Three-phase drive (railway)

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The AC drive technique is a type of drive for electric traction vehicles in which AC motors are used for propulsion. An electric locomotive with a three-phase drive was first built by Siemens & Halske in 1892 . The use of three-phase motors generally offers advantages through high efficiency with comparatively low maintenance and material costs.

There are basically three variants of the three-phase drive, due to the different generation and supply of three-phase current in the traction vehicle: Three-phase current supply via the overhead line and three-phase current generation in the vehicle, firstly by converters and secondly by converters.

Three-phase current supply via overhead line

Siemens vehicle from 1897 for the test operation Groß-LIchterfelde - Zehlendorf
Siemens three-phase motor car from 1903 with a three-pole pantograph

In the first test arrangements, the three-phase current was fed to the traction vehicle via a three-pole catenary at the side , which required special designs for overhead contact line and pantograph construction. With such a design, a high- speed railcar reached a speed of 210.3 km / h in 1903 .

Since there was no space for a three-pole overhead line in many places, as was the case with the test routes, the route via a two-pole catenary was chosen for commercial three-phase electrifications from 1896 and the third phase was connected to earth, i.e. the rails formed the third pole. Four such electrified railways still exist today, namely the cog railways to the Jungfrau and Gornergrat in the Swiss Alps, the Chemin de Fer de la Rhune in the French Pyrenees and the Corcovado mountain railway in Brazil. In order to ensure an uninterrupted power supply to all phases in the switch area, the traction vehicles run on such routes with raised pantographs at both ends of the vehicle.

List of railway lines that have ever been electrified with three-phase current
Gauge From To Voltage (volts) frequency Railway company, route, comment

1435		 1897
1901
1903

38-48		 Test operation Groß-Lichterfelde-Zehlendorf from Siemens & Halske
study company for electric rapid transit systems / military railway Marienfelde-Zossen with three-pole catenary
1000 1895 1910 400 40 TEL: Tram Lugano , experimental operation with 350 volts from December 1895, from 1910 direct current operation
1000 1898
1930		 (today) 550
750		 40
50		 GGB : Zermatt - Gornergrat
0800 1899 1960 500 40 RiT : Riffelalp Station – Riffelalp Hotel, discontinued after the hotel fire, today back in operation with battery operation
1000 1898
1960
1964		 (today) 650
650
1125		 40
50
50		 JB Kleine Scheidegg – Eigergletscher, August 2, 1899 Rotstock, June 18, 1903 Eigerwand, July 25, 1905 Eismeer, August 1, 1912 Jungfraujoch, original frequency also stated as 38 Hz
1000 1898 1964 750 33 StEB Stansstad – Engelberg , connected to the Brünigbahn in 1964 and converted to alternating current
0600 1898 1908 200 - Hotel tram Evian-les-Bains (300 m)
1435 1899 1932-33 750 40 EB / BTB Burgdorf - Thun , from June 17, 1919 also EB Hasle-Rüeggsau– Langnau , switched to alternating current in 1932–33
1000 1900 1914 500 40 SSS / SStB Schwyz Bahnhof – Schwyz, extended to Ibach in 1914 and switched to direct current, discontinued in 1963
1899 1... 3000 16 2 / 3 Ganz test route on Óbuda Island 1.5 km
1435 1900 1911 3000 16 2 / 3 Wöllersdorfer Werke in Wöllersdorf-Steinabrückl from Ganz , Hungary
1435 1902 1976 3600 16 2 / 3 RA / FS Veltlinbahn Lecco – Chiavenna / Sondrio, manufacturer Ganz ; extended to Monza – Lecco, FAV / FS Sondrio - Tirano (130 km in total, until 1930 with 3000 V / 15 Hz). From 1914 connected network from the French border in Menton (Ligurian coast) and Modane ( Mont-Cenis-Bahn ), via Turin and Giovipass to Genoa, Livorno and Fornovo, including Alessandria / Asti-S.Giuseppe di Cáiro as the last until 1976 in Operation, and isolated from it: Trento – Brenner and Bozen – Meran (electrified 1929–34, converted 1952 and 1965), Firenze-Bologna (electrified 1927, converted 1934–35), today all lines 3000 V direct current
1435 1928 194. 10,000 45 FS Rom –Tivoli– Sulmona (March 23, 1929), from 1935 only Mandela – Sulmona, damaged in World War II, then rebuilt with 3000 V direct current (see Ferrovia Roma-Sulmona-Pescara )
1000 1905 1969 750 50 BrMB Brunnen – Morschach – Axenstein , discontinued and canceled in 1969
1435 1906 1930 3000 16 SBB / BBC three-phase operation Brig – Iselle (Simplon Tunnel), extended to Brig – Sion from July 31, 1919 to 1927, converted to alternating current
1435 1909 1927 6600 25th Great Northern : old Cascade tunnel, USA, converted to alternating current, replaced by a new tunnel in 1929, diesel operation from 1956
1435 1909 1958 500 50 RhW : Tram Rheineck Bahnhof - valley station of the funicular, today continuous operation of the rack and adhesion railway
1000 1910
1976
(today)		 750
900		 50
60		 Corcovado cable car : Rio de Janeiro - Corcovado
1668 1911 1966 5200 25th Compañía de los Caminos de Hierro del Sur de España, then Compañía de los Ferrocarriles Andaluces, finally RENFE: Santa Fe – Gérgal, expanded in stages to Almería – Nacimiento (1963, 46.8 km), only for ore trains, from 1989 direct current operation, 1996 Mine closed, only diesel operation
1000 1912 1966 3000 50 CFHMP mountain railway Luchon – Superbagnères
1000 1914
1930		 (today) 3000 25
50		 VFDM / CFTA Chemin de Fer de la Rhune : Col de St-Ignace – La Rhune
0900 1927 1949 3000 50 Rheinische AG for brown coal mining and briquette (RAG) (private operator): cog railway open pit Gruhl work in Kierberg in Cologne : the 700 meter track connected the lignite - opencast mines with the briquette of Gruhl work .
three-pole catenary
1200 1950 1975 500 50 StGM : St. Gallen –Mühlegg, conversion from funicular, 1975 conversion to automatic funicular with one carriage

