US Rail electrification

@paigetrain posted:

sorry for asking but i have got to know

Why did we not electrify the US rail network especially after the 1970s oil crisis and what if the oil crisis  happens again?

It will not, as the U.S. has long been self sufficient with oil resources, and even sells oil on the world market.

not to mention electric locomotives are way more powerful than diesels when it comes to tractive effort and horsepower

Where would all that electrical power come from?

in fact most of the worlds most powerful locomotives are electric.

Yes, and those are ALL government supported rail systems!

also there are many green ways to power those catenaries such as wind farms, solar and hydroelectric power generation

Sure there are.

Face it we can't rely on trains fueled by dead dinosaurs forever

Really?

yes the upfront cost is high but in the long run it will be worth it

Again,,,,,,,,,,,just where will all that massive amounts of electric power come from?

here is a video i found that goes into detail on rail electrification

So,,,,,,,,,,it's on YouTube, so it MUST be factual?

please keep it civil

https://youtu.be/OI1ctMHnrfY

A company named "Wabtec" is working on a hydrogen/ battery powered locomotive. They are currently testing it in the real world hauling freight trains. Pretty neat stuff.

@paigetrain posted:

yes the upfront cost is high but in the long run it will be worth it

What economic model did you use to reach this conclusion?    John

There are some energy advantages to electrification, such as dynamic regeneration, and less local pollution. Even if some, and a small "some" indeed, is provided by alternative electricity rather than local Diesel engines, it would be a small step in the right direction. But the economic requirements, with modern-day costs of steel, wire, labor, and infrastructure and maintenance support, would probably run into the trillions.  Our commercial power grid, run as it is these days in a very inefficient, corrupt and expensive way, would be hard-pressed to provide reliable power. The railroads used to have their own power houses, you'll recall. But even the PRR and the LIRR, for two examples, buy power commercially.

The time to have done it was back when there were fewer political and economic roadblocks, and railroads pretty much ruled the country. The PRR did it, way back when, but stopped short at Harrisburg and DC.  In the last decade, Amtrak extended electrification on the former New Haven RR portion of the NEC to Boston, at a very high cost. A small step in the right direction, but a minuscule piece of the whole country.

Quoting a Wikipedia citation, about the costs for just the section that was improved and put into service in 2000:

"Service with electric locomotives between New Haven and Boston began on January 31, 2000.^[48] The project took four years and cost close to $2.3 billion: $1.3 billion for the infrastructure improvements, and close to $1 billion for both the new Acela trainsets and the Bombardier–Alstom HHP-8 locomotives."

Paigetrain

I watched the video, and I came away with nothing more than, yes, it is a good thing anytime we can lessen our carbon footprint. However, the video failed to consider both sides of this issue, never a good sign. 

Consider the economics. I assure you if it is financially in the best interests of the railroads, they will do it.  It is reasonable to expect the railroads would only be acting responsible to their shareholders to thoroughly examine and model scenarios of electrification vs. dieselization and act fiscally responsible.  So far they don't see it on a large scale.

Consider reliability. I know both systems are electric. One has many miles of wires and catenary equipment to bring the power from the source to the electric motor driving the motive trucks on the locomotive. The other system has an on-board diesel genset that provides the electric power to the motive trucks. Beyond those observations I cannot claim to know the reliability factor. I suppose if the US dept. of transportation wanted to fund several universities to do independent studies, I would be happy to read and be enlightened. The" Armchair Urbanist" maybe not so much.

Consider the big macro picture. All things considered. As with many arguments the best answer may well be somewhere in between.  Remember the western roads in the United States have many different environments' and geographies' when compared to the Urban locations in this country. Should you decide to electrify part of this huge system are you going to also electrify every yard, and every siding? Have you made yourself aware of the environmentally friendly improvements in modern diesel technology?

I am not an expert, but I know there are huge questions and considerations and I'm not ready to accept the "Urban Armchairs" answer to all, as having much validation

@Arthur P. Bloom posted:

Quoting a Wikipedia citation, about the costs for just the section that was improved and put into service in 2000:

"Service with electric locomotives between New Haven and Boston began on January 31, 2000.^[48] The project took four years and cost close to $2.3 billion: $1.3 billion for the infrastructure improvements, and close to $1 billion for both the new Acela trainsets and the Bombardier–Alstom HHP-8 locomotives."

