Actually, that would be a downgrade in this case, depending on what nuclear tech is actually being used for the train. Obviously you wouldn't want a light water reactor rolling around but a couple decently sized RTGs (radioisotope thermo-electric generators, which are powered by the natural decay of radioisotopes) running on plutonium would actually be better as they don't have the downside of requiring catenary and don't introduce the potential risks a design with an active reactor does. EDIT: Ok, watching more of the video, this is using a molten salt FBR. Those fail safe, as they need to constantly cycle their fuel solution to sustain a reaction. So even the reactor-based version wouldn't have many issues.
@@VestedUTuber RTGs don't have anywhere near the power density to beat even diesel engines. Lasting decades does not help if it's too weak to power the train anyway. It's called atomic train for a reason, to get the power density required it has to be a full reactor, and a pretty ridiculously light and complex one at that.
Transmission losses? Wouldn't matter on most routes where the power station isn't far, but on the China-Europe run across Siberia it might make sense to take the reactor along.
the biggest issue i see with this is, they still need to run on rails, so just build electric locomotives with electrified rails, with the electricity coming from a nuclear power plant, and you have nuclear powered trains that never need to stop, nor refil
True and anything that can disable the train or the electrified track would mean you have a much worse problem. Either a derailed train. Sabotaged power system. And or a nuclear disaster in your hands.
@@VestedUTuber well yeah in general terms a "electric rail" or "electrified railway" refers to catenary railways as they're the obvious choice for a electric railway.
@@spaceengineeringempire4086 that's how we do it now and a disabled track wouldn't mean a sabotaged power system. The trains themselves don't need constant access to the catenary just for the most part. Of the journey they have some battery charge
Some American railroads have locomotives with massive radiators, more so than normal, their called "tunnel motors" and are for use in extremely long tunnels
@@anareel4562 the difference with the tunnel motors was that the air intakes for the radiators were down at footplate level instead of high on the sides, so that following locos would not be ingesting hot air from leading locos in tunnels, hence the name.
Henschell made these locomotives. They came in useful to the Germans in WW2 because they didn't give of steam that could be spotted from the air. Also in Russia the watering stations were further apart which was a problem from German locomotives.
Let me guess: did this not take off because power plants do better staying in one place and trains are very easy to electrify using the energy said plants generate?
@@Abitibidoug That’s a bit different, those trains are only electrical. Nuclear reactors inside train aren’t feasible even now, there’s no technology on safe miniature nuclear reactor, not to mention if the train crash even though very unlikely but it is still a big safety concern when train gets derailed.
@@goldenhate6649 mind elaborating? I always figured that trains powered by wire or energized rail just took the generator out of the vehicle for a lighter approach. Since, y’know, standard freight trains run on electricity made by onboard diesel generators.
That is a nice computer model of the X-12. I made an HO scale non-powered one in Union Pacific livery that I was able to push around with a pair of powered F units. (The Union Pacific was definitely interested in a nuclear locomotive to replace it's Big Boy and Challenger steam locomotives. They were already building large gas turbine powered locomotives, and later large diesel locomotives.) It looked quite impressive and had massive overhang on the curves of my small layout. A couple of other things I learned in my research on building the model: * The machinery ahead of the hexagonal reaction section is a steam generator. The passenger coaches of the time used steam from the steam locomotive for heating and cooling. When they were replaced by diesels, the diesels had to have a steam generator installed to heat and cool the coaches, usually in the tail end of the diesel. Since this engine wasn't intended to pull passenger trains, a steam generator was really unnecessary. Ahead of it was a small auxiliary diesel engine and generator; it was used to provide power to start the reactor as well as to move the locomotive alone around the train yard without starting up the reactor. The Union Pacific gas turbine locomotives also had auxiliary diesel generators for the same purposes. * The fuel used in the reactor was weapons grade uranium mixed with sulfuric acid! Refueling the locomotive would be more than just draining the old mixture out and pouring the new mixture in, the old fuel would have to be recycled. The engineer in charge of designing the locomotive helpfully proposed that the government would build the refueling stations for the railroads; but this, coupled with the initial cost of the locomotive, the cost of the fuel, the training needed for locomotive crews, and the danger of an onboard reactor, and it is not surprising it was never built. I put together a video on the X-12 on my channel as well, but nothing this nice. Well done.
Nah, people will rejected it because somehow, for some reason, it sounds even more impossible for them to attach the wire instead of burning the money for safer nuclear train
@@bocahdongo7769I mean, no? Overhead lines break all the time just because. Rarely does a wire break lead to derailment. We have a link line that has frequent wire breaks in winter because of the cold, never once caused a derailment.
The nuclear train from Russia is in the current display in St.Petersberg, It's exibited in the Raiway Transport Museum. This nuclear strike train is a masterpiece among a fantastic layout. Tickets cost really few.
In the early years of nuclear energy there were ideas for nuclear powered car, trains, and airplanes. However in the long run nuclear power was used for stationary nuclear power plants, special navy ships primarily nuclear powered aircraft carriers, and nuclear powered submarines. One interesting fact about navy nuclear submarines is that the limiting factor on how long they can stay out at sea is how much food can be stored in the submarine. The nuclear power is nearly limitless but men have to eat food, which will run out first.
Internal combustion engines started out as stationary machines, before technological advancements led to their use in motive power becoming feasible. Who knows, maybe someday soon a breakthrough will come about that could make nuclear powered locomotives or automobiles practical.
Isn't there a modified nuclear Boeing plane that is made to fly for over a week without any kind of refueling in case there is a massive catastrophe in Earth and touching the ground is not possible ? Granted that is Unique in the world , but still
Very interesting video, having done a nuclear locomotive feasibility project in a 200-level intro to nuclear engineering course. I recall concluding that trains derailed too often to accept the risk.
@@mikerodix4800idiots like you two have no idea how much energy that would take and that we have no means of storing that much energy even if we could make it. You also have no idea how much more damaging lithium mines are vs CO2 from cars/trains
for city railway Electrifying the railways its possible but for outtercity connection . . . . especially big landmass like Russia and US ? you must consider natural disaster threat , thief threat , and maintenance cost . . . i think big issue is maintenance cost is cheaper with nuclear train than Electrifying whole railway . . . .
She would not only be a steam train she would be a Steam turbine electric train like modern ones but here you turn the generators by steam turbines and you take the steam from a nuclear reactor that boils water. For 12.000 years we still make energy out of boiling water.
@@freaky1382 What do you do while cooking? You boil water You boil water by fire You use the boiling water to make the food you put into the pot to be tastier And cookery was born circa 12.000 years ago when the first town was built and our tribal era lasted 120.000 years when we wore clothes, hunted, gathered, tamed fire, made weapons and used fire to boil water. I said energy, not electricity!
Honestly, Nuclear energy(electricity) pisses me off. It's just hot water! WTF!!!!! It's great but c'mon... why isn't it cooler than just heating up water?
lets face it there is no real point in them. just use catanary, no dangerous nuclear reactor on board (of course the power can come from a nuclear power plant too but thats a lot safer in terms of shielding required). also more efficient, you dont need to haul a 200 ton shield around. as well as the huge cooling array.
People hate it because it sounds too boring and expensive for them. That's too expected Meanwhile nuclear train provide them with the dopamine rush for F U T U R E and burn their money like nothing tomorrow. Like you know, gambling addiction.
yup. new ideas are sadly often not practical. people often get caught up in buzzwords and other crap that turns out to be nothing in the end.@@bocahdongo7769
Millions of tons of steel and wires that need constant checking and maintenance as well as power loss through those millions of tons of wires vs 200 ton sheild and on-sight power ie no power loss, do you even Math dude?
10:42 The best argument. Works in Europe pretty nice. The problem is that the freight operators in the USA do not want to build and maintain overhead wires, as it is associated with costs and it is simply cheaper to run diesel-electric trains.
I guess we sort of have nuclear powered trains. Where I live we run on a nuclear power plant and the trains run off the electric grid from overhead cables. It’s just a more practical method.
Wasting billions of tons of Steel and wires isnt practical, thats why it is only used in small nations with massive Government subsidization like France/UK.
Soviets had no nuclear train, but they successfully tested a mobile land transported nuclear power plant and are now employing a mobile sea transported nuclear power plant called Lomonosov.
@@isekaiexpress9450 you can run power lines from nuclear aircraft carriers and such to power the local grid in a disaster situation. The newer ones can produce huge surpluses of electricity.
But the US did have a nuclear bomber. Just they didn't use the reactor to power the propellers. Look up the NB-36H for details on one that carried a reactor. It carried a 1 megawatt reactor that was air cooled.
Yeah, this just seems like it would be hideously expensive for almost no payoff. It's inefficient, expensive to buy and operate, and what you get for that is a vehicle that doesnt need to be refueled - something that plain electric trains already do while being much cheaper and simpler to run and just as powerful. As a railroad company, you probably save money just electrifying a freight line than investing in an atomic locomotive (hell it already saves you money in the long run vs diesel locomotives).
I think the cost of the train is the least of their worries, we’e talking about a nuclear train. On standard gauge track a train like this isn’t big enough to sustain a nuclear reactor’s radiation. To even sustain a nuclear reactor and keep radiation from leaking we’d need a train the size of the Breitspurbahn like the germans were planning, which was supposed to be double the size of standard gauge. And i imagine they didn’t have the budget nor space atm to develop it. Besides unless the train was as large as the Breitspurbahn, direct exposure to that radiaiton from the train crew could be lethal.
