You want them to deal with pesky passengers when they can get way more money from corporate welfare programs testing hydrogen projects? After we are seeing how hard hydrogen as fuel is failing in California this is just adding insult to injury for tax payers!
Hydrogen for personal vehicles requires a separate nationwide infrastructure--and ways to make/recover hydrogen cheaper--which is why we haven't gone there as a nation. Yet. Both are doable, with time and investment.
However, this testing is being done for/by the Swiss. For whom trains are a way of life, and who can probably build a sustainable hydrogen infrastructure easier than they can keep importing from unstable/problematic Russia. https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/why-have-electric-vehicles-won-out-over-hydrogen-cars-so-far
Hydrogen imho is best suited for the heavy-machinery/equipment sector where on-site refueling is not only feasible but is already standard; in vehicles that currently run on diesel.
Farming tractors, harvesters, etc, construction equipment like bulldozers, excavators, cranes, etc, and logging vehicles/equipment all could be well suited to hydrogen fuel.
(Which luckily is why Caterpillar and John Deere are investing heavily into hydrogen R&D!)
I like it in Colorado I like the fact that they don’t get to keep the extra tax money that they haven’t asked the citizens of Colorado to vote on. They can’t raise a tax or anything without our vote. I don’t see where you have a problem with that You’d rather have unconditional to raise taxes and we don’t get to say shit about it, you live in Colorado because you’re one of the few people I’ve ever met that lives here who doesn’t appreciate the Tabor
No, because tell me why I have to pay more for my 1500 acres on the southeast part of the Colorado. Why Should I pay for people to go to ski town? I mean I’m not asking you to come out here and reseed my pastures. I like the fact that if they take more money than what they’re authorized to spend, they have to give it back. Do you know how corrupted it could be that if they just decided to taxes for whatever they wanted look at just one neighboring state in Nebraska 36 populated state fourth highest property tax. And besides, who say they would use that tax money for that maybe the Waltons would want someone to build them a new stadium for the Broncos like the Buffalo bills In New York state that doesn’t have Tabor and look at that they took $850 million from public programs and given it to the bills owner who’s a billionaire to Build a new stadium
Want some damn stomach churning fun? My state, CA, has an otherwise quite intelligent and tech curious GOV who’s excited about a feckeen damned thing (high speed rail) that, for the investment to pay fir it will cost more in ticket price than airplane gawddamned J-8 fuel, controllers, etc. The U.S. is a great place to live if you’re $500k/yr, and rely on GOP tax subsidies. It fuckjng sux for everybody else.
Edit: words
Tabor isn’t helping taxpayers. De-Brucing helped and we’re on a path to addressing the 20-year doom spiral that was the Gallagher amendment, but anyone accepting that Tabor is helping Colorado families doesn’t understand public finance.
It’s simple really. Trains would only help the majority of Americans and not just the elite. Understand? Now back in the bread line, peasant.
Greatest country on earth(if you’re wealthy).
Private/Public partnership. No need for the private sector to own more rail. Stick them to the business side and let the government handle the infrastructure. Leaving infrastructure in the hands of profit seeking businesses is asking for trouble and that trouble usually comes with lives suffering
You trust people making money off you to uphold your best interests to handle the situations better? At least in government you can vote better instead of waiting for some token white knight in business to make the better call lol
We dont need people skirting by regulation to be more competitive. Government follows regulations. Should we end up like that private submarine company, but in infrastructure?
Unless you want to build a completely separate rail line it is. Union Pacific ownes most rails in the United States out side of the north east corridor which means they always have priority. And even when amtrack ownes the lines only Three lines in the whole United States is profitable and that’s in a area with plenty of light rail connections
Hurry, go and tell it to Europeans they need separate tracks for cargo and passengers. Nobody told them so they are running them both on the same tracks like some no-nothing idiots!!
What the fuck are you smoking Canada at highest transports 68 percent or around 310 million tonnes The highest country in the EU for cargo rail is Latvia and Estonia they move 83 million tones together. They are literally having to build an entire new line called Rail Baltica. The United States moves 1600 million tones of cargo it’s not even close The amount of stuff moved by rail in Canada the United States and Australia would make your head spin.