One of my pet peeves is the use of shorthand terms when spelling out the numbers is much more effective: 

"The project took four years and cost close to $2,300,000,000: $1,300,000,000 for the infrastructure improvements, and close to $1,000,000,000 for both the new Acela trainsets and the Bombardier–Alstom HHP-8 locomotives."

Mitch

If "they" really want "green" energy, then the first thing "they" should promote is modern nuclear.  Until "they" do, I will not take anything "they" say seriously.

Jon

The PRR studied continuing electrification from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh 2 times, and I think Conrail did once, and each time, the cost could not be justified.   

As for green power, you have to remember that some places do not have great water flows to generate hydroelectric, the wind does not always blow, and here in the north, there is no sunshine about 14 hours a day in the winter.  

We have huge coal reserves that what has identified to date, will at least 500  years.    We have huge natural gas and oil reserves.     Why can't we use the resources we have until a real viable alternative becomes available.

Paigetrain,

Politics, politics, politics ...

Thank you for starting this thread, because the answers to your questions are very relevant to our future, as citizens and as rail enthusiasts.

Thank you also for requesting that people keep it civil, and to a large part they have so far, but there's currently too much emotion swirling in the political world, and not enough technical (i.e. detailed) discussion based on hard facts. Because most of us are not subject matter experts on the topics you've cited you're getting many opinions, mixed in with a few good hard facts from those that are.

Just a gentle piece of advice, hopefully taken with the respect intended: As part of a novel learning experience, it would be wise in the future to avoid posting a question that you know in advance currently only has a political answer.  This is how threads descend into chaos and get deleted.  You can help many, many of us to keep from falling into the political trap that our moderators so desperately want us avoid.

Thanks, and don't stop throwing out the questions, just temper them a little.  In return we'll try, unfortunately sometimes hopelessly, to keep from getting emotional with our answers.

Mike

Here in the great white north, I work for an oil and gas company. Energy sector checking in. Been doing this for a LONG time. EVERY winter, without fail, when we start having days with less than eight hours of sun (December to March, my PFP was taken at 15:30.), our wellsites which mostly rely on 4 36"x48" solar panels to supply 24v to a PLC, end devices and charge batteries for the other 16 hours of the day, stop working. They just nope out, one by one. We don't use grid power because the sites are remote. In Cali or AZ or NM? Sure. Not here. Expect to power a rail network with "green" energy when it's impossible to charge two rv batteries? Neat.

We haven't even figured it out what to do to dispose of the first generation of green energy things, never mind adding more. Bury dem blades yo!

Edit: Just to answer the 'well then what do you do?!' question - Lots of sites also have Thermo Electric Generators installed that use heated (by burning Natural Gas - why not? Well's right there, it's almost free energy) bimetallic strips to create electricity, inverse of how a breaker works inside your power jb at home. Some have EFOY setups that burn methanol to make electricity. Some we just gotta keep bringing batteries to.

It seems like everyone looks for a "Silver Bullet" that will solve everything in one shot.  In truth, it will require a combination of renewables and fossil/nuclear.  The trick will be in attaining the balanced use of all energy sources.

Rusty

The simple answer is that the cost of the installation of the overhead wires, supports, substations and all the other infrastructure required is so expensive that it can only be justified based on economics for very high density routes.  And the maintenance of such a system is expensive also.  Thus the NE corridor has been it.  There have been some other small installations, usually for "captured traffic" such as from coal mine to power plant but nor real additional freight railroad installations.  Hard to beat a Diesel engine where the power plant is carried along to power the electric motors.

Did the OP want us to consider passenger rail or freight with regards to electrification?  As far as the dissent regarding oil and coal, it is a finite resource, we are fortunate the dinosaurs lasted as long as they did.  At some point, not in our lifetime, that resource will be depleted.  Nothing wrong with looking at alternatives, at some point the technology may catch up with the desires or the fossil source will no longer exist pushing innovation.  Right now i don't see the investment in the infrastructure as cost effective.

@paigetrain posted:

sorry for asking but i have got to know

Why did we not electrify the US rail network especially . . . ?

yes the upfront cost is high but in the long run it will be worth it

Paige, it sounds like a great idea, but . . .

The cost is not just "high", but is really, really high.  Railroads are corporations, in the USA, and the railroad property and infrastructure is privately owned by them, unlike in Europe, where railroads are state owned, funded, and operated.  Railroad companies do not have the money to electrify the U.S. rail network.  Neither does our government.  Remember, to electrify somebody has to:

• Pay to build catenary structures and buy many thousands of miles of braided overhead wire.
• Pay to raise some low-clearance bridges, tunnels, and other structures, so that the overhead catenary will fit.
• Pay for all new locomotives.  (And pay to design them.  No heavy freight electric locomotives are currently produced here.)
• Pay off loans on existing locomotives and dispose of them.
• Pay the cost to build more electric power capacity.

