This was posted on the TB 2K forum. It sound like it might work for some local power for shealters and such.

My question is for those of you in the utilities, is this a workable solution, if so who should the idea be passed on to:

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001ITP

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i bet you're wondering what that railroad part is all about. well, it's like this. between the navy survey and the GAO report on the readiness of 21 biggest cities, the news is not reassuring. it's time to work harder on the contingency plans.

with regard to emergency power for cities, it has already been noted that there is a plan for ships to provide power, both in canada and the u.s. this is great for coastal cities, but what about the interior?

yet there is a ready source of power right under our noses, everywhere you look. i'm talking about railroad engines. in most cities, the railroad tracks run close to major facilities/businesses/hospitals that must have power, or run beside large buldings such as schools which would be suitable for shelters. railroad engines are therefore an excellent choice for a contingency plan, y2k or no y2k.

my husband jon suggested to our town that they consider using the local college and its church, which is already registered with the red cross, as a shelter, and that they consider the fact that the railroad tracks are only about 25 feet from the church and the dorms.

jon also called the President's y2k Council a couple days ago, and mentioned the idea of using railroad engines. they had not previously heard of the idea, but ran it by a couple of their technical people, who said yes, that would work. up till then, i had assumed that they knew.

it's late in the game, people. please tell me that there are some other people out there in emergency management or whatever, who thought of this also.

-- jocelyne slough (jonslough@tln.net), August 24, 1999

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Jocelyne told me that she had posted to this forum, but she left out part of the reason for my idea. This idea is not to run a city, nor to ever be connected to the power grid, nor to run your TV sets.

The idea is to power a shelter that has the ability to hold several hundred to several thousand people. The power main would need to be DISCONNECTED from the power grid. Then power cables would be run from the locomotive to the proper points of connection. I sure would not run a computer, or fussy electronic equipment, but the power will run the heating plant, and the kitchen.

Yes I know that this blocks the rails, but guess what, a few days of power when it is below freezing to keep any body count down is more important than the short term disruption of the rails.

the engines, other than for the main drive motors, have 440 Volts AC, 220 Volts AC, and 110 AC. This is used by the passenger cars that use 110, 220, 440 volts AC. This means that you need to find a locomotove used in passenger service. It is a stop gap, but it is better than having people freeze to death.

-- Jon Slough (jonslough@tln.net), August 24, 1999.

-- Anonymous, August 25, 1999

Answers

Wouldn't it be easier, and just as effective given the limitations you stated, to use a passenger train as a shelter? That way, you wouldn't have to worry about wiring up the 480V power to a step-down transformer and hooking it to the building's transfer switch. And, you could move the train to where the diesel fuel is, instead of vice versa. A six-car Chicago-style commuter train would hold about 960 people.

btw, using locomotives as standby generators is part of the regular (non-Y2K) contingency plan at Chicago Union Station.

Regards

-- Anonymous, August 25, 1999