Three-phase power generation with converter

Rotating converter. On the left the DC machine, on the right the three-phase generator

In a converter , consisting of two rotating electrical machines, a DC or AC motor drives a three-phase generator via a common axis , which generates the three-phase current for the three-phase motors. The three-phase current is generated from the direct or alternating current of the catenary in the locomotive. This principle was first practiced in 1923 by Kálmán Kandó with the construction of the MÁV series V50 , which obtained single-phase alternating current with industrial frequency from the contact line, which was converted into three-phase current for the two traction motors by a rotating converter.

Three-phase drive with converter

120 002 in Würzburg 1984

With frequency converters, the three-phase motors in the locomotive are controlled using power electronics , whereby the electrical energy is only converted into three- phase current in traction converters on board from the direct current or single-phase alternating current supplied via the contact line . The motors are easy to control via the converters and are characterized by very good performance and low weight.

At the beginning of the 1970s, the first tests were carried out using the diesel-electric test locomotives of the Henschel-BBC DE 2500 series . After a small series of the Henschel E 1200 , the first three-phase AC locomotive in the world to be built in large series was the German series 120 with traction converters from today's Bombardier Transportation plant in Mannheim .

literature

  • Peter-Klaus Budig: Converter-fed three-phase drives: Theory and operating behavior of asynchronous drives. VDE-Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-8007-2371-9 .
  • Eberhard Seefried: Frequency-controlled three-phase asynchronous drives: operating behavior and design. (Edited by Germar Müller) 2nd, edited edition. Verlag Technik, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-341-00995-7 .
  • D. Bätzold: 100 years of electric locomotives (3). In: Der Modelleisenbahner, edition 7/1979.
  • Hans G. Wägli, Swiss Rail Network , Réseau ferré suisse . AS-Verlag, Zurich 2010 (third revised edition), ISBN 978-3-909111-74-9 .
  • Nico Molino: Trifase in Italia 1902–1925 . Gulliver, Torino 1991, ISBN 88-85361-08-0 .
  • Nico Molino: Trifase in Italia 1925–1976 . Gulliver, Torino 1991, ISBN 88-85361-12-9 .