It's the money.  That's why "we" did not electrify the U.S. rail network.

@KOOLjock1 posted:

If "they" really want "green" energy, then the first thing "they" should promote is modern nuclear.  Until "they" do, I will not take anything "they" say seriously.

Jon

I see some problems with nuclear power that have yet to be solved:

1. accidents, like Chernobyl and Japan and three mile island

2. "green" disposal of spent fuel

3. public fear of the above

While I am a supporter of electrification, it must be done in places where it can be justified for social and economic reasons.  Taking public subsidy out of the equation, Europe's electrification in large part is due to closer distances between major population centers where higher speed trains can compete against the airlines for passengers and goods.  We sometimes forget how huge the US truly is.

In the west in particular, the distances between population centers is fairly large and even then those population centers don't always have large populations.

Here in Arizona the vast majority of the states population is based in two metropolitan areas, Phoenix and Tucson.  The rest of the state is very rural.  There has been talk and some study of an electrified rail route between the two cities on a route that bypasses the current Union Pacific route.  Such a venture may be justifiable at some point in the future, but the reality is that it is not realistic now.

Taking that into account, I still hold hope for innovation in the industry to develop new technologies.  It happened before in the transition from steam to diesel electric.  It will happen again.  The only constant in this world is change after all.

@RoyBoy posted:

I see some problems with nuclear power that have yet to be solved:

1. accidents, like Chernobyl and Japan and three mile island

2. "green" disposal of spent fuel

3. public fear of the above

1.  Chernobyl was not a "modern" nuclear facility... even by American 1950's standards.  Fukishima was built in a quake-prone and tsunami-prone region.  Three Mile Island released a minuscule amount of radioactive steam... less radiation than many Americans get from their granite counter tops.

2.  Spent fuel rods in France, India and elsewhere are immediately reprocessed in a facility on-site for reuse.  We don't do that here because of a stipulation in the SALT II treaty with a country that no longer exists.

3.  Education.

Jon  

Perhaps the easiest fact to digest is that the railroads use about 3% of the annual fossil fuel used in the USA, and deliver about 42 percent of the gross ton miles. If you want to know what the biggest polluter is, just look in your driveway and at that 18-wheeler on the interstate.

I had one of my career assignments in the "Electric Locomotive Study Group" of a major locomotive builder.  While we built and sold electric locomotives with a short time rating of up to 10,000 horsepower (for domestic passenger service), the starting tractive effort, what size train the locomotive could start, was no better than a U30C due to adhesion limitations.

Electrification does not provide any flexibility vs a self-contained power unit.  There has to be catenary everywhere an electric locomotive would run.  A diesel can run anywhere.

All, or nearly all, overseas electric railroads are government agencies where cost is no issue, and a significant portion of that traffic is passenger, where the installed HP to reach high speed is a benefit, and the relatively low starting tractive effort is not a liability.  I have inspected and photographed overseas railroads that are electrified.  Their freight trains are so short that I was able to photograph an entire train in one frame.

I would also like to point out that the 1934 PRR electrification cost was supported with long term loans at very favorable rates by Uncle Sam, not by a private company.

The OPEC embargo in the early 1970's resulted in very serious consideration in the mid1970's of further electrification of American railroads. Extremely high capital investments were projected to be required on the part of the utilities and/or railroads to enable any significant expansion. Consequently further consideration was terminated. In fact in a somewhat unrelated move the Milwaukee Road decided in this same time period to retire its electrified equipment.

A live (non-theoretical) example of U.S. electrification was the Milwaukee Road's Pacific Extension. It helped the railroad surmount something like five+ severe mountain ranges, but ultimately it did not pay for itself. Now that could be the product of inadequate car loadings being conveyed, or the cost burden of the electrification maintenance. It was never modernized, and used wood telephone poles to suspend the catenary to the end (1974).

Although the financial data is buried in the wreckage of the Penn Central, wonder if the Pennsylvania's electification costs contributed a bit to the bankruptcy?

If railroads did decide to electrify, as has been identified, the cost of  it would be very high and believe the railroads  could not raise the needed funds through the capital markets. Sadly, this is an industry that has lost market share for the last 100 years - - - not an attractive investment vehicle.

A big change for the diesel was going to AC traction motors.

