posted
I am wondering about passenger miles per gallon on Amtrak trains. I looked through some books and found absolutely no information on gas (diesel) mileage for locomotives.
How much fuel does a typical Amtrak locomotive, or Amtrak train use per mile?
posted
A diesel locomotive with a 3,000+ gallon fuel tank can make it across BNSF's "transcon" (L.A. to Chicago) without a refill and still have a little left over. That's about 2200 miles which means that a typical locomotive uses somewhere around 1 gallon per mile once it gets the train moving. It will use more when starting or going uphill. Passenger locomotives have smaller fuel tanks, but probably similar fuel efficiency. The trains they haul are generally lighter, so they probably are a bit more fuel efficient, but probably not by much.
Posts: 246 | From: Anaheim, CA | Registered: Apr 2002
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That does not sound like as good of mileage as I thought. I was speaking to a long-distance bus driver. He drives a typical tour bus. He says it gets 5 miles per gallon, which ends up to be about 250 passenger miles per gallon. On a typical Amtrak train with two locomotives, it sounds like it is getting about 0.5 miles per gallon or better. I believe there are typically about 400 people on board, so that would make 200 passenger miles per gallon.
I realize that this is a very rough estimation.
------------------ Elias Valley Railroad (N-scale) www.geocities.com/evrr
posted
Konstantin, here's a table from the USDOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics which breaks down energy consumption per passenger mile. This table measures it in BTUs, rather than miles per gallon, since the energy contained in different sorts of fuel cannot be directly compared by volume.
Unfortunately,it doesn't go beyond 1998, but you can compare to years going back to 1960. The good news is that energy consumption per passenger-mile on trains beats out everything else, including motorcycles!!!
Here's the breakdown for 1998, BTUs per passenger mile: Train: 2,138 Motorcycle: 2,330 Passenger car: 3,672 Bus: 3,729 Airline (domestic): 4,123
------------------ Trust God, love your neighbor, and never mistake opinion for truth. -Mr. Toy
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If that bus driver was getting 5mpg on his bus he ain't driving that great. I get 7-9mpg on my MCI102DL3; Greyhound runs many of these types of buses.
quote:Originally posted by Konstantin: Thank you atsf3751
That does not sound like as good of mileage as I thought. I was speaking to a long-distance bus driver. He drives a typical tour bus. He says it gets 5 miles per gallon, which ends up to be about 250 passenger miles per gallon. On a typical Amtrak train with two locomotives, it sounds like it is getting about 0.5 miles per gallon or better. I believe there are typically about 400 people on board, so that would make 200 passenger miles per gallon.
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That was interesting information Mr Toy. It is interesting to see how busses (The table calls them Transit busses, so I assume that means city busses rather than greyhound type) use quite a bit of fuel.
According to Buslady, the long distance busses use little fuel in terms of passenger miles per gallon.
------------------ Elias Valley Railroad (N-scale) www.geocities.com/evrr
posted
Yea, I looked at that again and realized it said transit bus. I should have caught that earlier, for I seem to recall reading somewhere that intercity busses come in closer to trains (and motorcycles).
------------------ Trust God, love your neighbor, and never mistake opinion for truth. -Mr. Toy
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Train: 2,138 
Motorcycle: 2,330
Passenger car: 3,672 
Bus: 3,729
Airline (domestic): 4,123
