This has never been done before.
Penn. GG1
built 1934 thru 1943
Horsepower: 4,600 HP (8,500 peak H.P.)
More solar panels! STAT! New rail cars and engines will have plenty of surface areas on the top to mount solar panels. What could possibly go wrong? :-}
I see a lot of parked trains waiting for a diesel generator recharge truck to come save them. So they burn the diesel in the trucks, or burn the diesel in the trains. The trains are more efficient as they are.
This has never been done before.
Penn. GG1
built 1934 thru 1943
Horsepower: 4,600 HP (8,500 peak H.P.)
“though they were powered by diesel-electric generators”
They still are, correct? I remember reading how the diesel electric locomotives were a huge improvement over the steam locomotives.
The article mentions batteries and fuel cells. Those are two entirely different sources of electric power.
Maybe the “tender” concept needs to return. Remember the tender was hauled behind the steam locomotive and contained the coal supply. Now we can have an electric locomotive with various tenders: batteries, diesel powered generators, fuel cells.
Railroads need traction, which in turn necessitates excessive weight on the power end. I have often wondered if both rail and wheels could be formed in a manner that allows interlocking on a micro level, thus lessening the need for weight on the power end. This would hopefully result in greater efficiency with less wear and tear on infrastructure. But I digress.
I just picture a car or two in front of the locomotive engine that houses the battery packs. Train runs “X” far and there will be a switching station where they can decouple the drained cars, back up, re-couple new cars that were recharged, and off they go again. That way if all else fails they can have a car loaded with fuel and another with a diesel engine so no matter what, the train can keep moving whether the greenies like it or not.
Someone needs to ping Willie Green to get his opinion on his favorite topic here as well.
Why not a wind-up one
Todays trains are Hybrid. Electric motor driven, diesel generators creating the ‘juice’.
Hard to imagime a battery pack able to replace the genset.
Overhead wires?
Battery powered freight trains crossing the Rockies pulling 200 fully laden cars or more will require a lot of additional battery cars
What we need is more ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVES. Whatever you thought of the New Haven, they had electric all over their territory. The Virginian was another mostly electric railroad.
An excellent electric loco already exists, it’s called the GG1. GE and Pennsy built 139 of them. Batteries make absolutely no sense on a closed route exclusive system such as a railroad. Vectored power delivery by Tesla generators would be ideal. Tesla was correct in that you do no need massive infrastructure for delivery.
The GG1s gave yeoman service for decades before the were retired.
An excellent electric loco already exists, it’s called the GG1. GE and Pennsy built 139 of them. Batteries make absolutely no sense on a closed route exclusive system such as a railroad. Vectored power delivery by Tesla generators would be ideal. Tesla was correct in that you do no need massive infrastructure for delivery.
The GG1s gave yeoman service for decades before the were retired.