Another issue.  You will lose power in the wires over a long distance.  Why?  Resistance.

Plus suppose your railroad is electrified.  Power comes off an iffy grid.  Then in the middle of winter a polar vortex ice storm comes into the area. Now you will be without power for days, or without power for a while with rolling blackouts.  Do not laugh.  Texas during Ice Storm Uri.

And the original premise of relying on solar or wind is very flawed.  To replace ONE modern coal, natural gas, or nuclear facility with solar requires a land mass roughly equivalent to the state of West Virginia.  And of course the sun doesn't always shine, and wind doesn't always blow which means the grid has to run 24/7 generation to cover the dips.  Hardly efficient.

Jon

One other thing, always omitted by the wind and sun people, is the effect on the landscape.  I had an opportunity to visit Palm Springs (CA).  As you approach the town the hills on both sides of the road are covered with white wind turbines.  Both wind and solar degrade the landscape in addition to being unreliable sources of energy.

@KOOLjock1 posted:

And the original premise of relying on solar or wind is very flawed.  To replace ONE modern coal, natural gas, or nuclear facility with solar requires a land mass roughly equivalent to the state of West Virginia.  And of course the sun doesn't always shine, and wind doesn't always blow which means the grid has to run 24/7 generation to cover the dips.  Hardly efficient.

Jon

@Danr posted:

One other thing, always omitted by the wind and sun people, is the effect on the landscape.  I had an opportunity to visit Palm Springs (CA).  As you approach the town the hills on both sides of the road are covered with white wind turbines.  Both wind and solar degrade the landscape in addition to being unreliable sources of energy.

I agree with both of these points, it's something that most people don't understand about renewable power from an engineering standpoint (most people look at it from a political viewpoint).

For anyone who wants an in-depth understanding of why all-out switch to renewables with our current power grid, I highly recommend The Grid by Gretchen Bakke. It's not railroad focused, but it does an incredible and accurate job of explaining both the engineering and political history behind our power grid as well as the challenges of a all-out switch to renewables. The concepts explained here can be applied to this conversation on rail electrification.

In the early years of my working career  I worked for a major chemical company and investigated and sought solutions for acid rain and  phosphorus and nutrient removal from potable water and runoff.  It was very interesting work with exciting results back then that are still true today.

I remember when a study from a very prestigious Ivy League school made the rounds  stating how the levels of water in The Great Lakes was dropping,with dire predictions for the near future.  Shortly thereafter a researcher from  a SUNY school wrote that levels were dropping because the earth was rebounding after being covered by a 2 mile plus thick ice sheet for 100,000s of thousands of years.

That ended that argument.  There are obviously solutions out there on how to improve the grid.  Haha.

Norm

@lpb007 posted:

The OPEC embargo in the early 1970's resulted in very serious consideration in the mid1970's of further electrification of American railroads. Extremely high capital investments were projected to be required on the part of the utilities and/or railroads to enable any significant expansion. Consequently further consideration was terminated. In fact in a somewhat unrelated move the Milwaukee Road decided in this same time period to retire its electrified equipment.

For what it's worth, that "OPEC embargo" of the mid to late 1970s was actually a scam by the major oil companies to raise (double) the price per gallon of gasoline. One day the EMD Power products & Marine Service Manager received a call from one of our bug Marine customers on the east coast, that operated a large fleet of sea-going tugs & supply boats. It seems they needed an EMD Service Engineer out on one of there sea-going tug/supply boats. At the time, one of my marine qualified Field Engineers was on vacation in Connecticut.  I called him at home, and inquired if he could take the emergency call, and if so to contact the customer's Port Engineer in New York City, for further instructions.

About a week later, my guy called it to report how everything went with the "emergency" on the afflicted vessel, which he was able to "solve" in short order. The rest of the story was; upon reporting to one of the New York area airports, the customer's contract helicopter transported him out to the vessel in trouble. As they flew out well past the entrance to New York Harbor on the Hudson River, and well out of site of land, they then saw all the oil tankers, sitting off the coast. From horizon to horizon, hundreds upon hundreds of full oil tankers just sitting! He enquired of the pilot, "Whats with all these ships?", and the pilot replied, "This is your gasoline shortage! Once the price at the pumps exceeds what the companies want, all these ships will then move into the various refineries located in New Jersey, along the Hudson River. Shouldn't last more than a few more weeks!".

Sure enough, once the price exceeded the pre- planned amount, there was no more "gas shortage", and all the lines of cars at the gas stations disappeared.

