up the wick, this keeps the engines fans running constantly through the day. It's very noisy but effective.
I've seen a 175 after just 1 day being taken out of service, the amount of pollen and leaves etc is shocking to see.
The only solution seems to be to jet wash the radiators, to blast out the contamination.

I think if lineside foliage was kept at least 3 metres from a running line, this problem and low adhesion problems would be greatly reduced on the network. Rural lunes especially are very neglected nowadays, it's shocking how bad things are left to get.
 

3141

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No, because GW were operating their 5 at the same time. For some reason I don't recall hearing as many failures of the GW fleet (particularly as OOC knew them well) compared to the Crofton maintained GC & Hull units (though OOC did the heavy stuff on the HT units in the end).
I remember that in about 2011 Grand Central had a problem with 180s somewhere west of Wakefield when large amounts of thistledown were blowing across the track and blocking air filters on the engines.
 

IanXC

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No, because GW were operating their 5 at the same time. For some reason I don't recall hearing as many failures of the GW fleet (particularly as OOC knew them well) compared to the Crofton maintained GC & Hull units (though OOC did the heavy stuff on the HT units in the end).

Of course those 5 are now GC sets. I think I'm reading the distinction you're drawing as actually being those maintained at OOC versus those maintained elsewhere?
 

duncanp

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I wonder how long it is going to be before train companies start looking at the pollen forecast and then making announcements like:-

"..Due to high levels of pollen forecast for today, all trains from XXX to YYY are cancelled..."
 

coppercapped

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You miss the point - if you go back to the old DMUs they were running engines like the Leyland 600 / 680 which were 11 litres but only generating 150hp.

Now 150 hp is in the ballpark of most family cars nowadays, yet their cooling needs are far less in part because they are doing it with 1.5 - 2 litre engines.

The basic fuel / air requirements of an engine are normally greater the larger the engine is - so whilst power output may also be a factor, the reality is an 11 litre engine is going to have a greater demand for fuel and air as well as cooling demands than a 1 litre.
You are simply giving specific examples from the general thermodynamics of heat engines.

Heat engines transform thermal energy, or heat, into mechanical energy, or work. They cannot do this perfectly, so some of the input heat energy is not converted into work, but is dissipated as waste heat into the surroundings. The input heat is supplied at high temperature and the rejected heat is dissipated at a lower temperature.

In diesel and petrol engines, and in gas turbines used for surface transport or the generation of electricity, the high temperature heat energy is provided by the conversion of the chemical energy in the fuel by combustion, the useful work comes out through a rotating shaft and the lower temperature waste heat is dumped by the exhaust gases and the cooling system.

The basic theoretical understanding was developed by Sadi Carnot in 1824 and his Theorem states that the maximum efficiency of a heat engine is defined simply by the ratio of the temperature difference between the hot and the cold reservoirs and the temperature of the hot reservoir.

This theoretical maximum value is further reduced by the particular cycle that the engine under discussion uses - the Rankine cycle for steam turbines, the Otto cycle for spark ignition engines or the Diesel cycle for compression ignition engines and so on. Examples of typical engine efficiencies for current designs are 25% for petrol car engines; 35% for a high speed diesel engines; 45% for a large coal-fired electrical generating station and the largest diesel engine in the world, the Wärtsilä RT-flex96C (a two-stroke turbocharged low-speed diesel engine for large container ships which in its largest 14-cylinder version produces over 100,000 hp) peaks at just over 51%.

Taking 35% efficiency for a rail diesel as typical (and ignoring the waste heat dumped in the exhaust gases) a 150bhp diesel engine under a Modernisation plan DMU[1] will need to dump over 400hp worth of heat (nearly 300kW) through its radiators and a 1000bhp (735kW) diesel under an IET will need to dump over 2000kW through its radiators.

Note that it makes not one iota of difference how big the engine is or the number of cylinders or how quickly it runs, thermodynamics is the defining factor in determining the quantity of heat which has to be rejected.

This is why modern designs are more sensitive to the cleanliness of the cooling system — the quantities of heat which need to be dissipated from more powerful engines are so much larger in an underfloor space which is very constrained. Simply look at the space around the engines and cooling groups of even a twin-engined Modernisation Plan DMU and compare it with that available under a modern DMU with its physically larger engines, all the emission control kit and exhaust silencers, transmissions and fuel tanks and realise that three and a half times as much heat has to be removed from less available volume.