Spot on 👍 Albeit a lot of their reactors are starting to get to end-of-life so the blend of electricity is changing unless they start building new ones…
Just reminds me of the Swiss railways "electric e3/3" where they got a steam loco, put toasters in the fire box and give it a go. The funniest is that they did it and it was somehow good. I love my country 🇨🇭
Not exactly. The original Firebox was kept, and Electric Continuous Flow Heaters were added on top of that. They ran in fairly low Voltage, resulting in the ridiculous Current of 6 kA. The Fireboxes usually even retained a small Wood Fire, to be used as "Range Extender" on longer Stretches of un-electrified Track.
I think its downfall was the complexity and the weight of the reactor itself. But fortunately, modern Generation IV reactors are much smaller in size and you could probably build a nuclear-powered train about the size of an EMD DDA40X that could potentially be rated at 7,000 bhp or more.
You still have to take into consideration the consequences of what would happen if it derailed or something. Even if it’s possible to build a practical train I don’t think one will be built.
The fuel wold be contained in silicon carbide, graphite ceamtic grains assembled into pellets. They would isolate the radioactive material and shot down from thermal resonance.
But why would you bother? It would be simpler, cheaper, safer, and much more flexible to build a stationary nuclear power plant and run electric trains with overhead wires. That would *also* give you the ability to travel indefinitely without refueling (not an issue with modern trains anyway), wouldn't generate emissions, and can have an essentially arbitrary amount of horsepower. Unlike a nuclear train, the technology to do that safely already exists, wouldn't risk a nuclear disaster in the event of a derailment (or just a fuckup by an overworked reactor tech who hasn't slept in 3 days), and wouldn't require the construction of hundreds of miniaturized nuclear reactors to stuff into locomotives. They also have the advantage of flexibility; both the trains and the nuclear plant would be connected to the grid. When the trains aren't moving, the plant would provide power to the grid, and when the plant is down for maintenance, the grid could supply power for the trains. Onboard nuclear reactors only make sense when you need extremely long range operation and can't feasibly connect the vehicle to the power grid. That's absolutely not the case with a train; we've been connecting trains to power grids for well over 100 years now.
@@a.p.2356 If you think it would be far more "easy" and "efficient" to run millions of tons or wires and steel towers everywhere + all that energy loss through those thousands of kilometers or wires than small modular LIFTER Reactors that are impossible to melt down providing power directly to the wheels beneath them you need your head read or frankly you have no idea what you are talking about.
I think with a small integral molten salt reactor and a CO2 Brayton cycle turbine, this can actually work. No radioactive steam, no water cooling, no high pressure safety hazard.
There's no question it could work from a technology POV. But a heavy nuclear reactor, running 60-80 mph, with a several thousand tons of dumb weight behind it, is an enormous security risk. Furthermore you need at least one (if not more) skilled technician on board, more than doubling personal costs. Furthermore it's lacking economies of scale: A larger (not mobile) reactor can produce the same MWh for way less financial input. In the end, it is just way cheaper to built overhead wiring and combine it with the cheapest form of energy production (nowadays renewables). And we are just ignoring the enormous after-life-expenses of nuclear energy in this example (handling of nuclear fuel, tons of radioactive waste from the reactor block and storing it for tens of thousands of years...).
Ohio class submarine is 13 meters wide, it's more than enough to fit a standard 6-9 meters nuclear reactor, it's not that we made them so small that they fit in a submarine, we made submarines so big they can fit a nuclear reactor
The funny thing is, there was actually a TV series that was based on a nuclear powered train. "Supertrain" rain on NVC in the US in 1979, and it was set on a nuclear powered train dressed out like a cruise ship. Complete with a swimming pool shopping mall, and of course a disco since it was 1979. Similar to "The Love Boat", it was a weekly series. And the train would go from New York to LA in a day and a half.
About the size of the cooler: If the mechanical efficiency would be the same as for a diesel engine, one could expect the cooler to have the same size for the same power of the engine, the same amount of heat has to be dissipated. But that's not the case. In order to get good efficiency, a nuclear reactor needs lower temperature of the cooling water than that for a diesel engine. While a diesel is happy with 70 °C return temperature to the engine (maybe a small part of the total at lower temp if it has a water cooled intercooler), a reactor prefers 30-40 °C return temperature to the condenser. Higher temp leads to loss of efficiency and loss of mechanical power. Lower temp requires a larger cooler.
Hey Skunk; I agree that if both Diesel and Nuclear locomotives have the same mechanical efficiency then they would have to reject the same amount of waste heat for a given level of mechanical power output. The difference that makes the condenser for the Nuclear locomotive so much larger compared to the radiator for a Diesel locomotive is that in the Diesel much of the waste heat (a quick Google search seems to indicate 50%+) is rejected via the exhaust gasses and another chunk (maybe 5-10%) is rejected through the oil cooler. (Many Diesel engines have oil sprays that cool the underside of the piston heads.) Some heat will also be rejected directly from the engine block to the ambient air. In contrast, essentially 100% of the heat rejected from a Nuclear locomotive is rejected via the exhaust steam from the power turbine being condensed back to water in the condenser. Two more factors increase the size of the condenser for Nuclear locomotive. First, the spent steam enters the condenser in the gaseous state and gasses have very low thermal conductivity compared to liquids such as the coolant in a Diesel locomotive. This slows down the heat transfer a lot, thus requiring a larger condenser. Second, the Nuclear locomotive condenser is being cooled by ambient air at perhaps a design maximum of 40 degrees C. and the condensed water output is just below 100 degrees C. so the delta T is only 60 degrees C. In a diesel locomotive the cooling system will probably be under pressure to increase the boiling temperature of the coolant. Many older Diesel locomotives run plain water (with corrosion inhibitors) as coolant but more modern ones use a mixture of water and ethylene glycol. A 50/50 mixture of ethylene glycol and water pressurized to 15 PSI boils at over 131 degrees C. so the system can be run with delta T of about 90 degrees C. compared to 60 degrees C. for the Nuclear locomotive. This will make the Diesel locomotive radiator much more effective for a given size. Full disclosure... I am an electronic engineer, not a thermodynamicist. If there is a thermodynamics expert in the crowd please chime in to let me know if I am on the correct track or not...
A dieselo reject half its heat through the radiator and half through the exhaust. A steam engine must reject all of its heat through the radiator. The only way around this is to increase operating temperature so a smaller radiator is needed. Best done with CO2 or Helium rather than water.
Sadly this violates both of railroad's main concerns: Maintaining items. and crews. Each reactor needs a fireman. and probably was hell to maintain. The Diesel won because it was like maintaining a car and could have 2 people run multiple diesel engines.
And when the train did stop (to load or unload cargo), you would almost certainly have issues with overheating. As you're not using the power to move the train and there is no air cooling the nuclear reactor would be producing an excess of power.
I have just found out about the Brennan Monorail. Would be great to see you do a video about that it’s super interesting and I can’t believe it’s not a thing.
The primary sticking point for sodium reactors has always been the need to keep them hot when the reactor isn't running. If the primary loop cools off, it'll solidify and effectively brick the entire reactor, which makes refueling and maintenance a bit of a headache. It's not an insurmountable issue, but it's enough of a headache that everyone who's tried it has abandoned it pretty soon after.
i liked it till the end. the conclusions at the end just show the shortsightedness of human race. "undeveloped countries" "minor countries" "insurgents" "the cost of a nuclear engineer vs the cost of a diesel engineer" - you are right in here. there is a very high cost of you surrounding yourself with people that you haven't allowed to grow and be powerful and smart on their own. but the cost will always be with you.
@@crackedemerald4930 And ensure that it burns properly. I can't tell too much about Steam Locomotives, but on Steam Ships you use an Air Intake Flap at the Furnace and another Flap inside the Funnel to regulate Air Flow. The Latter Flap prevents Heat from just being wasted out of the Funnel. IIRC Steam Locomotives have Air Intake Flaps too, but the Funnel Updraft instead is controlled with the Blast Pipe instead of a Flap. Oh and Steam Ships may also include the Logistics of keeping Coal flowing, Locomotives always have the Bunker right next to the Furnace.
@@JBofBrisbane Lifting Safety Valves means that you're wasting Fuel; you're literally producing Steam just to blow it off unused again. In closed Systems, you're also wasting Boiler Water as the Safety Valves blow off to Atmosphere instead of into the Condenser. But that doesn't Matter in Locomotives, as they have an open Water Cycle anyway. Meaning to say the Exhaust Steam is blown out of the Smokestack instead of being condensed to Water and used in the Boiler again. Anyway, plus letting the Safety Valves Lift is just bad Workmanship, they're intended as last Safety Measure and nothing else. In the automated Boilers that I make a Living with, the Burner cuts out at 10 bar, the Steam Dump is opened at 11 and the Safety Valves lift at 12 bar.
It would have been the heaviest locomotive in existence. And eventual radiation leaks would kill the crew and if the train derails or crashes it would be catastrophic.
We all know how much companies likes to cut corners when it comes to safety. I just read that there is an average of 3 train derailments in the USA per day.
