It's been almost a year since Savannah City Council considered a $207,000 grant request to power up an ex-Melbourne car with a diesel-battery arrangement. Web searches yield no information on any changes in the W-5's situation. Is there any progress to report?

Sloan

Below is a relevant excerpt from a city council meeting twelve months ago.

The Streetcar Overhaul. Recommend approval of a contract
in an amount not to exceed $207,000 for Electrical Motor
and Supply (EMS) to overhaul a streetcar that the City
owns.

The City’s W-5 Melbourne streetcar is not currently
operational. Electric Motor and Supply has proposed
creating a diesel-electric system where the streetcar will
start on diesel power, but move largely on electrical
batteries. The batteries would be regenerated
continuously, much like a hybrid automobile. City staff
has visited the firm and determined that this hybrid system
is the best alternative to overhead wires. EMS will also
act has a general contractor for the remaining body work
needed on the streetcar.

Alderman Johnson said they discussed this item in the Pre-
Meeting. He can only speak for himself; he is very
uncomfortable and has great un-readiness at this time
voting in favor of this item. It requires $207,000 at
maximum to overhaul a street car that the City owns.
Ultimately, the plan is to be able to purchase another
street car. Alderman Johnson would like to see the staff
go back and find out all the information and present it to
Council in a workshop before they vote on it. He moved
that this item be tabled to the meeting of March 29, 2007.
Alderman Felser said he does not believe they have been
given sufficient information regarding the extent of this
contract and plan. It is not that any one has expressed
direct opposition, but they want to be caretakers of the
people’s taxpayer dollars and be sure that they are getting
the proper bang for their buck in line with Council’s
priorities. Alderman Felser seconded the motion. The motion
carried deferring this contract to the meeting of March 29,
2007 with Alderman Cook opposing.

Last I heard there was a plan to charge HUGE capacitors regeneratively to supplement the diesel plant. Looking forward to seeing it myself. Maybe John Smatlak or our friends from Stone Consulting can provide more recent information.

dave

It is hard for me to consider how HUGE capacitors would serve to store power and then meter it out to power a car. When fiddling in an old TV set I learned how quickly a capacitor discharges. But then again I never went through a formal Electrical Engineering curriculum.

Bob Kutella

Dunno Bob, my recommendation was nice Victorian light poles with trolley wires on arms, but that was several years ago and who knows how many plans in the past.

dave

Either way someone is going to have to build some track, or recondition and take over an unused branch or spur. Unless this become a rubber tired Galveston type trolley. But if this is successful then every car will need this expensive and experimental drive system. Just bite the bullet, put in a small sub and overhead. Each additional car uses proven century old technology and to add service, put up the pole and go.

But I guess I'm preaching to the choir here. I suppose a consultant is getting big bucks to think this way and make recommendations. Let's see, I am not busy next Tuesday.

Bob Kutella

Track has been down on River Street since the city allowed the Central Railroad and Banking Co of Georgia the ROW in the 1850's. I have a nice map put out by the Stone and Webster Co showing where the streetcar lines and interurban connections ran through town during their era.

Savannah is a truly funky and beautiful city with a dingy seaport and a paper mill combined with incredible historic archecture, hospitality and excellent food. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most politically charged small towns still fighting generations-old feuds nobody can remember what about any more - lots of posturing and territorial nonsense.

Leadership of many stakeholder organizations involved could be case studies for the Peter Principle, too. Accomplishment isn't generally rewarded, or even permitted unless done under the radar. Very difficult place to get much done for goal oriented people.

It will be interesting to see what (if anything) eventuates.

dave

That was a joke, Bob. The weather must be taking its toll on our sense of humor.

Bob - I'm not busy next Tuesday either. Need an assistant? And yes, the weather is getting to me here in northwest Indiana just as I'm sure it is over there in Illinois! No snow in Savannah, that's for sure!

Les

Savannah has two streetcars currently being rebuilt at Warren Railcar Services in Warren, PA. The Melbourne w-5 car is about halfway through a rebuilding that includes the adapting the center section for modern design stepwells and ADA compliant wheelchair accessibility.

The City has required that by this being a "demonstration project", that no facilities including wire could be installed along the existing track on River Street. Therefore these cars will be self powered with diesel generator sets powering AC motors through what are called ultra-capacitors and solid state motor drives.

What the above all means is that the cars should be relatively quiet and very efficient. The Ultra-capacitors utilize regenerative braking which recaptures up to 50% of the power to move the car. The generator drive system is being built by Electric Motor and Supply of Altoona, PA. The drive system has already been built and is in testing. Although this setup is new to the railway industry, it is built on standard components that have been in rough industrial service for several years and incredible reliability.

We believe that if this system works as advertised, that it will open up opportunities to develop low cost passenger services where today the high costs of new rail diesel cars are preventing their funding and implementation.

The second car is a 1946 former St. Louis Public Service PCC car that is being converted to double end.

The project is on a schedule to start service this spring. The City and developers are all hoping that the project is well received so that additions into new developments and to the visitor center can by considered.

OK, I'll stop laughing. This sounds interesting. If the capacitors are used only to stop and then start again, the required capacitance is perhaps on the order of a hundred farads, based on a back-of-the-envelope calculation, rather than the millions of farads you would need to actually power the car. What exactly is an "ultra-capacitor" and what's the maximum voltage? I would also expect that a capacitor failure in this range could only be catastrophic.

Randall

The Ultra-capacitors are put together as modules, each having a storage of 63 farads and running at 125 volts. You put five in line and get 625 volts which runs a 600 volt DC system just fine.

As far as safety, they are actually safer than batteries, which in the heavy duty cycles of use that we are talking about here can overheat. Someone recently asked can they explode? The answer is although it is possible we live with relatively high powered capacitors in major appliances in our homes everyday without problems. Additionally each capacitor is inside a module, and that is insde a case and the case is outside of the passenger area below the floor.

We expect to have more problems with the life of the cooling fans than the capacitors. That fact has brought us through a long discussion of easy access for a mechanic to test and replace components, not only for these modules but for each component of the system.

Gary - sounds like the basis for an article for RyPN or a presentation at TRAIN 2008. Are you up for it once it has its shakedown cruises?

dave

It will be interesting to see what Savannah's double-end PCC looks like. Every now and then I consider the number of Boston Pullman PCC's in various places and wonder about taking two and making a replica Pacific Electric PCC (PE's were a unique design, and none survive). Reportedly there is a kitbashed double ender in the Tahoe Valley yard made from two St. Louis-built cars, not sure how close to operable it is.

I'm not sure but I don't think they ever finished - or maybe even started in earnest - rewiring the thing. That car is immensely long, about 55' I believe, so while it's available for sale (along with the other cars remaining at the Tahoe site), I don't know how useful it would be to any potential buyer running in city streets with tight clearances.

What, there are no hulks left in Argentina, where all 30 cars went?