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The point is that electric traction locomotives are more efficient than diesel electric locomotives.
For one, they don't haul their fuel, or need heavy engines.
While the rest of the world embraces electric traction (including oil rich Russia, which electrified the Trans-Siberian RR), the USA is enthralled by the automobile /pavement / petroleum hegemony that sucks our wallets dry.
Any guesses on the cost to convert the entire US rail system to electric? The railroads are having enough trouble installing PTC in a timely fashion, but they're going to be able to convert all the thousands and thousands of miles of rail line to electric?
Im a railfan. Electric freight trains are a thing of the long past. Not sure of the exact numbers but IIRC diesel is cheaper overall over very long distances.
Maybe T310 the railroad engineer has actual numbers.
Electrified engines cannot haul long consists like diesel/electric can. Thus it is more cost effective using diesel power.
The northeast corridor is entirely electrified but the very few freight trains that use the section between Philadelphia and Washington are diesel powered. At one time, the Pennsylvania Railroad (of fond memory) had many hundreds of miles of electrified freight trains operating using environmentally friendly hydropower but Conrail shut down electrified freight operations in 1981 and tore up hundreds of miles of catenary.
The wacky governor of the State of Washington, Jay Inslee, just bowed out of the primaries. His main theme was global warming. I wonder if the governor was aware that at one time the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad had 600 miles of electrified trackage through the Cascades also hydro powered? That line is defunct with the tracks torn up.
Now it takes 7 or 8 big pollution spewing diesel locomotives to pull a heavy freight train out of Seattle up and over the Marias Pass- 3 in front, 2 in the middle and 3 on the end.
Pure electric locomotives cannot haul the long consists that diesel/electric can. It’s pure economics. The locomotives placed throughout the consist is called distributive power.
The point is that electric traction locomotives are more efficient than diesel electric locomotives.
Modern freight locomotives are really efficent. The technology is getting better all the time, as technology tends to do. No one currently makes an electric locomotive capable of coming close to hauling what one dieself-electric can carry. Then keep in mind that all diesels would not to be replaced by the new electrics.
A new nation-wide electric railway system would need to be uniformed so companies could still interchange locomotives. For example, I see a lot of locomotives where I live from other railroads that don't run anywhere near here. so every electric railway system would have to be uniform all over America.
Oh, the locomotives also go to Canada and Mexico, so those countries would need to go electric too because having a system where they is some electric-run lines and some diesel electric lines makes less sense than all electric.
One estimate I saw said it would take $1,000,000,000,000 to convert the US rail system to electric. One trillion dollars.
Pure electric locomotives cannot haul the long consists that diesel/electric can. It’s pure economics. The locomotives placed throughout the consist is called distributive power.
In Europe freight trains are shorter- no more than 30 cars- but run more frequently and faster. I'm not emphasizing labor efficiency but replacing the internal combustion engine in a comprehensive plan to fight global warming. The democratic candidates talk about climate change but none have any idea of what it will take to change things. Getting the big 18 wheelers off the roads and onto electrified trains using renewable power (hydro or nuclear) is a start. Getting the congressional clown circus to fund the transformation of the railroads rather than spending 800 billion per year on the military and endless wars may be near impossible.
Shorter freight trains = more crews = more labor costs. One of the good things about the modern freight locomotive is their ability to haul more cars with the same number of crews.
Again, $1,000,000,000,000 to convert the US rail system to electric.
Russia's heavy freight still mostly moves via diesel powered locomotives, but the passenger trains are electric. It's a moot point anyway because most of their power comes from coal so the diesel locomotive is probably far cleaner by the time the coal is burned to make the electricity to power the electric trains.
Rail is far more efficient, but big oil made sure that we embraced the automobile instead, decades ago. It sucks because a lot of the right-of-ways were abandoned, tracks tore up, and land sold off to adjacent land owners, so they won't be coming back.
I guess the new all electric railroad system in North America would be solar powered, too. Right?
Night time, all the trains run out of power and stop lol.
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