One other problem is that if your hauling a long train like in real life you’ll see there are usually helper engines in the middle or rear to add extra power and to help reduce string-lining, and I’m pretty sure maintenances aren’t going to be easy
Besides solving a problem that doesn't exist, the first problem I can think of his horrifically slow power response times. First you have to hear the reactor, then the water, make steam, then turn a turbine up to speed. Thank god this never happened.
This is ironic because when steam locomotives first came on the scene they were equivalent to a nuclear reactor in complexity, very few knew how to operate them, they were very dangerous if you didn't do it right, hell they could explode just like a reactor. So... yea putting this on a train is just a chefs kiss in that vien.
On top of that, these would be steam turbines with electric transmissions. So you've got an active nuclear reactor (or a huge-ass RTG, but that's cheating in this context), high pressure steam, a steam turbine (gotta watch your revs) and high voltage high current electricity.
While I am a massive fan of nuclear power and would love to see more of it, your analogy falls apart when you account for nuclear fallout. That is not something that can simply be overcome with training and tech IMO. Having that mobile and near mass amounts of people is not a good idea...
Great video. You listed all of the technical problems and reasons for the unfeasibility of this project which I had in mind at once when I saw the title of this video
It would be easier to build a nuclear power plant and use electric locomotives. They could sell the extra power to the public. It would improve the power grid, speed up schedules and running time, and lower the transportation costs for bulk foodstuffs like grain and flour. And that's simply because electric locomotives can out pull any diesel or steam locos, and run faster with heavier trains.
Ok you pay for the massive Nuclear power plant and the millions of tons of steel and wires needed, then their construction, then their daily maintenance and inspection or you could just have a 20 foot LIFTR reactor running on normal rails 🤷🏼♂
the biggest problem I see is in derailments, which are an inevitability. What kind of nuclear disaster or meltdown would occur if the engine was damaged from an accident?
Technically, all Nuclear-Powered energy sources are basically steam engines. As I was learning about the largest Steam-Powered Locomotive Engine, called 'Big-Boy', I thought to myself, “why are we not using nuclear power in our trains today?” With today's Small Modular Nuclear Power, it makes sense to me, to use it in not only trains, but in most power generators. Are we waiting for batteries to get more efficient? Or is there a group of people, or lobbyists, who are just getting in the way of a better power source?
@@crackedemerald4930 Bingo. They have literally spent billions smearing green energy across the board. The mass paranoia behind nuclear energy is no accident....
For trains it wouldn't make sense at all, since you could always just use overhead lines for electricity, which could theoretically come from any power source, like a nuclear power plant. Funnily enough however, the reason why most railways on the American continents are still unelectrified is very likely lobbying
@@broski8849 no. They dont want to electrify because it is expensive. However, tests were done in 1973 to 79 to do that. Also, there was a transcontinental line which had two electrified sections and it was taken down because of stupid management. I am talking about the Milwaukee Road.
Not all. There are RTG (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator) that can turn the heat from fission directly to electricity. It's used on old space probes that doesn't need a lot of power, need to last a long long time and can't have solar panel
I would like to see a video on nuclear-powered Cargo ships, I'm sure it was tried by one of the Cold War powers and I'm sure it was either too expense, too dangerous or both.
Iirc, three nations built them. The U.S and (the only one to build multiple) USSR (obviously) and one other that I can't recall atm. They had the problems of high operating costs, limited "friendly" ports, and (most importantly) most entered service at about the same time as the Chernobyl Disaster, which made finding people willing to sail/transport cargo on them difficult (and greatly worsened the second problem). The USSR ones (which were ferry/cargo/icebreaker combos) lasted longest because they solely operated in Russian waters hauling cargo and passengers to/around largely isolated communities.
It has been done. They has serious issues with logistics and operating costs (turns out bunker fuel is REALLY cheap), and could only dock at a handful of ports around the world for political reasons. Russia actually still has a handful of nuclear powered civilian ships in the form of nuclear ice breakers.
With Los Angeles being a big train place with a massive population, could you imagine one of these miles long trains becoming a runaway on Cajon Pass and derailing in the basin while going over 100 mph like what has happened before, but instead of being a diesel train carrying inert cargo, like what has happened in the past, it was using these light water nuclear reactors and was hauling a bunch of LNG tanker cars and other hazardous and toxic cargo? We probably should be looking at something more like LFTR in stationary reactors. LFTR reactors use molten fluoride salts, so chemically inert. Water leads light water reactors to be inherently unsafe, which is a bit of a complex topic to briefly explain why and how to mitigate risk and sodium is highly reactive, and so not something you want to have rolling down the tracks. Even something as mass efficient as LFTR while having some better inherent safety is still not something you want rolling down the railway as an active reactor powering the train. You still want this to be stationary. One concept I have come up with is a hybrid train where you put up overhead electric where it makes the most sense, and really with LFTR making electric power cheap, have it everywhere. But even if you don't have it everywhere, you could do battery electric with LFP batteries especially as iron is plentiful and places like the Salton Sea are jammed packed with lithium, so the key ingredients for LFP batteries are extremely plentiful, and then use natural gas to run a gas turbine locomotive. The idea being the battery electric and gas turbine locomotives share power and if the batteries get low and there is no overhead power, the gas turbine locomotive could generate lots of power to distribute to the battery electric locomotives. Trains already haul around LNG tanker cars, so just rig one up to the gas turbine locomotive and it will have plenty of fuel.
Honestly, considering how hard it would be to electrify an _entire cargo route,_ I could see this being an economical green solution with modern technologies.
Its smarter to build a SMR or several, to supply electricity to a overhead supply, then the loco only has to go in for regular maintenance, and the reactor is in one safe location.
@@dddf27 If it was economically viable then there shouldn’t be an issue. Tons of hazardous materials including nuclear waste are transported on the US rail network on a daily basis. Yet no one in their right minds says we should ban all trains from operating because of an accident.
@@robertalaverdov8147 but better option is already available. Instead of putting reactor on the vehicle it will be much more sense to put the reactor on a stationary place, connect it to the grid and then electrified the railway. 1 nuclear power plant can power multiple trains compared to putting each one of nuclear reactor in every single train. It will be more cheaper, easier to maintain, and it will also power the entire grid too.
There was either a TV show or movie that featured a nuclear powered train. It was large and two levels making it a lot higher. On the first show, it was hijacked and this train drove around with these hijackers onboard like they were going to take it to Cuba. It did not last long. The show, not the train.
but its still stupid. if you want your trains to run on nuclear power then just setup a big nuclear power plant and supply that electricity to railways. In this case this nuclear plant will be much more efficient and safe.
It’s literally pointless though. It’s more expensive, more dangerous, needs more infrastructure and there isn’t a reason for it. Trains need to stop anyway, freight ones stop for ages so no point putting one in there, and a passenger train stops loads for small intervals so it’s completely worthless.
@@tusharsaikhedkar9808 You miss the point. Creating a reailway network with powerlines or even just outfitting existing railway networks with powerlines is extremely costly. So much so, that railway companies rather use diesel locomotives. His point specifically is, that small nuclear reactor technoligies, wich are currently in the trial phase,would make a more appealing business case, as the reactor needs much less maintanance and control from a skilled worker. The thing is, with the current advancements in small modular reactor technology and the more and more expensive to maintain powerlains, the scenario of a nuclear train will be unavoidable.
Well I propose a better Idea for nuclear train how about we put those reactor stationary so that the reactor can be bigger, more efficient, safer to operate, easier to maintaining both reactor and train. Then for all of those hassle for having special yard, we can use those money to research and build special magic transfer power device. So we can operate multiple train at once with single reactor. It looks even more fictional fantasy, but what we can't do with 2023 technology and willpower.
It is not a nuclear train if the reactor is not present on the train. Actually your idea has been materialized as an electric train, powered by nuclear power plant.
Irl fun fact because nuclear shielding is getting better and better with better and new materials and smaller and safer reactor designs. It's possible these trains could come back and become reality one day. But then again we can do the same with nuclear power plants by powering electric trains.
Would definitely need rods every few years or so but I think the water just re-condenses and recirculates, right? I mean, you would definitely lose some of it but not to the extent you're thinking, I believe
In my opinion, in the mid and long term, the use of nuclear-powered machines in civilian applications may face restrictions due to concerns about safeguarding the technology. The risk of theft or misuse by rival nations such as China or Iran, or terrorist groups, poses significant security challenges. Furthermore, the use of nuclear-powered cars, airplanes, cellphones, and batteries raises concerns about potential health risks due to radiation exposure.
the answer at the end is pretty much the same reason we don't put RTGs in electric cars, yeah it would heat the battery in the winter and charge the battery when the car isn't in use, but if the car wrecks there is now the possibility of nuclear material spilling out, plus the risk of people taking the RTG to make a dirty bomb, the fact that car disposal would now be nuclear disposal, etc.
