what fuel do modern locomotives use?

[R4_GRN]

Just wondered what fuel modern engines use on railway, is it blue or red diesel or something else.

Just wondered as aviation jet fuel is not subject to VAT (aviation gasoline is) so is the railway transport industry given the same treatment as aviation industry regarding fuel tax?

 

[455driver]

I think it is green diesel.

The railways now have to pay VAT on fuel at a rate of 10% (I think it is).
Another way rail is penalised over air travel.

 

[GB]

We use red diesel for at least some of our stuff, whether its red diesel across the board I do not know.

 

[starrymarkb]

Another way rail is penalised over air travel.

Problem there is that aircraft will just fill their tanks out of the country... Very few aircraft are on purely domestic work - most are mixed with international routes so they'll tank up an extra couple of tonnes when abroad to do a domestic leg (or two) after arriving in the UK.

Jet A1 is about £1.10 per kg. An A32x typically burns about 2t per hour, an E-Jet about 1.5t per hour Q400 is about 800kg and an ATR72 uses about 500kg per hour (I think that covers most domestic flights that compete with rail - I'm not counting island hopping or international)

If you were to tax fuel - you'd have to try and ensure it was less then the cost of tanking extra fuel back from an international leg.

 

[JohnB57]

I believe the excise duty on marked fuel oil is 11.14p per litre. I'm not sure if the railway is exempt from VAT as it would be all but impossible to offset it against invoices in the way that a normal business would - travel is VAT exempt.

 

[Royston Vasey]

ULSD. Essentially the same as road diesel. This is to comply with the EU's non-road mobile machinery emissions limits, which until recently did not require catalysed aftertreatment but did require low sulphur emissions. In addition, once locos are fitted with catalysts, ultra low sulphur fuel will be required to prevent poisoning.

http://www.rail.co/2011/04/15/are-diesel-fleets-ready-for-the-pending-fuel-change-legislation/

An MTU white paper provides further background on aftertreatment here

 

[Ediswan]

I'm not sure if the railway is exempt from VAT as it would be all but impossible to offset it against invoices in the way that a normal business would - travel is VAT exempt.

Offsetting is not the only way. Take companies that sell children's clothing. The company pays VAT on some things, but never charge it to customers, exempt. They then claim back the VAT they have paid from HMRC.

 

[El Magnifico]

I believe the excise duty on marked fuel oil is 11.14p per litre. I'm not sure if the railway is exempt from VAT as it would be all but impossible to offset it against invoices in the way that a normal business would - travel is VAT exempt.

The excise duty rate you quote is correct for "red" (off-road) diesel, but the supply of public transport is not VAT exempt, it is zero-rated. This means (as Ediswan has posted) that a TOC can claim back the VAT incurred on its costs. If it were VAT exempt the TOC could not claim back the VAT.

 

[R4_GRN]

I thought diesel was diese; and the colour only indicated what excise duty had been paid on it,

Are you sure public transfort is zero rated I do not think that buses run on red diesel only vehicles I know run on red (legally) are farm vehicles and some vehicles used on the road for a specific purpose, Snow ploughs run red but not gully tankers etc and construction industry equipment runs red too.

 

[Tom B]

Buses pay normal rate for diesel, but an operator of a registered bus service can claim the fuel duty back from the Inland Revenue in the form of a Fuel Duty Rebate. I don't know what the situation is with VAT, though.

 

[RAGNARØKR]

Diesel

Apparently it is easier to meet emission standards if burned in an external combustion engine. NOx, CO and particulate levels are lower due to better control of the combustion chemistry leading to more complete combustion.

 

[Royston Vasey]

Apparently it is easier to meet emission standards if burned in an external combustion engine. NOx, CO and particulate levels are lower due to better control of the combustion chemistry leading to more complete combustion.

What is the thermal efficiency of the pictured locomotive?