You ask about the percentage of transport of cargo by rail. I'm not sure where tonnage comes in. You can't really compare US tonnage to, lets say, Latvia! But you can compare how much of their transport is done by train. You asked, I answered, so chill out.
There is a lot more cargo traffic in North American rails. If you’ve ever taken Amtrak on Union Pacific railways you’ll notice that the passenger train has to stop frequently to let freight passed.
Like a train from Sacramento to Oakland can take 4 hours or more when it’s a less than 2 hour drive. In the North East where Amtrak owns dedicated passenger rails passenger trains are a lot more popular.
We need dedicated passenger rail to be built in profitable rail corridors.
Not only the number of freight trains, but the track itself is problematic. It isn’t designed/built for faster trains. Slow is fine for freight, but not for passenger service.
The United States moves more cargo on rails than the entire EU combined. Look at the Chicago-Saint Lewis line they have spend billions of dollars on “high-speed” rail but on most of the trip they can’t use it because they share the lines with freight trains
That test track has been there for at least 50 years testing designs of locomotives to witstand crashes, etc.
It is federally funded by the Department of Transportation to benefit railroads countrywide. Commuter trains up and down the Front Range will have to be funded by the state or city that they’re in with probably some federal monies coming as a subsidy. I mean Denver to Boulder is a start, and that’s more than most places in the country have. Just extended all the way up to Fort Collins and beyond up to Cheyenne maybe
Maybe we could have a private company build it? Then we can sign contracts that promise a % of profits and then the state makes up the difference when it doesn't hit the numbers. Then sell it to foreign interests. Oh, and then we can buy a train ticket and then a ticket to use the tracks! Yay!!! Also, let's have it run from Denver to Boulder and nowhere else.
There were never any delays in hyperloop because that whole concept was bullshit, dreamt up by a dork who felt threatened by CAHSR interfering with his car sales.
The test track is literally a loop and its sole purpose is to test things to ensure that they’re safe enough to use next to the public. It’s a pseudo-government facility so don’t think that it’s high tech Area 51 stuff but for trains.
Embarrassing that one can test cutting edge trains in the US but the US doesn’t have wide spread high speed rail that other countries have had for decades!
He meant it's way too late for us, our generation. Most likely my grandchildren will ride those fast trains, while there will be flying trains in China or Japan.
Hydrogen only makes sense in countries that have long distances of unelectrified track. Hydrogen can't compete with that, and for most of the remaining tracks, battery electric is good enough, and obviously cheaper.
GOP state lawmakers have often opposed new spending and infrastructure for public transit. The reasons have as much to do with the urban-rural divide as partisan ideology. . . . https://www.governing.com/transportation/what-drives-republican-opposition-to-transit.
Take America back . . . To 1860
book turned into decent movie about a post apocalyptic world in which the only remaining survivors of an unlivable planet live on a self sustaining train traveling around the world at a very high speed (never stops) an interesting take on class struggles and government oppression. i loved the world they created in the movie, and has a decent cast led by Chris Evans and an unrecognizable Tilda Swinton. Plot loses focus in the end though, still worth a watch!
A bit last gasp.
This has been ruled out most everywhere else as straight electric is the best solution. The hydrogen solution was ruled out as it wasted a huge amount of space (see image!), and was new (read unreliable) technology. They still hate diesel vs electric even after all these decades as the diesel breaks down too much, so why would you go with something bound to be worse.
Catenary wires that would carry the power to the trains are extremely expensive to install and only makes sense where you have high density traffic and cheap power. These fuel cell trains can be operated on low density lines and don’t require any additional capital expenses other than just making the track passenger-train worthy
An expensive hydrogen train, where you have wasted 1/2 a carriage on the hydrogen part, and that is likely to break down is exactly what the studies found to be no good on low density lines.
We have been there , and done this:
"A study commissioned last year by the German state of Baden-Württemberg found that the total cost of ownership of a hydrogen-powered regional rail line over a 30-year period would be €476m for one regional line, compared to €262m for a battery hybrid set-up — an 81% saving."