It seems after WWII, everyone was scrambling to adapt atomic/ nuclear power to propulsion systems to everything and anything they could think of, then reality set in….. Remember that horrible train accident that happened where a train full of chemicals jumped the tracks and blew up, contaminating a whole town? It’s more like the perception of a big explosion from a nuke powered train that derailed even if it was as massively shielded as described in this video. Same could be said about nuke powered cars and aircraft…. Then a catastrophic accident happens and part or all of a city vanishes…. Not cool
Interesting concept, and reading through some of the comments bring up several thoughts. Nuclear steam generator systems are closed loops, so water is reused, unlike steam locomotives that are total loss systems. There was a reactor developed of similar size for the NB36 program, not sure if the shielding would be sufficient. The reactor operator would be a huge expense, as railroads are trying to get away with 1 man crews on long haul freight. The weight to a certain extent is a good thing, as it is part of the reason trains have as much pulling power as they do, modern diesel locomotives are upwards of 300 tons on 12 wheels (6 axles) per unit in the United States. In today's world with diesel fuel being so costly, a nuclear powered locomotive might even break even. Many people have mentioned electric overhead trolley wire, and that's not a bad thing. Electric locomotives are much cheaper in some respects to operate, as there is less to them. But erecting the overhead for long distances is extremely expensive. It was tried early in the 20th century by a few railroads in the United States, and overtime, was all taken down. Except the high speed corridor on the east coast. Lots to consider, and yes, safety is a huge concern.
Russia, China, India, Turkey... all those countries have very long corridors electrified and it is not a problem. Only in USA it is considered like that. And, by the way, the only main line electrification on the West was taken down by stupidity, not because it wasnt better than diesels. I am talking about the Milwaukee Road electrification, which was removed in 1974.
@@MarceloBenoit-trenes valid points, but recall, those programs were funded by governments, not private enterprise. It's really expensive to string overhead!! And only governments can spend that kind of money because they seem to pretend they have unlimited funds. Most of the upgrades to the east coast corridor were paid for through and by the government in the AMTRAK era. The main 2 cross country electrified sections were paid for by the railroad tycoons! And upkeep was done by the railroads, not the government. One of the railroads that did electrify a long distance of its mainline, is completely gone!!! Bankrupted by changing times. The other has been gone for over 70 years now! And that railroad has gone through several mergers since. Also, there was a plan to electrify the main north-south mainline from Portland Oregon to Los Angeles in the early 1910s. Unfortunately the man in charge of the railroad whose dream it was died. And the electrification plan died with him
The reasons most prominent I believe: 1. The railroads don't want the liability. The railroad in many parts of the states are in disrepair, and that is not something you're going to want to yeet a nuclear train through. 2. The working shift hours for freight crews is 12 hrs I believe. That train is still giong to need to come to a stop, and change crew, or carry a bunking unit of some kind with relief crews. 3. Chernobyl and 3 Mile Island have serious impacts, the latter to an outsized degree of it's severity. But by classification, 3MI is fairly serious, if not as horrific and consequential as the Goiânia Accident. But the slain spirit of nuclear power really died here in the West, on the panic of the American public, and bad PR communicating the scope and severity.
It didn’t even work for NBC as a set piece to compete with The Love Boat in 1979. Featuring a super wide luxury setting with swimming pools and bowling alleys. It was so expensive and so dumb yet it got past the pitch phase because they needed something to compete, even a back idea.
Thomas is a London Brighton & southcoast Railway (LBSC) E2 Tank engine , specifically ohne of the later examples with extended side Tanks . Built in 1915 and purchast in the same year by the then newly formed North Western Railway . Passengers ride in coaches behind an engine . Actually do you know the history (/lore) of the series? (Is RWS saying/meaning anything to you (in the context) ?)
we have overhead electric power in the Netherlands rail system. very easy to connect these lines to any power station such as a nuclear power station. much easier and more flexible
Now there are some research about hybrid locomotive, an electric locomotive but have diesel engine on it so the it can be run on non-electrified tracks or can be used over it limit by using the phantograph & the diesel engine at once.
I have asked several experienced engineers and railroaders about the retractable (changeable) gauge of wheels for locomotives and cars on Quora. I know every pros and cons about it. Could you make a specific video about this idea? I have recently came up with it.
For a truly nuts application - nuclear powered bombers were developed for a while, but eventually abandoned for numerous reasons, not least of which were that an inability to carry sufficient shielding resulted in killing the crew and spewing radiation into the air... trivial issues like that. However, the USA's work did result in the Oak Ridge experiments on LFTR reactors.
At the dawn of atomic power era, people began to imagining every kind of vehicle with nuclear powerplant: atomic ship, atomic plane, atomic train, and atomic car
Two decades later, the French did it the right way around, built 56 nuclear reactors across their country and started building a high speed rail network with electric propulsion.
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Is that 10,000 litres total cooling tank capacity or a flow rate?
Amazing browser for gifting your personal information to FSB.
Their VPN is terrible as well.
The problem is that no one appears to have thought that a dedicated nuclear power station could be used to supply electricity to an electric railway
That's too boring and safe and not thrill enough to burn vastly amount of money
Actually, that would be a downgrade in this case, depending on what nuclear tech is actually being used for the train. Obviously you wouldn't want a light water reactor rolling around but a couple decently sized RTGs (radioisotope thermo-electric generators, which are powered by the natural decay of radioisotopes) running on plutonium would actually be better as they don't have the downside of requiring catenary and don't introduce the potential risks a design with an active reactor does.
EDIT: Ok, watching more of the video, this is using a molten salt FBR. Those fail safe, as they need to constantly cycle their fuel solution to sustain a reaction. So even the reactor-based version wouldn't have many issues.
@@VestedUTuber RTGs don't have anywhere near the power density to beat even diesel engines. Lasting decades does not help if it's too weak to power the train anyway.
It's called atomic train for a reason, to get the power density required it has to be a full reactor, and a pretty ridiculously light and complex one at that.
NOW you're thinking like a real "supergenius" like Felon Muskrat!@@bocahdongo7769
Transmission losses? Wouldn't matter on most routes where the power station isn't far, but on the China-Europe run across Siberia it might make sense to take the reactor along.
the biggest issue i see with this is, they still need to run on rails, so just build electric locomotives with electrified rails, with the electricity coming from a nuclear power plant, and you have nuclear powered trains that never need to stop, nor refil
True and anything that can disable the train or the electrified track would mean you have a much worse problem. Either a derailed train. Sabotaged power system. And or a nuclear disaster in your hands.
You mean run catenary. Electrifying the rails themselves creates a dangerous situation wherever a rail line has to interact with a road.
@@VestedUTuber well yeah in general terms a "electric rail" or "electrified railway" refers to catenary railways as they're the obvious choice for a electric railway.
@@spaceengineeringempire4086 that's how we do it now and a disabled track wouldn't mean a sabotaged power system. The trains themselves don't need constant access to the catenary just for the most part. Of the journey they have some battery charge
True
Such radiators were used with "normal" steam trains too, especially in germany colonies in Africa like Namibia, where water was relatively scarce.
Some American railroads have locomotives with massive radiators, more so than normal, their called "tunnel motors" and are for use in extremely long tunnels
Those "radiators" on south African steam locos are condensers, it cools exhausted steam back into water in a effort to extend the water supply.
@@anareel4562 the difference with the tunnel motors was that the air intakes for the radiators were down at footplate level instead of high on the sides, so that following locos would not be ingesting hot air from leading locos in tunnels, hence the name.
Henschell made these locomotives. They came in useful to the Germans in WW2 because they didn't give of steam that could be spotted from the air. Also in Russia the watering stations were further apart which was a problem from German locomotives.
They were experimented with in South Africa as well, and used to varying degrees in South America, for the same reasons.
US: normal sized train with a nuclear reactor
USSR: SNOWPIERCER
"If the engine stops, we all freeze and die."
Snowpiercer's are actually the Naz¡'s idea
@@SalmanMentos wouldn't suprise me, das auto I guess lmao
@@SalmanMentosnah, they wanted to make a train for Propoganda reasoning and other stuff
@@danfletcher3255
Every government make anything for their propaganda reasons. That’s why they’re call government, not inventors or charity.
Let me guess: did this not take off because power plants do better staying in one place and trains are very easy to electrify using the energy said plants generate?
That's what I thought. In France, electric trains run on mainly nuclear power so nuclear trains are possible and practical.
@@Abitibidoug
That’s a bit different, those trains are only electrical.
Nuclear reactors inside train aren’t feasible even now, there’s no technology on safe miniature nuclear reactor, not to mention if the train crash even though very unlikely but it is still a big safety concern when train gets derailed.
@@MP-vc4nu What he was saying was that they basically already have nuclear trains, because their trains are electric on a mostly nuclear grid.
No, the issue is safety. And electric trains are not as efficient as people think….
@@goldenhate6649 mind elaborating? I always figured that trains powered by wire or energized rail just took the generator out of the vehicle for a lighter approach. Since, y’know, standard freight trains run on electricity made by onboard diesel generators.
That is a nice computer model of the X-12. I made an HO scale non-powered one in Union Pacific livery that I was able to push around with a pair of powered F units. (The Union Pacific was definitely interested in a nuclear locomotive to replace it's Big Boy and Challenger steam locomotives. They were already building large gas turbine powered locomotives, and later large diesel locomotives.) It looked quite impressive and had massive overhang on the curves of my small layout. A couple of other things I learned in my research on building the model:
* The machinery ahead of the hexagonal reaction section is a steam generator. The passenger coaches of the time used steam from the steam locomotive for heating and cooling. When they were replaced by diesels, the diesels had to have a steam generator installed to heat and cool the coaches, usually in the tail end of the diesel. Since this engine wasn't intended to pull passenger trains, a steam generator was really unnecessary. Ahead of it was a small auxiliary diesel engine and generator; it was used to provide power to start the reactor as well as to move the locomotive alone around the train yard without starting up the reactor. The Union Pacific gas turbine locomotives also had auxiliary diesel generators for the same purposes.
