What's the most powerful appliance that can work on Amtrak's p

Has anyone ever tried, or thought of, using the in-seat power outlets on Amtrak trains to charge/operate anything besides a mobile phone, tablet or laptop?

If one were to, how far could one stretch before the power outlets gave up, or caused something drastic like trip the circuits in the entire car/train? Hair dryer? Clothes iron? Blender/smoothie maker? Toaster? Printer? Television? Fridge?

No, but let us know how your experiment goes!

I'd guess it would just take out one circuit (like the at-seat outlets) before an entire car.

Well, the strips on an Amfleet II can definitely handle a dorm room refrigerator loaded with uncooked but seasoned chicken, macaroni salad, cole slaw and potato salad as well as a deep fat fryer loaded with canola oil to fry the aforementioned the uncooked but seasoned chicken on the same circuit.

Stupid red caps. :angry:

I don't think you'd be able to use an arc-welder.

jb

John Bobinyec said:

I don't think you'd be able to use an arc-welder.

jb

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Nor an electric impact wrench. Though you may be able to run an air compressor...

VentureForth said:

John Bobinyec said:

I don't think you'd be able to use an arc-welder.

jb

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Nor an electric impact wrench. Though you may be able to run an air compressor...

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Guess I will have to keep bringing duct/gaffer tape with me for "repairs" then! :giggle:

Texan Eagle said:

If one were to, how far could one stretch before the power outlets gave up, or caused something drastic like trip the circuits in the entire car/train? Hair dryer? Clothes iron? Blender/smoothie maker? Toaster? Printer? Television? Fridge?

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Prohibited Items

Household and automotive items, including but not limited to antiques, appliances, artwork, furniture, machinery and car parts, powered tools, silverware, tires, and tow bars

How about a server farm? Or for that matter, grow lights in Colorado? An electric chair? (In the movies, they always dimmed all the lights in the prison.)

If you run your server farm on iPads

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You wouldn't trip the trainlined HEP, but you could trip the 115 VAC circuit breaker that feeds the convenience outlets. Every other passenger recharging a laptop, phone, etc would then come after your scalp.

This topic idly made me wonder if anyone's brought a small model railroad layout on board and ran it in their room or something. Would have to be small, and definitely N scale or below. I'm sure Amtrak frowns on laying tracks down the length of the coach car.

Texan Eagle said:

Has anyone ever tried, or thought of, using the in-seat power outlets on Amtrak trains to charge/operate anything besides a mobile phone, tablet or laptop?

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Railroad scanner, rechargeable flashlight, portable massager.... I think the last is probably the heaviest power draw, but it's about the same as a razor.

MattW said:

This topic idly made me wonder if anyone's brought a small model railroad layout on board and ran it in their room or something. Would have to be small, and definitely N scale or below. I'm sure Amtrak frowns on laying tracks down the length of the coach car.

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Regulations state that the model train cars must be wearing third rail shoes at all times while traveling down the aisles.

NorthShore said:

MattW said:

This topic idly made me wonder if anyone's brought a small model railroad layout on board and ran it in their room or something. Would have to be small, and definitely N scale or below. I'm sure Amtrak frowns on laying tracks down the length of the coach car.

Click to expand...

Regulations state that the model train cars must be wearing third rail shoes at all times while traveling down the aisles.

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Hmmm.... a model of an electric train on electrified model track powered by a real train on a real [unpowered] track. When the model train moves forward, is it really moving faster than the train itself?

Sorta back to reality, I came across this online and find it fascinating: A small 6-pack fridge by Kooltron. What makes this fridge different is that it isn't powered by a compressor. It's thermoelectric cooling. It draws 4.5A at 60W on DC converted 12V and cools down to 32-degrees below ambient. That's about 40-degrees in an average train car. It wouldn't freeze ice, but it would keep beer cold and, if necessary, medicines cool. For reference, an average laptop brings down around 3.5A at 65W. (Note to sparkys: yes, all these don't exactly fit the p=i x e formula exactly - these are the specs listed.) The best feature, though, is that it is only available branded as Coca Cola.

MattW said:

This topic idly made me wonder if anyone's brought a small model railroad layout on board and ran it in their room or something. Would have to be small, and definitely N scale or below. I'm sure Amtrak frowns on laying tracks down the length of the coach car.

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At one time at least one "kiddie car" on the Coast Starlight had an HO loop of track. The time it was there when I rode the coach attendant explained that it did not work out too well, tended to derail when the (12" to foot scale) car went over a bump in the rails.

Is that why AU was down this morning? Did we try to host the servers in a Superliner?

I thought it was just me this morning,,,,

read that anyway you want to

I have been able to charge my Chevy Volt on the 8 amp setting but whenever I set my Volt to draw 12 amps it blows a fuse. Which is really a pain because you can imagine how long it takes to charge a car using just 8 amps.

JK

But you never know, I might have been riding the AutoTrain! ;-)