[VIC] Fuel economy of services

Hey again

Can anyone tell me the average fuel economy of coach services compared
to that of a V/Locity/Sprinter DMU? I know a lot of rail services were
cut back due to patronage and coaches supposedly being cheaper to run
than trains, but with the introduction of DMUs to Victoria I wonder
whether some services could be reinstated ie. Geelong-Ballarat

In general, diesel engines ran at about 0.35 lbs. of fuel per Brake
Horsepower/hour. This figure is called the Specific Fuel Consumption. Diesel
fuel is about 8 lbs/gallon, converting all to metric, gives SFC of about
0.27 litres of diesel fuel per kW/hr.(I hope!) This figure would be for a
normally aspirated engine. Could be less now-a-days with the more efficent
modern engines. Then one would have to work out the average kW over a run of
a certain time.
Regards,
Bill.


"Brian Cullis-Overton" <bcullisoverton@iprimus.com.au> wrote in message
news:43b09741_1@news.iprimus.com.au...
> Hey again
>
> Can anyone tell me the average fuel economy of coach services compared
> to that of a V/Locity/Sprinter DMU? I know a lot of rail services were
> cut back due to patronage and coaches supposedly being cheaper to run
> than trains, but with the introduction of DMUs to Victoria I wonder
> whether some services could be reinstated ie. Geelong-Ballarat

On Mon, 26 Dec 2005 23:38:47 -0800, tramwayjohn wrote:

> It would be interesting to know what a V/losity rail car gets in the
> way of fuel usage compared to a bus.

Don't know the specifics of the new Vic railcars, but in general modern
trains have been getting worse for kw per passenger and fuel effciency
gains by modern engines has probably been entirely eaten plus some by the
loss of kw/passenger effciency.

What is killing modern train is the large amount of air-conditioning
power in a modern rail car and the weight of carrage itself. All the
modern 'passive safety' is taking it's toll on weight.

I've seen figures some where that seem to indicate that less fuel would
be used by replacing the North XPTs with modern road coaches. (The XPT
fleet has since been re-engined, which should have improved things a bit).