* The fuel used in the reactor was weapons grade uranium mixed with sulfuric acid! Refueling the locomotive would be more than just draining the old mixture out and pouring the new mixture in, the old fuel would have to be recycled. The engineer in charge of designing the locomotive helpfully proposed that the government would build the refueling stations for the railroads; but this, coupled with the initial cost of the locomotive, the cost of the fuel, the training needed for locomotive crews, and the danger of an onboard reactor, and it is not surprising it was never built.
I put together a video on the X-12 on my channel as well, but nothing this nice. Well done.
I made a drawing of this train in a PRR livery back when Fallout 76 was about to come out.
is the CGI from a train simulation game? Because I am impressed as hell of the graphics in this video and will buy it in a heartbeat.
Man, your animations are SPOT ON! Congrats! Very impressive graphics! And excellent content this is!
Do you know what program he uses? I tried to get in touch but got no response lol
blender @@RAY-THE-WAY
@@bajra_mahardika Is this confirmed? Because if this is from some train game simulation I will tell them to take my money.
How does someone actually starts to animate like this??
If they don't want the train to refuel, then we can just y'know
*use electric trains with overhead wire*
Nah, people will rejected it because somehow, for some reason, it sounds even more impossible for them to attach the wire instead of burning the money for safer nuclear train
Sounds great... till something breaks the power line and now you have a dead train.
@@SilvaDreams Something that breaks power line are capable to derail the train anyway
I doesnt have to stop...well just get people to jump on as it goes by.
@@bocahdongo7769I mean, no? Overhead lines break all the time just because. Rarely does a wire break lead to derailment. We have a link line that has frequent wire breaks in winter because of the cold, never once caused a derailment.
The nuclear train from Russia is in the current display in St.Petersberg, It's exibited in the Raiway Transport Museum. This nuclear strike train is a masterpiece among a fantastic layout. Tickets cost really few.
I really thought it was a nuclear powered train , although I was aware the one in Russia was a nuclear missile train
This video here is about a nuclear powered train. The Train in St. Petersburg is a missle launch train. Build to launch icbms with nuclear warheads
Good. An eye for an eye. Revenge for the Antonov will be seen through
💥 boom
In the early years of nuclear energy there were ideas for nuclear powered car, trains, and airplanes. However in the long run nuclear power was used for stationary nuclear power plants, special navy ships primarily nuclear powered aircraft carriers, and nuclear powered submarines. One interesting fact about navy nuclear submarines is that the limiting factor on how long they can stay out at sea is how much food can be stored in the submarine. The nuclear power is nearly limitless but men have to eat food, which will run out first.
Internal combustion engines started out as stationary machines, before technological advancements led to their use in motive power becoming feasible. Who knows, maybe someday soon a breakthrough will come about that could make nuclear powered locomotives or automobiles practical.
@@thetman0068 knowing how bad us americans are at driving im gonna stop you right there on nuclear vehicles
@@XMYeks Fair point. Maybe if they’re self-driving 😆
Isn't there a modified nuclear Boeing plane that is made to fly for over a week without any kind of refueling in case there is a massive catastrophe in Earth and touching the ground is not possible ? Granted that is Unique in the world , but still
@@ulforcemegamon3094 No, that doesn’t exist.
Very interesting video, having done a nuclear locomotive feasibility project in a 200-level intro to nuclear engineering course. I recall concluding that trains derailed too often to accept the risk.
That seems like the most credible reason...
You can simply put the nuclear power plant outside of the train and then supply the electricity via an overhead wire.
Imagine that! People might be leery of a nuclear reactor casually passing through their neighborhood. I mean, what could go wrong?
Someone did the math.
Electrifying the railways would be much cheaper and more economical.
And then they didn't bother because
Someone else did the math and running them on coal and desil would be profitable 🤑
@@mikerodix4800idiots like you two have no idea how much energy that would take and that we have no means of storing that much energy even if we could make it. You also have no idea how much more damaging lithium mines are vs CO2 from cars/trains
@@mikerodix4800You can use nuclear (which is cheap) and price coal/diesel charges for nuclear and electric. MORE PROFITS
for city railway Electrifying the railways its possible but for outtercity connection . . . . especially big landmass like Russia and US ? you must consider natural disaster threat , thief threat , and maintenance cost . . . i think big issue is maintenance cost is cheaper with nuclear train than Electrifying whole railway . . . .
Do y’all remember that game that told us to be safe around trains??? So many dumb ways to die! 😂
Oh, sorry about that
My game told me that all i had to do was follow the train
Nuclear cargo ships are a real missed opportunity.
Probably the only mobile application that really makes sense, That would be SO MUCH LESS CO2 in the atmosphere.
True
Google NS Savannah.
If only people would give them a chance...
Aircraft carriers run on nuclear power. Why not cargo?
She would not only be a steam train she would be a Steam turbine electric train like modern ones but here you turn the generators by steam turbines and you take the steam from a nuclear reactor that boils water.
For 12.000 years we still make energy out of boiling water.
It's more like 300 years..
cant make energy, and it’s only 300 years
@@freaky1382 What do you do while cooking?
You boil water
You boil water by fire
You use the boiling water to make the food you put into the pot to be tastier
And cookery was born circa 12.000 years ago when the first town was built and our tribal era lasted 120.000 years when we wore clothes, hunted, gathered, tamed fire, made weapons and used fire to boil water.
I said energy, not electricity!
You dont make energy when cooking@@whitefalcon630
Honestly, Nuclear energy(electricity) pisses me off.
It's just hot water! WTF!!!!!
It's great but c'mon... why isn't it cooler than just heating up water?
lets face it there is no real point in them. just use catanary, no dangerous nuclear reactor on board (of course the power can come from a nuclear power plant too but thats a lot safer in terms of shielding required). also more efficient, you dont need to haul a 200 ton shield around. as well as the huge cooling array.
People hate it because it sounds too boring and expensive for them. That's too expected
Meanwhile nuclear train provide them with the dopamine rush for F U T U R E and burn their money like nothing tomorrow. Like you know, gambling addiction.
yup. new ideas are sadly often not practical. people often get caught up in buzzwords and other crap that turns out to be nothing in the end.@@bocahdongo7769
Millions of tons of steel and wires that need constant checking and maintenance as well as power loss through those millions of tons of wires vs 200 ton sheild and on-sight power ie no power loss, do you even Math dude?
@@kell7195 >Nuclear reactor
>Zero maintenance
Pick one
10:42 The best argument. Works in Europe pretty nice. The problem is that the freight operators in the USA do not want to build and maintain overhead wires, as it is associated with costs and it is simply cheaper to run diesel-electric trains.
not only cheaper but more practical too. We run double stack containers. Europe doesn't
@@dareklachowicz3946 Double stack containers can be electric too. See India. Tunnels in Europe are not tall enough though. Bridges are also a problem.
I guess we sort of have nuclear powered trains. Where I live we run on a nuclear power plant and the trains run off the electric grid from overhead cables. It’s just a more practical method.
yeah, but people dont find that interesting sadly.
True
Wasting billions of tons of Steel and wires isnt practical, thats why it is only used in small nations with massive Government subsidization like France/UK.
Soviets had no nuclear train, but they successfully tested a mobile land transported nuclear power plant and are now employing a mobile sea transported nuclear power plant called Lomonosov.
America’s got a bunch of mobile sea transported nuclear power plants already. They just added a whole bunch of planes and weapons to them as well.
@@OneBiasedOpinion such as?
@@isekaiexpress9450 you can run power lines from nuclear aircraft carriers and such to power the local grid in a disaster situation. The newer ones can produce huge surpluses of electricity.
@@sethb3090😆😂😅
But the US did have a nuclear bomber. Just they didn't use the reactor to power the propellers. Look up the NB-36H for details on one that carried a reactor. It carried a 1 megawatt reactor that was air cooled.
Yeah, this just seems like it would be hideously expensive for almost no payoff. It's inefficient, expensive to buy and operate, and what you get for that is a vehicle that doesnt need to be refueled - something that plain electric trains already do while being much cheaper and simpler to run and just as powerful. As a railroad company, you probably save money just electrifying a freight line than investing in an atomic locomotive (hell it already saves you money in the long run vs diesel locomotives).
I think the cost of the train is the least of their worries, we’e talking about a nuclear train. On standard gauge track a train like this isn’t big enough to sustain a nuclear reactor’s radiation. To even sustain a nuclear reactor and keep radiation from leaking we’d need a train the size of the Breitspurbahn like the germans were planning, which was supposed to be double the size of standard gauge. And i imagine they didn’t have the budget nor space atm to develop it. Besides unless the train was as large as the Breitspurbahn, direct exposure to that radiaiton from the train crew could be lethal.
France already figured out how to do this the right way. They currently have thousands of nuclear-powered trains.
