this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
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They already do, they just have a diesel generator to make the electricity
Guessing that replacing that with a large battery that charges at night is unreasonable due to the torque needed? You'd probably need a battery larger than a train engine to be able to even do a few stops and starts. Which is why electric trains are wired all the time.
If someone knows for sure I'm super curious!
11-minute version
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This is exactly what I was looking for, thank you!
Is this whole thread a joke or have you people not heard of electrified rail
I mentioned it in my comment that you're replying to. "wired" could easily refer to above or below, just continuous current is what matters for this discussion. Why do ask?
Edit: Wait did you think we can electrify all rails? Outside of major cities it's a maintenance and safety nightmare, and a LOT of our freight moves via rail.
There are trains available that will run on overhead lines where available, and diesel when they're not. There's also passenger trains that have batteries as well.
It's doable, especially considering how efficient trains are.
It's kinda the default actually. Locomotives might lack pantographs if they never see electrified track but diesel locomotives aren't direct drive but diesel-electric. I'm not that deep into the topic but from what I've heard a mechanical transmission would be a nightmare.
Modern trains are almost exclusively electric final drive, off the top of my head I can't think of any exceptions. There are so many different voltages of overhead pantographs and drive motors though, there is almost always some type of converter needed to provide the right voltage to the drive motors.
Overhead wires aren't 3-phase, so convertor is required anyway.
A lot of locomotion uses DC motors, so they can run line voltage directly.
And what operational voltage of such motor?
1.5KV DC is reasonably common for commuter rail.
1.5KV doesn't sound like operating voltage of DC motor. Maybe you wanted to say BLDC instead?
Global warming is a major maintenance and safety nightmare outside and inside major cities.
You can electrify your rail because that's what we did.
No. Also outside of city cost of electrification is much cheaper.
Same for me
Not sure where you're from but if you pretend it's Switzerland then this comment is for you https://reddit.com/r/trains/s/UE3DSOPUdf
Not Switzerland, Russia
The problem with battery trains is that locomotives hardly sit around long enough to charge unless it's some sort of switcher or in for maintenance. Really the only use case for battery locomotives outside of switchers is passenger service where it's fairly common for a train to sit for eight plus hours. Amtrak and Siemens are actually doing this with 15 of the new airo trainsets which will run on the empire line. The trainsets will specifically run on battery while within the new York city tunnels where diesel locomotives are only allowed to operate under emergency.
There is probably a use for train with battery on partially electrified lines.
The train charge on the electrified part and use batteries on the rest.
https://www.mobility.siemens.com/global/en/portfolio/rail/rolling-stock/commuter-and-regional-trains/alternative-drives.html
It's definitely a thing already.
Trains are already pulling what 100 cars. It's easy enough to have a car that's a battery. But I think overhead lines are the way to go on the vast majority of lines.
For transport of people, it seems germany has some train with battery. They replace their hydrogen trains.
Supercapacitors.
Even better, we could also put cables above the train and connect them to an even bigger diesel generator located somewhere close to the railway. That would make the locomotive lighter and the energy production more efficient. Better yet, replace the diesel with uranium and you can easily power many trains.
That's not an advantage. You want your loco to be as heavy as possible for traction. If they were switching it to pantograph and it was lighter they'd add iron, or something else to make up the difference
I see you don't know why Caucasus was electrified. Non-electric locomotives were just too heavy and couldn't lift as much as mass as electric could.