Stirling Forum Home Page

Has anyone ever explored the use of Stirling engines as a locomotive
power plant? They would seem to be ideal for this use.

The primary design driver for railroad locomotives is low maintainence cost and low
downtime. Fuel cost is secondary to that. So Stirlings might not be that good. Does
anyone know about their reliability record?

Stirlings have great reputations for reliability, generally, due to the lack of internal combustion and a more gentle "push" on the piston as opposed to an Otto or Diesel cycle explosion.

Stirlings' principal weakness for locomotive use is the slow throttle up and the slow or inefficient (pick one) throttle down. However, this can be engineered around by making a Stirling/Electic hybrid. During throttle down, the excess power would charge the battery, and during throttle up the extra power needed would come from the battery.

In a drivetrain fashion I think a Stirling is unsuitable, but since modern locomotives are deisel-electric, why not? If a Stirling and drive a submarine...

This would assume you want to drive a locomotive on a solid fuel, like coal? If Stirling engines become mainstream, it should work in theory, but my guess is that it would never add up to pratical use.

In a future where Stirlings contribute to low cost and plentiful energy, high speed bullet type trains would run on electic and long haul freight would run synthetic created liquid fuel.

My guess, anyways.