Tramline HGVs on motorways

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Tue 20 Jul 2021 13:49
Tramline HGVs on motorways - sammy1

I have been reading for the last week about the concept of installing overhead electric tramlines on the motorway sometime around 2040 Electric HGVs will pick up current as they drive and revert to battery if they overtake or leave the motorway. So Jeremy Clarkson was not too far out when he suggest covering the Mway with chicken wire like the dodgem fairground. Sounds OK until there is a crash and something brings the system crashing onto the carriageway.

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Tue 20 Jul 2021 14:00
Tramline HGVs on motorways - movilogo

Or just transport goods via the railway :-)

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Tue 20 Jul 2021 14:47
Tramline HGVs on motorways - Andrew-T

I have been reading for the last week about the concept of installing overhead electric tramlines ...

No, no, no -- tramlines are on the ground, the overheads are wires, usually :-)

HGVs also create tramlines on the slow lane of M'ways, especially in this hot weather.

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Tue 20 Jul 2021 14:56
Tramline HGVs on motorways - Bolt

I have been reading for the last week about the concept of installing overhead electric tramlines ...

No, no, no -- tramlines are on the ground, the overheads are wires, usually :-)

HGVs also create tramlines on the slow lane of M'ways, especially in this hot weather.

Imagine an HGV with an extra 8 tonne of batteries on board,tramlining will get worse, if were lucky JCBs idea will be the best one using hydrogen powered engines instead of diesel which appear to be working well so far....

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Tue 20 Jul 2021 15:02
Tramline HGVs on motorways - Falkirk Bairn

Few lorries carry spare tyres - the reason is 100Kg less cargo if they have one

8 tons of battery is 80 spare wheels!

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Tue 20 Jul 2021 15:36
Tramline HGVs on motorways - sammy1

""No, no, no -- tramlines are on the ground, the overheads are wires, usually :-)""

Tramlines may well be on the ground but they pick up for the current was from overhead at least that's what used to happen. The trams or trolley buses used to cause a bit of amusement when the pick up arm became detached and a long pole was needed from the bus to put it back on again. I expect boffins are devising a more sophisticated system for 2040. I cannot see it being feasible but but who knows

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Tue 20 Jul 2021 17:12
Tramline HGVs on motorways - RT

Trams make an electrical circuit between the single overhead wire and the rails - trolley-buses make an electrical circuit between the two overhead wires.

Some EV buses have a trolley-bus-like charging structure at their terminus points but I don't relish the thought of thousands of miles of overhead cable on UK's motorways for HGVs

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Tue 20 Jul 2021 17:15
Tramline HGVs on motorways - Andrew-T

<< Imagine an HGV with an extra 8 tonne of batteries on board, tramlining will get worse, >>

Presumably the 44-ton weight limit will still apply, so the max load will be less and the tramlining will be no worse ?

Or probably the lorry lobby will get the limit raised to 50 tons, with all that implies for our fragile infrastructure ?

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Tue 20 Jul 2021 20:53
Tramline HGVs on motorways - Terry W

I don't think tramlines or overhead power is likely on motorways - too disruptive to install and maintain + issues with bridges etc. More likely to be:

  • an induction loop below the motorway to both power the vehicle and recharge batterries on the move.
  • train tracks and/or rolling stock redesigned to allow "HGVs" to be linked on the track and seamlessly transfer to the road for the final leg of the journey
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Wed 21 Jul 2021 09:30
Tramline HGVs on motorways - Andrew-T

I don't think tramlines or overhead power is likely on motorways - too disruptive to install and maintain + issues with bridges etc.

It's horrendously expensive to fit overhead wires on simple railway lines, where at least the lateral position of the vehicle is predictable. I can't imagine how it might be done for HGVs.

Plus the additional hazard of crashing vehicles demolishing the support system ....

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Wed 21 Jul 2021 10:14
Tramline HGVs on motorways - Ian_SW

I don't think tramlines or overhead power is likely on motorways - too disruptive to install and maintain + issues with bridges etc.

It's horrendously expensive to fit overhead wires on simple railway lines, where at least the lateral position of the vehicle is predictable. I can't imagine how it might be done for HGVs.

Plus the additional hazard of crashing vehicles demolishing the support system ....

There is already a trial section running on a few miles of Autobahn in Germany, which has two parallel wires, and two pantographs on the cab of the truck, so its not just a concept drawn up by a governmant consultant who did Classics at Cambridge. My understanding is that it's relatively low voltage - more akin to 750V overhead electrification for trams rather than the 25kV we use for trains.

As the trucks also have battery, I suspect the truck has to be driving along in the correct lane under battery and then some automatic system raises the pantographs (and lowers them again if the truck leaves that lane).

If it does ever happen, an added benefit I can see is that it might stop the elephant racing if only the nearside lane is electrified.

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Tue 20 Jul 2021 22:34
Tramline HGVs on motorways - Bolt

<< Imagine an HGV with an extra 8 tonne of batteries on board, tramlining will get worse, >>

Presumably the 44-ton weight limit will still apply, so the max load will be less and the tramlining will be no worse ?

Or probably the lorry lobby will get the limit raised to 50 tons, with all that implies for our fragile infrastructure ?

I suspect to save load problems and money they will back hydrogen, as JCB have had an HGV engine running since last December to prove it works, also to run the heavy plant they sell which if battery powered would be impossible to work with due to time running constraints

it will also save a lot of cables being put in the roads for charging excluding for cars that is, but time taken to charge an HGV would make it too time consuming

I read that used tyres will be used and have been in Scotland for a while now to make the road much tougher, so maybe tramlining might be a thing of the past if we are lucky...

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Wed 21 Jul 2021 09:00
Tramline HGVs on motorways - Sofa Spud

I can see the point in JCB using hydrogen combustion engines but I can't see them being adopted for general use.

Tesla and other manufacturers have been testing heavy goods EVs for some time. In the early days of modern era EVs it was common to say that they wouldn't become practical until there was a battery breakthrough. But battery breakthrough no.1 had already happened - in the form of the lithium-ion battery. Since then there haven't been any breakthroughs, just steady evolution and improvement. The most promising breakthrough (no.2) looks to be solid-state batteries, which have greater energy density, can be charged much faster, last longer and would become cheaper to produce. Apparently a company is planning to launch the first commercially available solid-state battery later this year, although only a tiny one for small devices.

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Wed 21 Jul 2021 11:17
Tramline HGVs on motorways - barney100

The system would be similar to trolley buses as Bradford used to have many years ago, a regular sight was a bloke with a long pole re attaching the electric arm to the overhead cable. The old public transport system was cheap to ride...as the trams in Leeds etc. Beeching b!@£$%^&* the railways when you could get anywhere in the country from a local station with a few connections. Round my way a bus goes to Town once an hour and it's all round the houses.

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