how do the railroads get away with claiming 400 miles per/ gal?

Question

even at idle going down hill this can't be true.

Answer 1

Ton/miles per gallon is the true measure.



When locomotives' prime movers are at "full rack" (wide open) they will consume anywhere between 160 gallons per hour for newer, more fuel efficient locomotives to 198 gallons of diesel fuel per hour for older models, such as the SD-45. These older models were rated at around 1000 miles, on average, for a 4500 gallon fuel tank.



But, unless ascending a grade, the locomotives are at full power only long enough to accelerate the tonnage. It is often overlooked that, even though stopping distance can be up to a couple of miles, accelerating a heavy train to max authorized speed takes several more miles than that. Once at maximum authorized speed, the trailing tonnage inertia becomes a friend allowing for the locos to operate at much lower throttle positions. That is when the ton miles per gallon of fuel consumed sky rockets.



The NS commercial which is at the heart of this debate (I assume) is dubious only in that 400 mpg is not typical. Grade territory causes those figures to evaporate. Taken as a nation-wide average of all freight train operations, around 225 to 250 TMPG is closer to the actual numbers.



Most railroads have rules in place that are designed to maximize fuel efficiency, but, any way you slice it, transport of tonnage by rail is the most fuel efficient mode of operation on the planet.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

while all the previous answers certainly have some logic behind them, there is more skepticism than logic at work here.

i work as a contractor for a railroad, so while i dont know exactly how they calculate the 400 mpg figure, that's also not quite what they are saying. however, this is also nothing like the epa mpg figures given for automobiles, which are also notoriously over-rated.

the locomotives have tanks which hold from 500-800 gallons of diesel fuel, and are fueled approximately once every 2 or 3 days under normal usage, which means almost constantly in use or running. when shipping and usage are slower, they may go 1-2 weeks before needed fuel. between 2 and four locomotives can haul over 100 railcars with 80 ton hauling capacity. while the consumption of fuel to get the entire affair underway must be considerable, the laws of conservation of motion make this seemingly ridiculous figure possible. it takes nearly nothing to keep the engines rolling while on flat ground, in fact if the emergency brake is engaged the train takes an entire mile to come to a stop. also the technology used on the locomotive is very advanced and designed with fuel efficiency in mind.now what about grades? this is another advantage of rail in terms of fuel efficiency over road. tractor trailers commonly negociate grades of 10-20% in mountainous terrain, seriously affecting the overall efficiency of a cross-country haul. the steepest rail grade used by the major carriers in the USA is just under 4%. so the train doesnt have to slow to get up hills thereby keeping momentum on the side of the hugely heavy mass moving at 45-69 mph through the vast expanses largely empty of crossings which cover the landscape

in short, hard as it is to believe, it is possible to move a train 400 miles on one gallon of fuel, at least once it is moving.

Answer 4

Railroads are neither being dishonest nor trying to make themselves sound good. Those ads are aimed at reminding knowledgeable business people as to how efficient railroads are when compared to cars, trucks, and highways. So you have to understand some mathematics and you have to know something about how accountants calculate the cost of doing business.



Transportation systems, including railroads, always calculate their consumption of fuel and other costs in terms of a unit called a "ton-mile," which means the business of moving one ton of payload one mile over the surface of the earth.



So railroad freight services move freight at the rate of about 430 ton-miles per gallon of diesel fuel. That's what the advertisement actually says, if you pay attention.



When you realize that a freight train may weigh 8,600 tons, for example, then you are talking about using 20 gallons of fuel to move the whole train one mile. That's a realistic figure, and it represents much greater efficiency than moving the same freight a long distance by truck.



Trucks get about 6 ot 8 ton-miles per gallon over the open road, which makes the train about 50 times as fuel efficient as a truck. The only thing that has made the trucking industry commercially viable has been political influence.



You just have to understand the math and the business proposition.

Answer 5

well first a train fuel is measure ton mpg, i think the 400 would be for a light load maybe but i've heard that a train can go from cost to cost on one tank of fuel, also think about how they're contacting the rails, a regular vehicle has a big contact patch to the road, if you look at a tire on a vehicle the bottom if flat, it takes a great deal of torque just to get a vehicle going because the rubber tire creates friction on the road surface to be able to move, a train though has a metal wheel on a metal surface so not nearly as much friction and the actual contact point of the train wheel on the rail is only the size of a dime, i've actually heard of a person that pulled a single train car by themselves so it doesn't take as much torque as you'd think, when you think about the HP and torque ratios in a train it would be like putting a little 1.6 litre straight 4 engine on an 18 wheeler or a little weedeater engine on your car, if you could get either one to actually work and geared right then you could get 400 mpg

Answer 6

There appears to be another quantity missing. Is it distance per gal. per tonne in comparison with similar loads carried by road transport, perhaps?



It can often be useful to leave out a small detail, especially if one is advertising.



We ALWAYS tell the truth, but not necessarily ALL of it.



(Read the small print)

Answer 7

They don't. They just lead you to believe that.



They say something such as we deliver one ton of goods at 400 mpg or something. When you see that there are several thousand tons of goods on the train, the train may not even get 1 MPG.



They had some shady lawyer come up with that add!