Spot on 👍 Albeit a lot of their reactors are starting to get to end-of-life so the blend of electricity is changing unless they start building new ones…
Just reminds me of the Swiss railways "electric e3/3" where they got a steam loco, put toasters in the fire box and give it a go. The funniest is that they did it and it was somehow good. I love my country 🇨🇭
Not exactly. The original Firebox was kept, and Electric Continuous Flow Heaters were added on top of that. They ran in fairly low Voltage, resulting in the ridiculous Current of 6 kA. The Fireboxes usually even retained a small Wood Fire, to be used as "Range Extender" on longer Stretches of un-electrified Track.
Well explained and easy to follow. Great job!
I think its downfall was the complexity and the weight of the reactor itself. But fortunately, modern Generation IV reactors are much smaller in size and you could probably build a nuclear-powered train about the size of an EMD DDA40X that could potentially be rated at 7,000 bhp or more.
You still have to take into consideration the consequences of what would happen if it derailed or something. Even if it’s possible to build a practical train I don’t think one will be built.
Yopu would use a higher temperature and a gas as a working fluid, that would make the radiators much smaller.
The fuel wold be contained in silicon carbide, graphite ceamtic grains assembled into pellets. They would isolate the radioactive material and shot down from thermal resonance.
But why would you bother? It would be simpler, cheaper, safer, and much more flexible to build a stationary nuclear power plant and run electric trains with overhead wires. That would *also* give you the ability to travel indefinitely without refueling (not an issue with modern trains anyway), wouldn't generate emissions, and can have an essentially arbitrary amount of horsepower. Unlike a nuclear train, the technology to do that safely already exists, wouldn't risk a nuclear disaster in the event of a derailment (or just a fuckup by an overworked reactor tech who hasn't slept in 3 days), and wouldn't require the construction of hundreds of miniaturized nuclear reactors to stuff into locomotives.
They also have the advantage of flexibility; both the trains and the nuclear plant would be connected to the grid. When the trains aren't moving, the plant would provide power to the grid, and when the plant is down for maintenance, the grid could supply power for the trains.
Onboard nuclear reactors only make sense when you need extremely long range operation and can't feasibly connect the vehicle to the power grid. That's absolutely not the case with a train; we've been connecting trains to power grids for well over 100 years now.
@@a.p.2356 If you think it would be far more "easy" and "efficient" to run millions of tons or wires and steel towers everywhere + all that energy loss through those thousands of kilometers or wires than small modular LIFTER Reactors that are impossible to melt down providing power directly to the wheels beneath them you need your head read or frankly you have no idea what you are talking about.
I think with a small integral molten salt reactor and a CO2 Brayton cycle turbine, this can actually work. No radioactive steam, no water cooling, no high pressure safety hazard.
There's no question it could work from a technology POV. But a heavy nuclear reactor, running 60-80 mph, with a several thousand tons of dumb weight behind it, is an enormous security risk. Furthermore you need at least one (if not more) skilled technician on board, more than doubling personal costs.
Furthermore it's lacking economies of scale: A larger (not mobile) reactor can produce the same MWh for way less financial input.
In the end, it is just way cheaper to built overhead wiring and combine it with the cheapest form of energy production (nowadays renewables). And we are just ignoring the enormous after-life-expenses of nuclear energy in this example (handling of nuclear fuel, tons of radioactive waste from the reactor block and storing it for tens of thousands of years...).
NaK is very corrosive, but we do know it works because Breeder reactors tend to use molten salt cycles.
Always welcome to know new things!
I'm still blown away by the fact that you can fit a nuclear reactor into a submarine!
That's amazing stuff! Wonderful engineering!
It's helps when you have the entire ocean to use as a heatsink.
You can fit one in a suit case if you're brave enough
Ohio class submarine is 13 meters wide, it's more than enough to fit a standard 6-9 meters nuclear reactor, it's not that we made them so small that they fit in a submarine, we made submarines so big they can fit a nuclear reactor
The funny thing is, there was actually a TV series that was based on a nuclear powered train.
"Supertrain" rain on NVC in the US in 1979, and it was set on a nuclear powered train dressed out like a cruise ship. Complete with a swimming pool shopping mall, and of course a disco since it was 1979. Similar to "The Love Boat", it was a weekly series. And the train would go from New York to LA in a day and a half.
About the size of the cooler: If the mechanical efficiency would be the same as for a diesel engine, one could expect the cooler to have the same size for the same power of the engine, the same amount of heat has to be dissipated. But that's not the case. In order to get good efficiency, a nuclear reactor needs lower temperature of the cooling water than that for a diesel engine. While a diesel is happy with 70 °C return temperature to the engine (maybe a small part of the total at lower temp if it has a water cooled intercooler), a reactor prefers 30-40 °C return temperature to the condenser. Higher temp leads to loss of efficiency and loss of mechanical power. Lower temp requires a larger cooler.
Hey Skunk; I agree that if both Diesel and Nuclear locomotives have the same mechanical efficiency then they would have to reject the same amount of waste heat for a given level of mechanical power output. The difference that makes the condenser for the Nuclear locomotive so much larger compared to the radiator for a Diesel locomotive is that in the Diesel much of the waste heat (a quick Google search seems to indicate 50%+) is rejected via the exhaust gasses and another chunk (maybe 5-10%) is rejected through the oil cooler. (Many Diesel engines have oil sprays that cool the underside of the piston heads.) Some heat will also be rejected directly from the engine block to the ambient air. In contrast, essentially 100% of the heat rejected from a Nuclear locomotive is rejected via the exhaust steam from the power turbine being condensed back to water in the condenser. Two more factors increase the size of the condenser for Nuclear locomotive. First, the spent steam enters the condenser in the gaseous state and gasses have very low thermal conductivity compared to liquids such as the coolant in a Diesel locomotive. This slows down the heat transfer a lot, thus requiring a larger condenser. Second, the Nuclear locomotive condenser is being cooled by ambient air at perhaps a design maximum of 40 degrees C. and the condensed water output is just below 100 degrees C. so the delta T is only 60 degrees C. In a diesel locomotive the cooling system will probably be under pressure to increase the boiling temperature of the coolant. Many older Diesel locomotives run plain water (with corrosion inhibitors) as coolant but more modern ones use a mixture of water and ethylene glycol. A 50/50 mixture of ethylene glycol and water pressurized to 15 PSI boils at over 131 degrees C. so the system can be run with delta T of about 90 degrees C. compared to 60 degrees C. for the Nuclear locomotive. This will make the Diesel locomotive radiator much more effective for a given size.
Full disclosure... I am an electronic engineer, not a thermodynamicist. If there is a thermodynamics expert in the crowd please chime in to let me know if I am on the correct track or not...
A dieselo reject half its heat through the radiator and half through the exhaust. A steam engine must reject all of its heat through the radiator. The only way around this is to increase operating temperature so a smaller radiator is needed. Best done with CO2 or Helium rather than water.
Mustard grade graphics. Love it and a great followup to his nuclear wessels video about the cruise ship.
Sadly this violates both of railroad's main concerns: Maintaining items. and crews. Each reactor needs a fireman. and probably was hell to maintain. The Diesel won because it was like maintaining a car and could have 2 people run multiple diesel engines.
Ah, yes, everybody remembers The Little Engine That Could...... Derail And Turn Into A Radioactive Fireball.
trains are pretty safe, and nuclear is made out to be more of a risk than it is.
Anyone remember the short-lived (fortunately) TV show "Super Train"? It was craptacular, but it did feature a wide nuclear powered train.
Tbf, in many countries that have HSR or electrified railways in general, a lot of the electricity comes from nuclear power stations
Oh nice. We’re one step closer to making Snowpiercer a reality!
And when the train did stop (to load or unload cargo), you would almost certainly have issues with overheating. As you're not using the power to move the train and there is no air cooling the nuclear reactor would be producing an excess of power.
So you shut the reactor down.
I have just found out about the Brennan Monorail. Would be great to see you do a video about that it’s super interesting and I can’t believe it’s not a thing.
Sodium reactors are safer in a meltdown than pressurized water and a shame we never went that direction
The primary sticking point for sodium reactors has always been the need to keep them hot when the reactor isn't running. If the primary loop cools off, it'll solidify and effectively brick the entire reactor, which makes refueling and maintenance a bit of a headache. It's not an insurmountable issue, but it's enough of a headache that everyone who's tried it has abandoned it pretty soon after.
Sodium is reactive with water (boom!) and is corrosive. Difficult to design pump seals.
I am more than happy than happy to see the quality been watching videos of you for a while watched nearly everyone of them videos
i liked it till the end. the conclusions at the end just show the shortsightedness of human race.
"undeveloped countries"
"minor countries"
"insurgents"
"the cost of a nuclear engineer vs the cost of a diesel engineer" - you are right in here. there is a very high cost of you surrounding yourself with people that you haven't allowed to grow and be powerful and smart on their own. but the cost will always be with you.
In the beginning I thought he was saying there was room for a driver, Kevin. I had to listen to it 3 times before I finally got it.
Firemen does a little bit more than just hold a shovel. Basically also make sure the boiler does not explode.
@@crackedemerald4930 And ensure that it burns properly. I can't tell too much about Steam Locomotives, but on Steam Ships you use an Air Intake Flap at the Furnace and another Flap inside the Funnel to regulate Air Flow. The Latter Flap prevents Heat from just being wasted out of the Funnel. IIRC Steam Locomotives have Air Intake Flaps too, but the Funnel Updraft instead is controlled with the Blast Pipe instead of a Flap.
