Re: OT: Debian Mailinglist server slow?
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
On Sun, Aug 31, 2003 at 03:32:13PM +1200, cr wrote:
> Well, automatic cars all have hydraulic torque-convertor transmission. It
> works fine for low powers (by which I mean, up to a few hundred HP). It
> doesn't seem to work so well for high powers. Hence OK for railcars, not
> (apparently) for locomotives at higher powers.
And I'm not terrably fond of hydraulic transmissions. They're not
terrably reliable compared to manual mechanical transmissions. I
won't own another car with a hydraulic transmission, if the slightest
thing is wrong, the car becomes difficult to drive. Whereas if I'm
controlling the clutch and gearshift myself, the vehicle becomes
considerably more robust.
> And *also*, in places like Switzerland (or New Zealand), where there are long
> continuous grades, regenerative braking can put a lot of power back into the
> grid and save on train brake blocks. I believe some US diesel-electrics
> are equipped with regen braking but they just have to 'waste' the power
> produced.
Yup, they call it rheostatic braking. Basically, the juice just gets
burned off by what amounts to giant oven coils under massive fans (the
big fans you see on most American diesel-electrics). Portland's MAX
uses a similar system of braking to send power back on to the line.
My school used to share a (small) substation with the trains, you
could tell when a train was slowing down on the line up the street
because the lights would get slightly brighter, and if a particularly
full train (and thus heavy, requiring full throttle to accellerate
reasonably well) would make the lights slightly dimmer.
- --
.''`. Paul Johnson <baloo@ursine.ca>
: :' :
`. `'` proud Debian admin and user
`- Debian - when you have better things to do than fix a system
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux)
iD8DBQE/UdvUUzgNqloQMwcRAqNuAJ9FC3q1bEuL4kepEmDy22kMF4oeIACeLtSd
qXVaeNPG+Se3H6ut8HB3bwY=
=JSdZ
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Reply to: