Hello all!
We are rebuilding one of our cars to put into service, and I wanted to ask for your experience with baseboard electric heat. I have worked on and ridden many cars with electric baseboard heat replacing the old steam heat. Some had a continuous line of heaters run under the windows from end to end, some were spaced seemingly willy-nilly.

Here's my question- spacing and size. This car will have overhead heat as well, but the baseboard is great to quickly knock the chill off I've found and as a backup if the overhead is out for some reason. It is a former ACL coach that had been converted into a bar lounge, that we are going to set up as a bar table car, with the ability to remove the tables and chairs and put lounge chairs back, or an open space for whatever (my wife is in several quilt guilds that are chopping at the bit to do a 'quilt retreat' on a railcar)

So what have you found works best? I was thinking 3-4ft 750-1000 watt spaced under the windows. Two in the hallways, and maybe one each 4ft in the large restrooms. Since the A/C system I'm using is 208v 3 phase, I'd like to keep that for the floor heat too so all HVAC is the same panel. I know 208v 3 phase baseboard heaters are relatively cheap, like $120 for an industrial grade 4ft 1000 watt.

Thoughts? I would like to hear everyone's thoughts on spacing them.

Thanks!

The heating elements aren't 3-phase. The strips have just two terminals. You can purchase 208 volt units and wire them up in a balanced fashion i.e. A-B A-C B-C. Protect the entire set with a 3-pole circuit breaker.

As far as sizing the system, it is impossible to answer that question without knowledge of the outdoor design temperature, desired indoor temperature, amount and tightness of the windows. If you also have a ducted HVAC system and it has electric heating elements, consider the total amount of heat being provided and size appropriately. Often electric floor heat is on a thermostat and only activates when the indoor temperature gets fairly cold, e.g. below 50F.

At first blush it seems you are planing on cooking your passengers ?

Keep in mind each visitor is about equal to a 100 W light bulb. So if you have 40 visitors you already have 4000 Watts of heat inside your car.

With good temperature control you can keep a car "nice and toasty", but the bigger problem is keeping it nice and cool.

I don't think you are in the "snow belt" so I would urge keeping your heaters on the low side (total wattage wise) so you don't end up serving roasted passenger with a side of baked potato.

Jeff,
The listing I was looking at called them 208 3ph and it got stuck in my head but yes after you mentioned it they are all single phase. Good way to wire them is how you recommended.

We are replacing all the windows and gaskets so they should be tight when we are done. I have found some tables and calculations for required heating BTU so I will do some calculations based on the estimated R valve, window surface area, people, square footage, etc.


NYCRRson, Yes, after getting some outside help, most setups have elements that are only 400 watts, with about 14k total in baseboard heaters throughout the car. Definitely not in the snow belt, but plan to offer the car for lease so want it to be able to operate well in colder climates too. Overhead unit we have in mind currently is 12k. Can go up to a 20k if needed, but will do the calculations.

So one of my questions is still location- center under the windows? or just evenly space them down the sides?

"So one of my questions is still location- center under the windows? or just evenly space them down the sides?"

If you have good quality non-drafty windows the placement of the heaters (centered under the windows .vs. evenly spaced) probably makes little difference.

With a 12K overhead unit I would think another 10k under the outside windows and in the bathrooms would be about right.

My residence was originally built with "all electric" baseboard heat. One of the rooms has a baseboard heater setup that was "upsized" with a little more heater wattage than was needed. For 50 years the thermostat setting in that room has been "very touchy", if you "notch it up" to take off the "chill" it ends up roasting you out in the middle of the night.

You could set things up with a "down south" heater circuit of about 10k wattage and another additional "up north" circuit that throws in another 15k (under a separate control thermostat) for your trips to the frozen north.

Good Luck, Cheers, Kevin.

GGRM's lounge car has about 15 kw of baseboard, wired three phase 240V. I've had the car on at around 40 degrees in winter (a cold day for us) and it keeps it nice. Add in a full load of passengers and you wouldn't need it to cycle much to maintain temp. I didn't install them, but they are more or less placed under the windows.

I use the Johnson Controls blue box system to run the AC and heat call functions.