 

[El Magnifico]

I thought diesel was diese; and the colour only indicated what excise duty had been paid on it,

Are you sure public transfort is zero rated I do not think that buses run on red diesel only vehicles I know run on red (legally) are farm vehicles and some vehicles used on the road for a specific purpose, Snow ploughs run red but not gully tankers etc and construction industry equipment runs red too.

Yes, public transport is zero-rated under Schedule 8 Group 8 Item 4(a) of the VAT Act 1994. You are confusing excise duty (which is lower on "red" diesel than on on-road diesel) with VAT. VAT on costs is reclaimable by a business if it relates to a standard-rated, zero-rated or reduced-rated supply made by that business. Excise duty is not reclaimable.

 

[RAGNARØKR]

What is the thermal efficiency of the pictured locomotive?

About 12%. But there are no idling losses as the burners are just turned off when stationary. Not much in the way of transmission losses either due to direct drive. Nor much embodied energy as the machine has a very long lifetime, having originally been built in 1944, ans the expendable components are relatively small. In principle, the heating system of a passenger train could run on waste heat.

Have a look here for all the information.


A particularly successful use was for infrastructure trains in residential areas!

 

[TGV]

To answer the original question asked with a little more technical detail than just "red diesel", typical properties for diesel engine fuel oil as used on rail vehicle engines are:
Cetane number – 45
Flash point – 55°C
Density – 850-950kg/m3
Viscosity – 1.6 – 7.5 centistokes
Ash content – 0.01% max by mass
Calorific value – 45MJ/kg
The performance parameters affected by these values:
Cetane number: Ease of starting and warming up. Resistance to detonation (diesel knock)
Flash Point – Safe handling and transportation
Viscosity – Atomisation on injection, lubrication of pumps and injectors.
Ash content – Limitation of deposits in injectors, cylinders and turbocharger turbine.
Calorific value – Energy content and power output. Indirectly – fuel economy.

 

[Beveridges]

I can confirm it is red diesel as on some nights I am filling tanks up with 1000's of litres of it on the DMU's.

Very nasty stuff when you get showered in it. Splash backs, leaks in the pipework, poor fittings, leaks in the screw-on couplers, faulty overflows, the fuel rig leaves much to be desired on most depots.

 

[R4_GRN]

leaks, leaks? at a fortune a gallon, I can just imagine the shouts at asda if the fuel pump leaked fuel and I was paying for it on the pump.

What does the maintenance manager say about these fuel leaks, fuel must be a big proportion of the running costs of a TOC any savings should be investigated and remedied?

 

[Beveridges]

According to some reports, 500,000 litres of fuel were split in one year at one depot due to leaks, faulty valves and poor fittings on the fuel rig.

There are many things causing fuel spills but the main one is the faulty fuel tank valves on some of the units.

The screw-on fuel couplers which attatch to Class 150, 156 & 158 fuel tanks are capable of pumping 10 litres per second into these units if the pumps are operating at high pressure. The tanks have a capacity of 1600 litres and have to be filled quickly to ease congestion as the depot is bombared with units returning at night.

If the system is working properly the fuel should cut off automatically when the tank is full. However, many of them are faulty, so when the tank reaches full capacity, the pumps just keeps on pumping 10 litres per second into those tanks, only for it to pour out of the overflow and create a river of diesel inbetween the two rails and down into the drains and eventually to the huge tank where all the spilled fuel goes. All it takes is the fueller, occupied with the many other units on the busy fuel rig, to not notice the pipe has not shut off for 5 minutes on one of the vehicles, and thats 3000 litres of diesel spilled.

 

[R4_GRN]

thanks for the reply, appalled at the waste of fuel, that must be half a million pounds of lost profit for the TOC, and that is just one refuelling depot!

 

[shedman]

I can confirm it is red diesel as on some nights I am filling tanks up with 1000's of litres of it on the DMU's.

