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This is what it looks like to truly be one of the wealthiest countries (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/electricvehicles@slrpnk.net
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[–] 4 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Trains are og electric vehicles. Those giant diesels are just generators. Replacing them with a battery would be interesting, just how big of a battery would a train need?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Overhead powerlines work for a lot of rail, diesel-electric is a reasonable compromise I see used here, runs on overhead electric when it can, diesel otherwise. You can electrify the lines with the worst air quality first without having to electrify 100% of the network.

    As for batteries, interesting idea, I wonder how far you would get with a fairly short range battery, or essentially turning the current diesel-electrics into plug-in hybrids. Helps that trains are pretty energy efficient too.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 weeks ago (1 child)

    I was thinking a fully electric train, how much batteries would it take to match a regular diesel locamotive. I assume it would out would be multiple cars. One near idea is that each car would have it's own battery and motors and the load could be shared and would scale very well.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 weeks ago

    Yeah you could go fully electric for a train. I don't know if its really worth it or not though. Cost of diesel engine vs batteries I suppose, and if the batteries cost more, how much for that on every train as opposed to just electrifying all the rails.

    Current diesel electric is pretty good, adding a short distance battery might help some of the routes that branch off a little from main lines.

    Although some train operators are still running diesel only even though the rails have overhead power.

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