Oh and Steam Ships may also include the Logistics of keeping Coal flowing, Locomotives always have the Bunker right next to the Furnace.
Don't let the boiler explode is the job for both traditional steam and nuclear steam.
No, the safety valves take care of that.
@@JBofBrisbane Lifting Safety Valves means that you're wasting Fuel; you're literally producing Steam just to blow it off unused again. In closed Systems, you're also wasting Boiler Water as the Safety Valves blow off to Atmosphere instead of into the Condenser. But that doesn't Matter in Locomotives, as they have an open Water Cycle anyway. Meaning to say the Exhaust Steam is blown out of the Smokestack instead of being condensed to Water and used in the Boiler again.
Anyway, plus letting the Safety Valves Lift is just bad Workmanship, they're intended as last Safety Measure and nothing else. In the automated Boilers that I make a Living with, the Burner cuts out at 10 bar, the Steam Dump is opened at 11 and the Safety Valves lift at 12 bar.
@@JBofBrisbane Popping the safety valves means wasted shoveling effort. Plus they don't help at all if the water level goes below the crown sheet.
It would have been the heaviest locomotive in existence. And eventual radiation leaks would kill the crew and if the train derails or crashes it would be catastrophic.
We all know how much companies likes to cut corners when it comes to safety.
I just read that there is an average of 3 train derailments in the USA per day.
@@NextNate03true, also no insurer would take the risk
Take reactor out of the train, put it next to the track, string wires over train bam nuclear powered train. Welcome to France.
One other problem is that if your hauling a long train like in real life you’ll see there are usually helper engines in the middle or rear to add extra power and to help reduce string-lining, and I’m pretty sure maintenances aren’t going to be easy
Besides solving a problem that doesn't exist, the first problem I can think of his horrifically slow power response times. First you have to hear the reactor, then the water, make steam, then turn a turbine up to speed. Thank god this never happened.
Yeah dude 70 year old light water power station reactors isnt what they are talking about here.
I would love to see a video of how you make the 3D animations. It looks like Unreal Engine but It would be nice to see your workflow.
This is ironic because when steam locomotives first came on the scene they were equivalent to a nuclear reactor in complexity, very few knew how to operate them, they were very dangerous if you didn't do it right, hell they could explode just like a reactor. So... yea putting this on a train is just a chefs kiss in that vien.
On top of that, these would be steam turbines with electric transmissions. So you've got an active nuclear reactor (or a huge-ass RTG, but that's cheating in this context), high pressure steam, a steam turbine (gotta watch your revs) and high voltage high current electricity.
While I am a massive fan of nuclear power and would love to see more of it, your analogy falls apart when you account for nuclear fallout. That is not something that can simply be overcome with training and tech IMO. Having that mobile and near mass amounts of people is not a good idea...
Great video.
You listed all of the technical problems and reasons for the unfeasibility of this project which I had in mind at once when I saw the title of this video
It would be easier to build a nuclear power plant and use electric locomotives. They could sell the extra power to the public. It would improve the power grid, speed up schedules and running time, and lower the transportation costs for bulk foodstuffs like grain and flour. And that's simply because electric locomotives can out pull any diesel or steam locos, and run faster with heavier trains.
Ok you pay for the massive Nuclear power plant and the millions of tons of steel and wires needed, then their construction, then their daily maintenance and inspection or you could just have a 20 foot LIFTR reactor running on normal rails 🤷🏼♂
When you talk about Soviet Union, 8:07 is Polish visualisation, 8:36 loco is called 'nurek'-scuba diver. It is Czech construction, Skoda.
skoda, że nie weszli do pełnej produkcji
Search for this on Google
Would be a great nickname for a running back
the biggest problem I see is in derailments, which are an inevitability. What kind of nuclear disaster or meltdown would occur if the engine was damaged from an accident?
Technically, all Nuclear-Powered energy sources are basically steam engines.
As I was learning about the largest Steam-Powered Locomotive Engine, called 'Big-Boy', I thought to myself, “why are we not using nuclear power in our trains today?”
With today's Small Modular Nuclear Power, it makes sense to me, to use it in not only trains, but in most power generators. Are we waiting for batteries to get more efficient? Or is there a group of people, or lobbyists, who are just getting in the way of a better power source?
@@crackedemerald4930 Bingo. They have literally spent billions smearing green energy across the board. The mass paranoia behind nuclear energy is no accident....
For trains it wouldn't make sense at all, since you could always just use overhead lines for electricity, which could theoretically come from any power source, like a nuclear power plant. Funnily enough however, the reason why most railways on the American continents are still unelectrified is very likely lobbying
@@broski8849 no. They dont want to electrify because it is expensive. However, tests were done in 1973 to 79 to do that. Also, there was a transcontinental line which had two electrified sections and it was taken down because of stupid management. I am talking about the Milwaukee Road.
Not all. There are RTG (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator) that can turn the heat from fission directly to electricity. It's used on old space probes that doesn't need a lot of power, need to last a long long time and can't have solar panel
Love this channel so much
I would like to see a video on nuclear-powered Cargo ships, I'm sure it was tried by one of the Cold War powers and I'm sure it was either too expense, too dangerous or both.
Iirc, three nations built them. The U.S and (the only one to build multiple) USSR (obviously) and one other that I can't recall atm. They had the problems of high operating costs, limited "friendly" ports, and (most importantly) most entered service at about the same time as the Chernobyl Disaster, which made finding people willing to sail/transport cargo on them difficult (and greatly worsened the second problem). The USSR ones (which were ferry/cargo/icebreaker combos) lasted longest because they solely operated in Russian waters hauling cargo and passengers to/around largely isolated communities.
It has been done. They has serious issues with logistics and operating costs (turns out bunker fuel is REALLY cheap), and could only dock at a handful of ports around the world for political reasons.
Russia actually still has a handful of nuclear powered civilian ships in the form of nuclear ice breakers.
With Los Angeles being a big train place with a massive population, could you imagine one of these miles long trains becoming a runaway on Cajon Pass and derailing in the basin while going over 100 mph like what has happened before, but instead of being a diesel train carrying inert cargo, like what has happened in the past, it was using these light water nuclear reactors and was hauling a bunch of LNG tanker cars and other hazardous and toxic cargo?
We probably should be looking at something more like LFTR in stationary reactors. LFTR reactors use molten fluoride salts, so chemically inert. Water leads light water reactors to be inherently unsafe, which is a bit of a complex topic to briefly explain why and how to mitigate risk and sodium is highly reactive, and so not something you want to have rolling down the tracks. Even something as mass efficient as LFTR while having some better inherent safety is still not something you want rolling down the railway as an active reactor powering the train. You still want this to be stationary.
One concept I have come up with is a hybrid train where you put up overhead electric where it makes the most sense, and really with LFTR making electric power cheap, have it everywhere. But even if you don't have it everywhere, you could do battery electric with LFP batteries especially as iron is plentiful and places like the Salton Sea are jammed packed with lithium, so the key ingredients for LFP batteries are extremely plentiful, and then use natural gas to run a gas turbine locomotive. The idea being the battery electric and gas turbine locomotives share power and if the batteries get low and there is no overhead power, the gas turbine locomotive could generate lots of power to distribute to the battery electric locomotives. Trains already haul around LNG tanker cars, so just rig one up to the gas turbine locomotive and it will have plenty of fuel.
now with those new gen small reactors that could make its way back at some point.
Honestly, considering how hard it would be to electrify an _entire cargo route,_ I could see this being an economical green solution with modern technologies.
Yooooo my guy has come back😲😲👍👍👍😇
Its smarter to build a SMR or several, to supply electricity to a overhead supply, then the loco only has to go in for regular maintenance, and the reactor is in one safe location.
If your country is the size of Fiji island than maybe in every other circumstance this is incorrect.
Chernobyl coming to a town near you
Nuclear power still continues to be the safest and cleanest form of energy despite it.
You people are scared of everything. We have been operating nuclear ships and submarines since the 70s with zero issues
@@robertalaverdov8147yeah but it doesn't make sense to put a reactor on a train
@@dddf27 If it was economically viable then there shouldn’t be an issue. Tons of hazardous materials including nuclear waste are transported on the US rail network on a daily basis. Yet no one in their right minds says we should ban all trains from operating because of an accident.
@@robertalaverdov8147 but better option is already available. Instead of putting reactor on the vehicle it will be much more sense to put the reactor on a stationary place, connect it to the grid and then electrified the railway. 1 nuclear power plant can power multiple trains compared to putting each one of nuclear reactor in every single train. It will be more cheaper, easier to maintain, and it will also power the entire grid too.
There was either a TV show or movie that featured a nuclear powered train. It was large and two levels making it a lot higher. On the first show, it was hijacked and this train drove around with these hijackers onboard like they were going to take it to Cuba. It did not last long. The show, not the train.
Supertrain. It was like The Love Boat on rails, without the name guest stars or the laugh track.
@@JBofBrisbane , as I recall, it didn't last long.