Except for perhaps burning wood, every source of power we have discovered has been - and every source of power we discover in the future will be - used to create electricity. Long-long-long term, fossil fuels are a finite resource. Coal and oil and natural gas may last for a few hundred years, but all will eventually essentially run out (i.e. what there is will be so difficult to get to because it's very deep or otherwise prohibitively expensive to use that it's not viable).

Conversely, ever day the sunlight shining on the Earth has enough energy to power everything on the planet multiple times over. All we have to do is harness it - which eventually we will have to do if we want to continue using machinery not powered by direct water or animal power.

@KOOLjock1 posted:

And the original premise of relying on solar or wind is very flawed.  To replace ONE modern coal, natural gas, or nuclear facility with solar requires a land mass roughly equivalent to the state of West Virginia.  And of course the sun doesn't always shine, and wind doesn't always blow which means the grid has to run 24/7 generation to cover the dips.  Hardly efficient.

Jon

Bouncing around Wikipedia and links:

The largest fossil and/or nuclear facility in Texas is the W A Parish Generating Station with a combined capacity of 3653 MW across eight coal and gas plants.

The largest solar facility in Texas is the Roadrunner project with a capacity of 497 MW and an area of 2770 acres.

So about 7.35 Roadrunners to replace one (really big) W A Parish => ~20,400 acres of solar farm. (Yes, when the sun shines!)

The King Ranch is about 825,000 acres.

West Virginia is about 15,500,000 acres.

John

One of the areas that is seldom if EVER looked at in this debate is the unintended consequences.  Say we are able to make 75% of our power with renewable energy, but still need the fossil fuels for the other 25%.  As these fossil fuels fall out of favor, the cost to use them and the infrastructure needed to make use of them will become far more expensive or will become economically nonviable  and will disappear.  If we get this pipe dreams of all electric cars, the remaining applications that DEMAND fossil fuels (farm machinery, construction equipment, large trucks, diesel locomotives, you name it will get screwed over big time because as the fuel industry shrinks, the fuel will become much more expensive and harder to source.   How much will your box of cornflakes cost if the diesel fuel that runs the farmer's combine costs $15.00 a gallon?  I know if you are trying to save the world little details like that don't matter, but in the REAL world, it's another way in which this renewable fuel push is going to drive the cost of living up for EVERYONE, and make us all a lot poorer.

I find it interesting that people's "real world" covers a very broad range of opinion rather than fact. 

@Hudson5432 posted:

Perhaps the easiest fact to digest is that the railroads use about 3% of the annual fossil fuel used in the USA, and deliver about 42 percent of the gross ton miles. If you want to know what the biggest polluter is, just look in your driveway and at that 18-wheeler on the interstate.

I had one of my career assignments in the "Electric Locomotive Study Group" of a major locomotive builder.  While we built and sold electric locomotives with a short time rating of up to 10,000 horsepower (for domestic passenger service), the starting tractive effort, what size train the locomotive could start, was no better than a U30C due to adhesion limitations.

Electrification does not provide any flexibility vs a self-contained power unit.  There has to be catenary everywhere an electric locomotive would run.  A diesel can run anywhere.

All, or nearly all, overseas electric railroads are government agencies where cost is no issue, and a significant portion of that traffic is passenger, where the installed HP to reach high speed is a benefit, and the relatively low starting tractive effort is not a liability.  I have inspected and photographed overseas railroads that are electrified.  Their freight trains are so short that I was able to photograph an entire train in one frame.

I would also like to point out that the 1934 PRR electrification cost was supported with long term loans at very favorable rates by Uncle Sam, not by a private company.

I've always pondered what would happen if somehow our rich uncle would take a deadly serious interest in freight railroad electrification.

Yep, I know the Milwaukee and CR turned it off as did AEP/Muskingum and BM&LP.

Looking at the money spent by the RFC on the Pennsy electrification shows a pretty good return on investment to me.  

Just for grins...

What would have happened if the class ones were offered big chunks of that long-blown/wasted "stimulus money" to build the infrastructure for main line electrification? Kind of like the fellow making those electric cars with the big T on the trunk lid.

Remember, it was corporate politics that caused the Milwaukee to turn it off and sell off the cupric infrastructure.

Just conjecture, as it's nigh well unlikely and since it's taken the hubris of Bill Gates to get energy infrastructure needs back on the table.

Your old employer  might have been making a -E "all electric" version of the ES44.

