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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!floyd!clyde!ihnp4!ihuxu!jhall
From: jhall@ihuxu.UUCP (John R. Hall)
Newsgroups: net.railroad
Subject: new coal-fired locomotive?
Message-ID: <225@ihuxu.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 23-Dec-83 15:30:48 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxu.225
Posted: Fri Dec 23 15:30:48 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 24-Dec-83 11:06:04 EST
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 35


There's an AP article in the Dec 21st Chicago Tribune titled
"Savings seen in new coal-fired locomotive".  Reprinted without
permission:

Washington [AP]
U.S. inventors have a coal-fired locomotive on the drawing boards
that will save money and won't belch smoke.  They just need the
money to build one.

Experts told a Senate subcommittee Tuesday that the new technology
would allow railroads to save money because coal is cheaper and more
abundant than diesel fuel used to power trains.

An inventor, William Withuhn, told the Senate Energy Subcommittee on
Energy and Mineral Resources that $50 million to $70 million is needed
to build a prototype so railroads can see that the new technology works.

He said simple economics would lead them to buy the locomotive for the 1990's.

Withuhn, a railroad consultant in the nation's capital, said he had used
figures for the least efficient coal-burning system and the most expensive
coal in making his calculations that the new locomotive could bring
railroads a 20 to 30 percent rate of return on their investment.

Sen. John Warner [R., Va.], subcommittee chairman, said that if trains
could run on cheaper fuel, the cost of getting coal from mines to power
plants could go down, perhaps reducing the cost of coal and the price
of electricity generated at coal-burning power plants.
---

Anybody know any more details or have any interesting conjectures?

-- 
--John R. Hall, ihuxu!jhall