You should make a video about variable sweep wing aircraft like the f14 the f111 and the mig 23
1:46 a slightly hotter fire as well 🤣
With advancement in Small Modular Reactors, I wouldn't be surprised (and would be very excited) if we get to see a revival of this concept.
but its still stupid.
if you want your trains to run on nuclear power then just setup a big nuclear power plant and supply that electricity to railways.
In this case this nuclear plant will be much more efficient and safe.
Or just put reactor somewhere else and use those money to research and build magic power transfer device.
That's sounds even more impossible isnt?
It’s literally pointless though. It’s more expensive, more dangerous, needs more infrastructure and there isn’t a reason for it. Trains need to stop anyway, freight ones stop for ages so no point putting one in there, and a passenger train stops loads for small intervals so it’s completely worthless.
@@tusharsaikhedkar9808 You miss the point. Creating a reailway network with powerlines or even just outfitting existing railway networks with powerlines is extremely costly. So much so, that railway companies rather use diesel locomotives.
His point specifically is, that small nuclear reactor technoligies, wich are currently in the trial phase,would make a more appealing business case, as the reactor needs much less maintanance and control from a skilled worker.
The thing is, with the current advancements in small modular reactor technology and the more and more expensive to maintain powerlains, the scenario of a nuclear train will be unavoidable.
@@freaky1382 Man, i won't repeat myselfe but be ensured, the idea is much less stupid than your comment.
thank god this guy uploaded
I don't see how this could in any way be a problem.
im very tired, and when you said 'the drivers cabin' i heard it as 'the driver, kevin' and i cant stop thinking about nuclear kevin now.
Nuclear reactor on the train? Why not just use an electric train that is connected to a stationary reactor?
What happened is that snowpiercer is still running...
Well I propose a better Idea for nuclear train
how about we put those reactor stationary so that the reactor can be bigger, more efficient, safer to operate, easier to maintaining both reactor and train.
Then for all of those hassle for having special yard, we can use those money to research and build special magic transfer power device. So we can operate multiple train at once with single reactor. It looks even more fictional fantasy, but what we can't do with 2023 technology and willpower.
I see you are a man of culture as well.
It is not a nuclear train if the reactor is not present on the train. Actually your idea has been materialized as an electric train, powered by nuclear power plant.
@@edhikurniawan nonono. Don't spell electric train
They will be mad
Irl fun fact because nuclear shielding is getting better and better with better and new materials and smaller and safer reactor designs. It's possible these trains could come back and become reality one day. But then again we can do the same with nuclear power plants by powering electric trains.
You're mispronouncing Snowpiercer
Who?
Cares....?
What’s snowpiercer?
This needs to make a comeback for real
Wouldn’t you need to get more rods and water?
Would definitely need rods every few years or so but I think the water just re-condenses and recirculates, right? I mean, you would definitely lose some of it but not to the extent you're thinking, I believe
In my opinion, in the mid and long term, the use of nuclear-powered machines in civilian applications may face restrictions due to concerns about safeguarding the technology. The risk of theft or misuse by rival nations such as China or Iran, or terrorist groups, poses significant security challenges. Furthermore, the use of nuclear-powered cars, airplanes, cellphones, and batteries raises concerns about potential health risks due to radiation exposure.
Americans will try everything to avoid electrifying their railways
Maybe once Fusion becomes possible, we'll be able to make this a possibility.
Better use nuclear power plant and use electricity to move the train via catenary wires
the answer at the end is pretty much the same reason we don't put RTGs in electric cars, yeah it would heat the battery in the winter and charge the battery when the car isn't in use, but if the car wrecks there is now the possibility of nuclear material spilling out, plus the risk of people taking the RTG to make a dirty bomb, the fact that car disposal would now be nuclear disposal, etc.
It seems after WWII, everyone was scrambling to adapt atomic/ nuclear power to propulsion systems to everything and anything they could think of, then reality set in…..
Remember that horrible train accident that happened where a train full of chemicals jumped the tracks and blew up, contaminating a whole town?
It’s more like the perception of a big explosion from a nuke powered train that derailed even if it was as massively shielded as described in this video.
Same could be said about nuke powered cars and aircraft….
Then a catastrophic accident happens and part or all of a city vanishes….
Not cool
That is not how nuclear reactors work, they aren't an atom bomb.
Anybody else reminded of Snowpiercer or "The Red Star" from 007 Geldeneye
Opera browser costs money?! WtAF? Is this 1995? 😂😅😅🤣
No it doesn't
Are you dumb all the browser are free if you want additional things in opera such as vpn and ai then they will charge you
Are you dumb all the browser are free if you want additional things in opera such as vpn and ai then they will charge you
Interesting concept, and reading through some of the comments bring up several thoughts.
Nuclear steam generator systems are closed loops, so water is reused, unlike steam locomotives that are total loss systems. There was a reactor developed of similar size for the NB36 program, not sure if the shielding would be sufficient. The reactor operator would be a huge expense, as railroads are trying to get away with 1 man crews on long haul freight. The weight to a certain extent is a good thing, as it is part of the reason trains have as much pulling power as they do, modern diesel locomotives are upwards of 300 tons on 12 wheels (6 axles) per unit in the United States. In today's world with diesel fuel being so costly, a nuclear powered locomotive might even break even. Many people have mentioned electric overhead trolley wire, and that's not a bad thing. Electric locomotives are much cheaper in some respects to operate, as there is less to them. But erecting the overhead for long distances is extremely expensive. It was tried early in the 20th century by a few railroads in the United States, and overtime, was all taken down. Except the high speed corridor on the east coast.
Lots to consider, and yes, safety is a huge concern.
Russia, China, India, Turkey... all those countries have very long corridors electrified and it is not a problem. Only in USA it is considered like that. And, by the way, the only main line electrification on the West was taken down by stupidity, not because it wasnt better than diesels. I am talking about the Milwaukee Road electrification, which was removed in 1974.
@@MarceloBenoit-trenes valid points, but recall, those programs were funded by governments, not private enterprise. It's really expensive to string overhead!! And only governments can spend that kind of money because they seem to pretend they have unlimited funds. Most of the upgrades to the east coast corridor were paid for through and by the government in the AMTRAK era. The main 2 cross country electrified sections were paid for by the railroad tycoons! And upkeep was done by the railroads, not the government. One of the railroads that did electrify a long distance of its mainline, is completely gone!!! Bankrupted by changing times. The other has been gone for over 70 years now! And that railroad has gone through several mergers since.
Also, there was a plan to electrify the main north-south mainline from Portland Oregon to Los Angeles in the early 1910s. Unfortunately the man in charge of the railroad whose dream it was died. And the electrification plan died with him
The reasons most prominent I believe:
1. The railroads don't want the liability. The railroad in many parts of the states are in disrepair, and that is not something you're going to want to yeet a nuclear train through.
2. The working shift hours for freight crews is 12 hrs I believe. That train is still giong to need to come to a stop, and change crew, or carry a bunking unit of some kind with relief crews.
3. Chernobyl and 3 Mile Island have serious impacts, the latter to an outsized degree of it's severity. But by classification, 3MI is fairly serious, if not as horrific and consequential as the Goiânia Accident. But the slain spirit of nuclear power really died here in the West, on the panic of the American public, and bad PR communicating the scope and severity.
It didn’t even work for NBC as a set piece to compete with The Love Boat in 1979. Featuring a super wide luxury setting with swimming pools and bowling alleys. It was so expensive and so dumb yet it got past the pitch phase because they needed something to compete, even a back idea.
Thomas is a London Brighton & southcoast Railway (LBSC) E2 Tank engine , specifically ohne of the later examples with extended side Tanks . Built in 1915 and purchast in the same year by the then newly formed North Western Railway .
Passengers ride in coaches behind an engine .
Actually do you know the history (/lore) of the series?
(Is RWS saying/meaning anything to you (in the context) ?)
we have overhead electric power in the Netherlands rail system. very easy to connect these lines to any power station such as a nuclear power station. much easier and more flexible
Man the University of Utah is only a few minutes away from where I grew up and i never knew this. Cool idea regardless of its practicality
Today, a spanish company has announced that they will be working on an nuclear powered train. Good video 👋👍
They have no doubt secure a 10 billion dollars in EU funding for creation of the next banking crisis.
That reminds me of "The Big Bus", a 70s spoof movie about an atomic bus.
Now there are some research about hybrid locomotive, an electric locomotive but have diesel engine on it so the it can be run on non-electrified tracks or can be used over it limit by using the phantograph & the diesel engine at once.
I have asked several experienced engineers and railroaders about the retractable (changeable) gauge of wheels for locomotives and cars on Quora. I know every pros and cons about it. Could you make a specific video about this idea? I have recently came up with it.
Technically in France we have nuclear train, they are just electric high speed trains but most of the electricity product is nuclear.
For a truly nuts application - nuclear powered bombers were developed for a while, but eventually abandoned for numerous reasons, not least of which were that an inability to carry sufficient shielding resulted in killing the crew and spewing radiation into the air... trivial issues like that. However, the USA's work did result in the Oak Ridge experiments on LFTR reactors.
At the dawn of atomic power era, people began to imagining every kind of vehicle with nuclear powerplant: atomic ship, atomic plane, atomic train, and atomic car
The concept is interesting. Could be interesting to revisit and research it.
Two decades later, the French did it the right way around, built 56 nuclear reactors across their country and started building a high speed rail network with electric propulsion.