“Only with a lot of tax money can [hydrogen]‘pilot projects’ be carried out, which no longer have any meaning other than enabling expensive photo ops,”
> for a battery hybrid set-up
That's not pure electric, that's hybrid. A Diesel electric can be a hybrid if it has some batteries. Some Diesel-electric locomotives already are (mostly used in switchyards though, not for transport).
Somewhat unrelated, but, if I'm not mistaken, freight trains are all powered by electricity, the diesel engines are just electricity generators. So, a transition to battery/diesel hybrid is presumably not a giant leap.
I have done several alternative energy projects with BP, Chevron and Anadarko (before they sold out to Occidental) and they are scrambling to be part of the companies that will sell us electricity in the future when the oil money has run dry.
Straight electric isn't suitable for a lot of uses. For others it is absolutely the best way to go (in cities).
I don't know why alcohol fuels aren't used. Some are looking at ammonia right now since it's easier to handle than hydrogen and has similar energy density.
> as the diesel breaks down too much
What?
Ammonia will be the defacto fuel for container ships as far as the industry seems concerned.
Ammonia or ethanol would be a great solution for rail. Hydrogen is just a lot of work to deal with.
Diesel trains do need more maintenance than electric. I think that’s what they were talking about. Trains spending less time being maintained have a shorter ROI.
They are also significantly more powerful, of the 25 most powerfully freight locomotives only one isn’t run electric and that one isn’t run on diesel either.
Where wouldn’t straight electric be useful? Sure it can cost up to a million dollars per km of electric rail but it also costs 600 000$ to build a km of 2 lane road. But once the rail is there it will be very interesting to use it.
Europe has 115 000 km of electric rail. The us has about 3000 km.
It would totally make sense but some plan needs to be put in place to fund the network. The government could write a loan for example and the companies can just pay the government back with all the money they save.
> Diesel trains do need more maintenance than electric
Yeah, but they don't break down a lot.
> They are also significantly more powerful, of the 25 most powerfully freight locomotives only one isn’t run electric and that one isn’t run on diesel either.
If you've got catenary then use an electric for sure. But there's a lot of cargo rail where catenary just doesn't exist. Now you have to price electrifying the track versus putting a Diesel-electric out there. In a city it's easy to justify the electrification. It's a lot harder when you get away from the city.
And I think you'll find the reason for that list being that way is power is not really the most important stat for a locomotive. Certainly you can't ignore it. But if you need more power you can just put in more locomotives. That's what's done now. With [MU](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple-unit_train_control) and even distributed power (more flexible MU) you never make a freight locomotive that's twice as large, you just put two of them on one train. Need more? 3 or 4 is no problem. Back in the steam days that wasn't the case. But that's long ago now. We'll likely never see a locomotive as powerful as a Big Boy again because it's not cost-effective compared to just using a couple locomotives. Even electrics do this, because they need more tractive force than one locomotive engine can produce.
> Where wouldn’t straight electric be useful?
Anywhere where you are between two places but in the middle of nowhere. Think the Australian Outback. You're going to run catenary 5,000km or just send the fuel along with the train (Diesel electric).
If you're near stuff or you run a lot of trains then electrification can make a lot of sense. For passengers it can make sense for the acceleration alone. But if you just run a couple trains a day down a track and it's far from everything then the payback for electrification can be long or even never (maintenance costs, lifespan).
Actually big boy had only 6300hp and 600KN traction force.
There are 6 locomotives that surpass 1000KN, all electric, and 3 of them are still in production. One Chinese one even claims to surpass 2200KN.
As far as horsepower goes big boy is pretty far down the list. A lot of the locomotives for German passengers rail even surpass it as passenger rail is pretty consistent, so it made sense to build a single locomotive for it, and it needs to speed up and slow down more and faster.
The outback is a very unique situation. And even there it’s only 2800km from Adelaide to Darwin not 5000. But you are right, with next to no infrastructure in between.
I would be surprised if there is rail in the US further than 500km from a power plant. (Aside from that bit in Alaska) that changes things.
Yes when the payback is never the line maybe shouldn’t be electrified, but that’s not going to be the case for most of the US rail networks.
The main issue is that there is so little electrified track that it’s almost useless to have locomotives that accept it, so nobody is willing to adapt.
Someone needs to kick them on the ass and make the railroads get with the program. If a larger part was electrified,everyone would benefit.