[1] Although it should be noted that older engines were less efficient in a thermal sense than modern ones because limitations in materials and combustion processes meant that combustion temperatures were not so high.
 

al78

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I thought this was going to be about a driver suffering a huge attack of hayfever that they couldn't continue. It is the first time I have heard of a train suffering with hayfever :D.
 

eMeS

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You are simply giving specific examples from the general thermodynamics of heat engines.

Heat engines transform thermal energy, or heat, into mechanical energy, or work. They cannot do this perfectly, so some of the input heat energy is not converted into work, but is dissipated as waste heat into the surroundings. The input heat is supplied at high temperature and the rejected heat is dissipated at a lower temperature......
I wish I could remember my thermodynamics lectures (1959-1960) as well as in the above!
 

Deepgreen

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I did have quite bad hayfever yesterday, so can attest.

They used to pillory our old electric trains when powdery snow affected the traction engines.
How old? The 4-SUBs would battle through almost anything, being extremely low-tech, carved from solid iron and unladen with sensitive electronic kit!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==

I beg to differ - it is largely about engine power.

A diesel engine is around 30-40% efficient - depending on load and engine speed - at turning the chemical energy in the fuel to useful work in moving the train. Ignoring the heat lost through the exhaust gases this means that some 60-70% of the energy in the fuel has to be dumped by the cooling system. So a 500bhp engine has to dump over 1000hp worth of heat through the radiators.

Because of the limited space available for underfloor engines the radiators are constrained in size - which means that in order to dump these quantities of heat on a hot day the cooling system has to work very effectively. Any reduction in the ability of the cooler group to dump the heat will be noticeable.

Unlike road vehicles there is no ram effect in trains where the vehicle's forward motion forces air through the radiator. In road vehicles the fan is often only needed when the vehicle is stationary or slow moving whereas the only way that air is drawn through the radiator matrix in a rail vehicle is by a fan.

Cars only use much or all of their maximum engine power when accelerating - and this only last a few seconds (0 to 60mph in 10 seconds or less...). At constant speed the engine power needed is in the order of a few tens of horsepower so the quantity of unuseable heat which needs to be dumped is comparatively small - in the order of 100hp or so. Lorries are slightly different in that high or maximum engine power is needed for longer periods or when climbing long inclines - these are more akin to rail vehicles and the radiators are sized to cope.

I am not surprised that difficulties arise in the cooling of underfloor engines in hot, dusty weather.
Indeed - I'm surprised that wide, flat air intakes aren't provided at roof level on each car of modern DMUs (designed and profiled within loading gauge) to use the ram effect.
 

yorksrob

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How old? The 4-SUBs would battle through almost anything, being extremely low-tech, carved from solid iron and unladen with sensitive electronic kit!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==


Indeed - I'm surprised that wide, flat air intakes aren't provided at roof level on each car of modern DMUs (designed and profiled within loading gauge) to use the ram effect.

I think it was the 1980's, so presumably the later generation of slammers. The thumpers never seemed to struggle though.
 

XAM2175

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Indeed - I'm surprised that wide, flat air intakes aren't provided at roof level on each car of modern DMUs (designed and profiled within loading gauge) to use the ram effect.
I wonder if this is an absolute limitation of loading gauge verses internal ceiling height - many DMUs on the continent and in Australia use roof-mounted cooling groups, for example.
 

ABB125

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the largest diesel engine in the world, the Wärtsilä RT-flex96C (a two-stroke turbocharged low-speed diesel engine for large container ships which in its largest 14-cylinder version produces over 100,000 hp) peaks at just over 51%.
I just had a look at the Wikipedia page for that engine. And it was mind-blowing!
250 tonnes of fuel used per day
A person could easily fit into one of the cylinders, each of which is over 1800 litres
Over 107 000 hp
Imagine one of these in a train... :D

Anyway, back on topic... This engine needs a lot of cooling!
 

coppercapped

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I just had a look at the Wikipedia page for that engine. And it was mind-blowing!
250 tonnes of fuel used per day
A person could easily fit into one of the cylinders, each of which is over 1800 litres
Over 107 000 hp
Imagine one of these in a train... :D

Anyway, back on topic... This engine needs a lot of cooling!
Cooling for ships is easy...the sea is practically infinite and even in the tropics temperatures of more than 25ºC in the depths which can take such a ship are rare. For a ship Sadi Carnot's low temperature reservoir can be only a few degrees Celsius which improves the thermal efficiency considerably. This is also one of the reasons that coal-fired power stations — or any thermal power station come to that — are located near rivers or at the seaside...
 
