How many horsepower does a train have?

Question

How many horsepower does a train have?

Answer 1

Depending on what model, power source, etc. you could have anywhere from 500 HP to somewhere around 6000  HP

Answer 2

Thousands :)

Answer 3

It depends on how many locomotives you have, and their application.

Yard locomotives can range anywhere from 1,200 up to 2,000 HP for each unit.

Mainline locomotives are as small as 2,000 HP, with some as high as 6,000 HP.  Most newer locomotives are in the 4,000-4,400 HP range.

Switcher engines, used in industrial applications and some yard service, can have anywhere from 600 to 2,000 HP.

Obviously, once you start coupling up locomotives, you have the power of all of them together.  It's not unusual to have a mainline train being pulled by in excess of 10,000 HP with several locomotives.

On a side note, some railways limit the amount of locomotives that can be under power at once.  CN, the railway I work for, limits us to 30 powered axles at once.  Locomotives these days have either 4 of 6 axles, so we can have up to 7 4-axle units, or 5 6-axle units, under power at once.  Anything more would have so much raw pulling power that it would tear the train apart, and/or roll the rail.

Answer 4

HP varies with speed. You can calulate Max HP by applying the formula: (Torque x Engine speed) / 5,252 = Horsepower. The units of torque are pound-feet. So to get from torque to horsepower, you need the "per second" term. engine speed is normally referred to in revolutions per minute (RPM). Since we want a "per second," we need to convert RPMs to "something per second." So if you multiply torque (in pound-feet) by engine speed (in RPM) and divide the product by 5,252, RPM is converted to "radians per second" and you can get from torque to horsepower -- from "pound-feet" to "foot-pounds per second."

Answer 5

depending on the unit you can have anywhere from 1500 - about 6000 hp per locomotive

Answer 6

Large electrics can have almost 10000hp - The most powerful being the Channel Tunnel Shuttle locomotives - 9738hp each!

Answer 7

Actually, it's measured in cubic horsepower...A typical locomotive has about 735 cubic horsepower.

Answer 8

It ranges from 600 (switcher units) to 6000+ (GE EVO series), per locomotive.

Answer 9

Road engines produce anywhere from 3,000 to 6,000 horsepower each from the prime mover, but it is the tractive effort that gives them their strength.  As a rule of thumb, if you take 25% of the weight of a locomotive, you are in the ballpark of tractive effort available.

For an SD45, by way of example, at 205 tons, produces around 102,000 ft/lbs of "starting" tractive effort.  This drops off quickly the moment the wheels start to turn.

By comparison, the production automobile engine with the highest "torque", was the dodge 429 hemi, at 405 ft/lbs.

There is a point of diminishing returns.  The draft gear on standard freight cars is rated at 240,000 psi.  You can add power and tonnage to the point where the locomotives will pull the train apart as a result of a broken knuckle or broken draw bar, as the strain exceeds the capacity of the equipment.

I've handled a few trains, but with all due respect, I never handled any that produced "cubic" horsepower, at least, not to my knowledge.

Answer 10

5 thousand hp

Answer 11

modern road units have 6000 horse power each

Answer 12

To answer the question we need to know the train weight and the track geometry ..  Example a 5000 ton train that will encounter a grade of about 1.4 during its trip will require a little over 13000 horsepower... but the same weight train on level grade would require much less horspower..   Its not as much about horsepower as it is tractive effort .. 1 GE B40  (4000 HP ) will not pull as much as 1 GE C40 (also 4000 HP ).. reason.. the C40 has 6 axles   and the B40 has only 4 axles ...generally the more powered axles the greater tractive effort or more pulling power.....just a note ..24 powered axles should be the most you will ever see pulling a train..... more than that and you stand a good chance of breaking a coupler...any engineer can tell you thats....Not a good thing....

Answer 13

None, horses don't pull trains.

Answer 14

well I use to work for burlington northern railway and the answer is: for the new sd-90 locos they have 6590 hp.

for a switcher loco they have 3800 hp.

hope this helps you.

Answer 15

This would depend on the type or types of locomotives that were coupled to the train.  The average locomotive has around 4000 hp, some are as high as 6000 and the average train uses 3 locomotives.