solar panels on a freight car?!

[jettrainfan]

i was video taping trains at berea today (real busy today!) and not too many people were their. A person that usually comes and 2 other cars i guessed come once in a blue moon. Usually something good comes... well, something did, a diesel caught my eye on the CSX side, a smoking diesel was heading over and stopped. their was double red. So it stopped before the over pass. I zoomed on the diesel and it looked like it was a steamer behind the diesel! it looked like a SD40-2 or a gp40-2 from what i could see. When it came (it never stopped smoking once), it was a lonely SD40-2 CSX diesel in blue and yellow paint. The cars were orange mow hoppers. The last 2 had solar panels! i was even more surprised because those 2 were the only loaded ones. The material looked like coal. Does anyone know what this train is suppose to be? and why it had solar panels? I'm gonna try to upload the video on youtube soon so I'll put up a link later. thanks!

[jward]

i believe the solar panels are used as a power source to operate the car doors for dumping ballast. this function used to be air operated, and the air cars were easy to spot because they had a second air line running between the cars.

the air dump cars are not to be confused with cars equipped with electronic air brakes, which have the usual air line and an electic cable running between the cars. these are usually unit train hoppers as the electonic braking only works if every car in the train is equipped.

[CNE Runner]

...OR you had just gotten a sneak preview of Bachmann's new line of 1:1 electric trains.

Ray

[CarmeloJohansen]

i believe the solar panel are used as a power source to operate the car doors for dumping ballast. this function used to be air operated, and the air cars were easy to spot because they had a second air line running between the cars.

the air dump cars are not to be confused with cars equipped with electronic air brakes, which have the usual air line and an electic cable running between the cars. these are usually unit train hoppers as the electonic braking only works if every car in the train is equipped.

I am still not huge fan of these panels.. Pretty expensive and efficiency is very low.

[Jhanecker2]

Carmelo :  But with the price of fuel likely never to come down and the price of maintaining  a power plant , a solar panel  & possibly a battery is a much cheaper  long range strategy  for savings . J2

[richg]

From a simple Google search. Google should be your best friend.
Quote:
The Herzog ballast train are controlled by GPS via an operator in the second or third unit of the locomotive consist. The entire track geometry in inputted into the computer system and the operator can monitor the amount of ballast in every single car and regulate the dispensing rate.

    Better yet, when you approach a level highway crossing at grade, about 40-40 feet from the crossing the gates automatically close and open the same distance past the crossing. What is really trippy is as one car is approaching empty, another car already has the gates open slowly dispensing ballast to compensate. So when the car in front of it is finally exhausted, the car after it is already dumping ballast at the regulated rate.

I see the Herzog hopper cars being loaded at a quarry siding along side the CSX in Westfield, MA. They usually have solar panels on them now. At one time they did not.
You should see You Tube videos of a bucket loader crawling up onto a hopper car to off load ballast and crawl from car to car.

Rich

[jward]

i just wonder why people are digging back 5 years for a post about solar panels.

[richg]

I figured, keep the kids happy.
I see this every so often in the Trains.com forums.

Rich