Comment on Whoever wrote this headline has never encountered a passenger train before in their lives

• kungen@feddit.nu ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  If you’re already laying tracks, why not lay electricity as well?

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  • cmfhsu@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Because there already are tracks without electricity where I live. When coming from a nearby major city, the train has to stop for 40 minutes while they switch from an electric to diesel power car

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    • teolan@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      But even in that case it’s 10x better to have more frequent, cheaper diesel trains than having insanely expensive and heavy battery trains.

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      • friendlymessage@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Not if your goal is to reach net zero emissions at some point

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      • autriyo@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Well, they’d only need enough batteries to cover the distance without overhead lines. So for shortish sections it’s probably fine, just charge while on the powered section.

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    • kungen@feddit.nu ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I’m not a rail expert, but I thought for some reason that rails without electricity would be too old/unmaintained to be allowed to serve passenger traffic, lol.

      40 minutes? I would have imagined that everyone would hop off at the station, they’d then drive out to a parking junction, and then drive back the electric train to the station for people to load in again. Isn’t it also very expensive to take the train (you’re from the US I assume)? Not weird that no one wants to take it when it’s in such bad situations :/

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      • friendlymessage@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        There are definitely use cases for battery-electric trains:

        • We have these in Germany usually in areas with low traffic. E.g. if a train line is only serviced a couple of times a day, it’s more cost-effective to carry the batteries with you than to electrify the line.
        • Another use case are train ferries. They are the reason why Germany also had Diesel-powered high-speed trains for a while.
        • Another challenge in Europe is the lack of harmonization of power supplies of train lines between countries. In cross-border traffic, trains have to be adapted to work with different energy supplies. Battery-electric trains can add flexibility for these scenarios. E.g. Germany uses AC 15 kV 16.7Hz, the Netherlands DC 1.5 kV on low-speed and AC 25 kV 50Hz on high-speed lines. When a train goes from the Netherlands to Germany, it disconnects from the Dutch system and reconnects to the German system on the fly. For a moment in between, the train loses power. If the train lacks momentum or has to stop unexpectedly, the train is stranded and has to be pushed over the border by another train that is independent of the power supply.

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