about this issue
On the Rails to High Performance By Eduardo Pilo de la Fuente and Jose Conrado Martinez
ome authors claim that a small tractor manufactured by the company Siemens & Halske in Berlin, Germany, in 1879 was the first railroad to operate with electric power. However, although most of the railways in the United States use diesel traction, the first railway electrification of importance took place in the first decade of the 20th century in the city of New York. The New York Central railroad connected to the Grand Central Terminal station, located in Manhattan, using a 3-km-long tunnel. In 1902, there was a serious train crash due to the smoke of the steam locomotives that prevented the driver of one of the trains from correctly seeing the signals. As a result of this accident, New York City prohibited railway operation with steam locomotives on the island of Manhattan, forcing New York Central to electrify its suburban lines. It was in Europe, where electrified railways experienced a larger expansion. In Europe, the ac single-phase system was developed (a three-phase ac system was also constructed but was finally discontinued) and, later, the two-phase system (known as the autotransformer system) became widely adopted. And it was in Europe (in France and Germany) and Japan where the high-speed railways (probably one of the most important steps forward in the last decades) were developed. And, finally, it has been in Europe and Asia where the high-speed railways have been massively adopted. Electrical traction has some advantages compared to diesel traction that make it very attractive: the possibility of building trains designed for higher speed and power, better electrical performance, and less environmental impact. However, it calls for larger investments in infrastructure (contact lines, substations, transmission, and distribution lines), which requires important economic studies. In some cases, such as in high-speed lines or in railways with dense traffic, the use of electrical traction is essential. When examining the advances in electrical railways in recent decades, it becomes very obvious that the development of the power electronics and control technologies have been key factors to achieve the performance railways can deliver today. The article
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Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MELE.2014.2338992 Date of publication: 29 September 2014
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I EEE E l e c t r i f i c a t i on M a gaz ine / september 2014
Editorial board Saifur Rahman Editor-in-Chief Virginia Tech Virginia, USA
[email protected] Iqbal Husain Editor, Electric Vehicles North Carolina State University North Carolina, USA
[email protected] Eduard Muljadi Coeditor, Electric Vehicles NREL: Wind Research Colorado, USA
[email protected] Herb Ginn Editor, Electric Ships Universitiy of South Carolina South Carolina, USA
[email protected] Robert Cuzner Coeditor, Electric Ships DRS Power and Control Technologies Wisconsin, USA RobertMCuzner@drs. com Eduardo Pilo de la Fuente Editor, Electric Trains EPRail Research and Consulting Spain
[email protected] Jose Conrado Martinez Coeditor, Electric Trains Directcion de Estrategia y Desarrollo Spain
[email protected] Bulent Sarlioglu Editor, Electric Planes University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, USA
[email protected]
Mohammad Shahidehpour Editor, Off-Grid Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago, USA
[email protected] Steve Pullins Coeditor, Off-Grid Horizon Energy Group Tennessee, USA spullins@horizonenergy group.com IEEE Periodicals Magazines Department 445 Hoes Lane, Piscataway, NJ 08854 USA Craig Causer Managing Editor Geri Krolin-Taylor Senior Managing Editor Janet Dudar Senior Art Director Gail A. Schnitzer Assistant Art Director Theresa L. Smith Production Coordinator Felicia Spagnoli Advertising Production Manager Peter M. Tuohy Production Director Dawn Melley Editorial Director Fran Zappulla Staff Director, Publishing Operations advertising sales Maureen Dalton IEEE Power & Energy Society Tel: +1 732 465 6622 Fax: +1 732 562 3881
[email protected]
Christine Ross Coeditor, Electric Planes Rolls-Royce Corp Indiana, USA Christine.AH.Ross@ rolls-royce.com
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MELE.2014.2342771
“Power-Quality improvement in ac regenerative braking systems, which railway substations” shows some of allow the kinetic energy lost by the train these advances. Also related to the when braking to be recovered. This has infrastructure, “A cata significant impact on enary-free Electrifithe final energy conThe development of cation for urban sumption balance and, the power electronics transport” describes consequently, the elecand the control the adaptation projtricity bill. The articles technologies have ect of a tramway to a “Riding the Rails to DC ground-level catenaPower Efficiency” and been key factors to ry. Finally, the article “Energy harvesting for achieve the “Stray-current corrothe electrification of performance railways sion and mitigation” railway stations” discan deliver today. describes how the cuss different issues problems due to related to the usage of stray-current-related the regenerative brakcorrosion are managed in railway ing dc and ac railways. infrastructures today. Currently, one of the main chalAn important milestone in railway lenges for electrified railways is the electrification was the introduction of development of the next-generation
railway electrical smart grids. The degree of automation provided by these technologies will achieve s ignificant improvements in the controllability of the railway electrification, leading to better quality indexes (essentially, more reliability and higher energy efficiency). “railway electrical smart grids” introduces some of the key concepts of these networks. For this special issue, we have tried to include different kinds of articles, covering a wide range of topics related to railway electrification. If you want to submit an article or if you want a specific topic to be addressed in future issues, please contact us at
[email protected].
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IEEE Elec trific ation Magazine / s ep t emb er 201 4
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