[PRCo] Re: OT - Dresden, Germany

[Fred Schneider]

OH, BORIS, YOU NEED TO LOOK FOR THE FUTURE TOO.   What are you going  
to do when all those PCC cars are scrapped.   You're a young man.    
You need to be able to adapt to AC propulsion technology.

I was amazed riding the new S-Bahn trains in Munich ... probably only  
3 miles per hour per second acceleration with those AC-motor cars,  
which isn't great compared to a PCC, but it's essentially linear all  
the way to the top end.   The PCC was 4.75 but only to about 15 mph  
and then the curve began to flaten out.   You got 25 mph by the end  
of the block and 42 by the end of the mile.   Those S-Bahn trains  
with AC propulsion probably get 40 mph by the time the last car is  
off the platform ... probably only takes 13 seconds to 40, 17 seconds  
to 50.   They're ramming trains through a central subway between the  
Ostbahnhof (East Station) and Hauptbahnhof (Union Station, lower  
level) in Munich on 2 minute headways ... all or most of the commuter  
rail lines in the city use the tunnel.   It's similar in concept to  
the Center City Commuter Tunnel in Philadelphia except that the  
trains aren't on hourly headways (Paoli is 30 minutes).   They run 10  
to 15 minute headways on each line and haul 70,000 to 80,000 people a  
day.  Late Sunday evenings they were down to 30 minute headways!    
They simply couldn't do it with the old technology.

A personal friend of mine who is the General Manager of that region  
of German Rail claims the system is essentially pushed to the limit  
and business is still growing.    It works in Europe because their  
cities still work ... people use them for commerce, offices, stores,  
homes, restaurants ... not just places to house the people on welfare  
who then commute to the suburbs to buy goods as they do in the U. S.

The friend with whom I went to Europe pointed out that the Norristown  
N5 cars (for the P&W) were the first AC cars in the U. S. and that  
they had all sorts of bugs.   He explained that Russ Jackson wanted  
to prove a point that AC was superior.   "By the time the bugs were  
corrected," he said, "the development of AC cars was already several  
generations ahead of the N5 cars."   I have not been following that  
part of the industry.   He pointed out that everything built in the  
last decade has had AC motors.   He said there was an AC versus DC  
dispute in Chicago that resulted in no new subway cars until now,  
when a larger order is being built which will replace almost  
everything with AC cars.

Can you mix AC and DC cars?   We saw it being done in Vienna but it  
degrades the performance of the AC car.     I don't think it is going  
to matter.   The DC cars won't be around much longer.   I cannot  
remember where we talked about taking old bodies and replacing all  
the guts ... new propulsion package ... throwing away all the DC  
equipment.    Seems to me it was either some early Washington metro  
or BART equipment.

Fred Schneider



On Nov 3, 2007, at 5:03 PM, Boris Cefer wrote:

> I knew you would appreciate something from the past. I do not  
> believe in a
> good future but good memories from the past push me forward!
>
> B
>