Very nasty stuff when you get showered in it. Splash backs, leaks in the pipework, poor fittings, leaks in the screw-on couplers, faulty overflows, the fuel rig leaves much to be desired on most depots.

Similar to what I was just about to put except you missed off the smell. Sometimes it has a lovely rotten cabbage kind of smell to it. Your clothes stink and boots stink! I'm not sure I'm meant to say this or not but I was once stood with a road delivery talking to the tanker driver (our diesel comes by rail but if we need extra it comes by road) and the he commented we were getting a lot of fuel for the boiler house this time of year. I told him it was for the trains and he was genuinely shocked commenting "I wouldn't even put it in my lawn mower". I know how much EMT charge per litre but I certainly don't think I should put that on here.

But back to leaks/faulty pipework, nothing worse than fuelling a rake of units only to look back and see the flyte valve is knackered and diesel is p155ing out everywhere. Gotta love the railways!

 

[RAGNARØKR]

But back to leaks/faulty pipework, nothing worse than fuelling a rake of units only to look back and see the flyte valve is knackered and diesel is p155ing out everywhere. Gotta love the railways!

There could be something to be said for solid fuel after all, even at 8% thermal efficiency.

 

[Beveridges]

thanks for the reply, appalled at the waste of fuel, that must be half a million pounds of lost profit for the TOC, and that is just one refuelling depot!

about 10 million litres of fuel goes into the trains per year at that depot, and 500,000 litres goes down the drain, an extra 5% added to the fuel usage at one depot due to poor equipment.

 

[Pumbaa]

A rule of thumb across lots of industry sectors is 10% wastage, so that's reasonable.

 

[rebmcr]

A rule of thumb across lots of industry sectors is 10% wastage, so that's reasonable.

It may be expected but I wouldn't describe it as reasonable. Especially with something as finite as oil-based fuel.

 

[R4_GRN]

I am not employed in the industry and it is easy to criticise from outside however I am always surprised by the number of members on here who are employed and obviously care about the job they do. When I left my employer for home at night the last thing I wanted to do was discuss work related matters in my free time.

However I still think this amount of wasted fuel is very bad, there will always be some spillage but the quantities above seem excessive and preventable by proper maintenance.

 

[tbtc]

thanks for the reply, appalled at the waste of fuel, that must be half a million pounds of lost profit for the TOC, and that is just one refuelling depot!

Red diesel is a lot cheaper than buying it at the pump when you top up your car though

 

[Beveridges]

A good few years ago when I used to work the fuel rig a lot more often than I do now (due to link progression), I used to complain heavily about fuel leaks as I got fed up with smelling like s**t all night until the 0300AM shower at the end of the shift. I once asked why the companies pour thousands of litres of fuel down the drain every night as if it was nothing. I was told they only pay about 40p per litre for red diesel. So a typical 3000-litre leak due to a knackered flight valve is £1200, about enough to pay a fueller's wage for 8 nine hour nights. Not cheap, but far from unaffordable for a TOC. I bet far more money is wasted on other things.

 

[shedman]

I'm fueling tonight and smell so good I'm sat in a room on my own! Roll on the last train so I can get changed. You're right about it being 40p a litre, its just a tad more now. What makes me chuckle is you fuel a 2 car 144 for example, 1 car takes 700 litres and the other takes 300!

 

[Cab2Cab]

Just wondered what fuel modern engines use on railway, is it blue or red diesel or something else.

Just wondered as aviation jet fuel is not subject to VAT (aviation gasoline is) so is the railway transport industry given the same treatment as aviation industry regarding fuel tax?

Yeah i think it was red at the depot where i use to work and i was told that it was bought for 7p a litre (2007) but don't forget it's not that well refined (dirty oily diesel). Whether that price is right or not the information came from a good reliable source.

 

[R4_GRN]

when the driver opens the throttle on a multi engined train do both engines power up?

if they do why would one engine burn so much more fuel? leaks? wrongly set injectors?