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Meerkat

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Cooling for ships is easy...the sea is practically infinite and even in the tropics temperatures of more than 25ºC in the depths which can take such a ship are rare. For a ship Sadi Carnot's low temperature reservoir can be only a few degrees Celsius which improves the thermal efficiency considerably. This is also one of the reasons that coal-fired power stations are located near rivers...
Why did the Type 45s lose all power when it got too hot then?!
 

VT_Valenta

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Because of a design flaw — not because of the thermodynamics.
Kind of.

The T45 platform uses two Gas turbine alternators to generate a high voltage to push the ship through the water via an electric motor. In order to reduce fuel, a recuperator was fitted to the intake where a percentage of exhaust gasses was taken, mixed with intake air in order to heat the intake air. The hotter the air going in, the less fuel required to get it to combust, hence less fuel.

These recuperators didn't function correctly in a maritime environment. They broke down quicker than anticipated and when the engine experiences a recuperator failure, the engine is 30% less efficient and is unable to reach top power.

The result of this meant the power required to power the ship and move it through the water couldn't be generated by the GTAs alone. It wasn't an economical long term solution to leave it so the PEP upgrade was commisioned in order to rectify the flaws.
 

coppercapped

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Kind of.

The T45 platform uses two Gas turbine alternators to generate a high voltage to push the ship through the water via an electric motor. In order to reduce fuel, a recuperator was fitted to the intake where a percentage of exhaust gasses was taken, mixed with intake air in order to heat the intake air. The hotter the air going in, the less fuel required to get it to combust, hence less fuel.

These recuperators didn't function correctly in a maritime environment. They broke down quicker than anticipated and when the engine experiences a recuperator failure, the engine is 30% less efficient and is unable to reach top power.

The result of this meant the power required to power the ship and move it through the water couldn't be generated by the GTAs alone. It wasn't an economical long term solution to leave it so the PEP upgrade was commisioned in order to rectify the flaws.
In other words — a design (or manufacturing) flaw!

(I presume the recuperator is essentially a heat exchanger in which the hot exhaust gases heat the incoming air. This will reduce the temperature of the exhaust gases and so increase the thermodynamic efficiency of the engine by widening the temperature difference between the hot reservoir - the combustion gases in the turbine - and the cold reservoir, represented by the temperature of the exhaust gases. See Sadi Carnot's theory in my earlier post which describes the absolute maximum efficiency a heat engine can achieve operating between two given temperatures. If the recuperator fails in some way and doesn't work as designed, for example if the air flows are throttled or temperatures are not at the design points, then it will inevitably have an effect on power output or fuel consumption).
 

Grumpy Git

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All sorts of problems can occur to highly stressed engines when the cooling liquid goes above the optimum temperature by even a few degrees C.

I've worked on a motorbike racing team for 20 years and we've seen over 140 bhp from a 600cc engine (0.6 litre), but the reliability is horrendous unless the water temperature is kept below about 85°C and the engine oil below 100°C and that is very difficult. Limit the power to 130 bhp and they are so much more reliable it's almost unbelievable.
 

chiltern trev

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Possibly a location issue, the airflow onto the front of a road vehicle might stop the particles building up, whereas you can't generally put it there on a rail vehicle. I wonder if it's also a problem on rear engined buses, I know in hot weather it was always hardly uncommon to see them with the compartment door open, sometimes even while travelling!

Where the radiator is at the back of the bus, the radiator is typically on the offside for a cleaner airflow than 'gutter debris' on the nearside.

However, on MAN E300s of which Stagecoach have a lot, the radiator is on the nearside, this being a european bus designed to suit left hand drive - MAN just shifted the drivers cab to the uk side and more or less left the rest of the chassis unchanged. I did hear that one batch was bought for use Swindon to Oxford or thereabouts but were replaced on said route after a few months due to overheating reputedly caused by excessive leaf, and dirt and other road debris being thrown up by the rear wheels and airflow from the gutter or more like muddy verge on this particular route clogging the radiator very quickly.
 

Spartacus

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Where the radiator is at the back of the bus, the radiator is typically on the offside for a cleaner airflow than 'gutter debris' on the nearside.

However, on MAN E300s of which Stagecoach have a lot, the radiator is on the nearside, this being a european bus designed to suit left hand drive - MAN just shifted the drivers cab to the uk side and more or less left the rest of the chassis unchanged. I did hear that one batch was bought for use Swindon to Oxford or thereabouts but were replaced on said route after a few months due to overheating reputedly caused by excessive leaf, and dirt and other road debris being thrown up by the rear wheels and airflow from the gutter or more like muddy verge on this particular route clogging the radiator very quickly.

Ah yes, I think I recall Scania Omnilinks having the same problem when they were introduced.
 
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