@Rule292 posted:

What would have happened if the class ones were offered big chunks of that long-blown/wasted "stimulus money" to build the infrastructure for main line electrification? Kind of like the fellow making those electric cars with the big T on the trunk lid.

1)  Not enough money to do the job, not if every Stimulus dollar were committed.

2)  On the coasts, the electrical generation capacity would be strained to the breaking point.  Remember, as California continues to push for all-electric everything, they deal with brownouts and other problems.

3)  Activist groups would complain about the aesthetics, the necessary eminent domain seizures, and the social side effects.

These would be just the beginning.

With electrification, you essentially move the individual pollution from Diesels to a power plant.  Of course with a larger base load, IN THEORY the plant emissions would be lower.  There might be a question regarding how much generating capacity our electrical grid has these days, with seasonal brownouts in some sections of the country.

Railroad electrification MAY result in additional operating cost vs a diesel application.  In a diesel, the power is used within the locomotive as it is developed.  With electrics, the loss in power due to the length of the transmission line from the substation to the locomotive might be substantial.  I know that some former railway electrifications could send power back into the wire (catenary) on downgrades, and this worked quite well if trains could be dispatched so that one train going uphill could be offset with another train going downhill.

The bottom line is "why would the government support railroad electrification to achieve a max 3% (total) elimination of fossil fuel and its emissions, with less flexibility?"

The reason that autos are targeted is that they emit about one-third of the country's emissions.

I believe the best chance for a meaningful/significant reduction in countrywide emissions is either battery or hybrid cars and trucks.  This fleet decentralizes the demand on the grid and actually makes the grid both stronger and less susceptible to terrorism vs a number of very large power plants, etc.

@Hudson5432 posted:

With electrification, you essentially move the individual pollution from Diesels to a power plant.  Of course with a larger base load, IN THEORY the plant emissions would be lower.  There might be a question regarding how much generating capacity our electrical grid has these days, with seasonal brownouts in some sections of the country.

Railroad electrification MAY result in additional operating cost vs a diesel application.  In a diesel, the power is used within the locomotive as it is developed.  With electrics, the loss in power due to the length of the transmission line from the substation to the locomotive might be substantial.  I know that some former railway electrifications could send power back into the wire (catenary) on downgrades, and this worked quite well if trains could be dispatched so that one train going uphill could be offset with another train going downhill.

The bottom line is "why would the government support railroad electrification to achieve a max 3% (total) elimination of fossil fuel and its emissions, with less flexibility?"

The reason that autos are targeted is that they emit about one-third of the country's emissions.

I believe the best chance for a meaningful/significant reduction in countrywide emissions is either battery or hybrid cars and trucks.  This fleet decentralizes the demand on the grid and actually makes the grid both stronger and less susceptible to terrorism vs a number of very large power plants, etc.

More conjecture, since our rich uncle is broke so there isn't any money to string wires or build subs (but I think that John Q is going to be paying for Microsoft "sponsored" sodium cooled nuke plants from what I read elsewhere).

Would that cost equation change if the generation of electricity were more inexpensive or free?  I understand the immense fixed costs of electrification but what if we were to have electrified freight corridors the way we have the NEC... i.e electrified transcons or north/south electrified lanes?

My older brother used to laugh and tell me that in the 1950s or 1960's there was a GE ad that said "someday electricity will be so cheap that you won't even need to have an electric meter on your house".

Again, no denying the cost factor but what if... the commercial grid was able to power homes, EVs and railroads.

TANSTAAFL.

One issue with pure electric systems:  They have to be high enough to clear double stack trains!

@Dominic Mazoch posted:

One issue with pure electric systems:  They have to be high enough to clear double stack trains!

And that is not impossible to do. Caltrain while currently adding overhead electric lines for their electric commuter trains on their Peninsular Corridor between San Francisco & San Jose, allow Union Pacific to operate freight trains including double-stack intermodal trains outside rush-hour.

These overhead lines are being installed on such shared sections at 22' above the top of the rail to clear the 20',2" height for AAR, Plate-H loading-gauge, that double-stack freight cars fall under.

If you are interested in learning more about the Caltrain electrification, refer to the following pdf file in DropBox. Go to page 86/2840 for the statements I referred to, in the above paragraph.

These are just my opinion,

Naveen Rajan

@Dominic Mazoch posted:

One issue with pure electric systems:  They have to be high enough to clear double stack trains!

Not an issue.  Just have to plan the wires to be high enough to clear the cars.  Remember the Capitol Limited runs into Union Station DC under wire with Superliner cars.