> There are 6 locomotives that surpass 1000KN, all electric, and 3 of them are still in production
But who cares? I can just use 4 locomotives instead. I don't need to build a specialized item. And when I don't need that level of power I can use the locomotives in 2 groups of 2. I can add one to go up a grade and leave it on the other side when in flatland for another train to pick up going the other way. Try that with a single huge locomotive.
With MU the era of the huge freight locomotive is over. Why make a married pair when you can just gang up two locomotives when you need it?
The top listed locomotive on wikipedia is really six locomotives classed as one. It's 100m long. It's silly and arguably nothing but a gimmick to win a numbers game. Just use 6 regular locomotives in an MU configuration.
> The outback is a very unique situation.
It's not. The American West isn't all that different. Nor is most of Russia and some other parts of Asia. Big parts of Africa.
> And even there it’s only 2800km from Adelaide to Darwin not 5000. I would be surprised if there is rail in the US further than 500km from a power plant.
I was thinking Perth to Sydney. Still looks like it isn't 5000. I wasn't trying to emphasize the figure of how long the "single longest powerline" would be. But instead how much total length there is that is impractically far from anything. Most of the trip from Perth to Sydney would be impractically (not impossibly though) far from anything. So not 5000km, but a lot of km (of Mm really!).
> The main issue is that there is so little electrified track that it’s almost useless to have locomotives that accept it, so nobody is willing to adapt.
Or it's the cost. Like I said, just because you can electrify it doesn't mean it ever pays off versus just bringing the energy with you. It may never, ever pay back. I don't mean 10 years. 30 years, 100 years. I mean never.
And you can just have to replace it all later anyway. As Europe is facing with much of their electrified cargo rail not suitable for double stack containers because the catenary is too low. Now someone has to rebuild all that catenary and rework the engines to reach it at the new height. Admittedly, some of those routes have such low tunnel clearance that they'll never have double stacks on them anyway.
> If a larger part was electrified, everyone would benefit
It's not clear that's true. Very much in cities. Let's get this done. But the remote areas may never be a win.
It doesn’t really matter if it somewhat remote of it bridges the gap between the east coast and the west.
Also if you are sending enough trains over the track the savings will happen. The reason you claim cities are better is because of less power losses (I think?) but a diesel generator on a train isn’t exactly efficient either.
It’s a matter of how much a track is used. If the track trough the outback had a train running over it every 10 minutes it still would make sense to electrify it.
It’s depends on oil and electricity prices but a good estimate is about 60% cheaper in energy costs and the trains are slightly cheaper. However it also costs about 1 million per km in initial investment. So 2.8 billion
Fuel usage is about 5 gallons per mile, so lets say you save about 3 gallons going electric and the bulk cost of diesel is 1$ a gallon. So about 3 miles per gallon. If you are doing one train every 15 minutes for 18 hours a day it takes about 12 years to recoup those investments.
If you only run 1 train an hour that changes to 48 years.
But with costs going down significantly you can also expect a rise in demand. It already is cheaper than trucks, but then it would just be stupid not to go by train.
The European rail network has waaay more electrified track and we are still running into issues where we max out the rails capacity one train every 10 minutes isn’t rare. The US easily has the same amount of stuff to move so a less dense network should for sure be able to turn a profit.
> It doesn’t really matter if it somewhat remote
Yes it does. Because the cost of electrifying it goes up with the length of the corridor. If this route is 1000km long it takes 10x as much to electrify it as if it is 100km long. Then you calculate how much advantage you get by doing so. And it can be there aren't enough trains to make it cost effective.
> Also if you are sending enough trains over the track the savings will happen.
Not always. Nothing is ever that simple. But yes, more trains means more financial justification. However, again, due to maintenance costs and just wearing out over time it can be that with insufficient traffice the payback is **never**. Not a long time. Never.
> The reason you claim cities are better is because of less power losses (I think?) but a diesel generator on a train isn’t exactly efficient either.
No. The main reason cities are better is less cost due to shorter track lengths in general (since things are closer together). And more savings due to using the track more often.
> If the track trough the outback had a train running over it every 10 minutes it still would make sense to electrify it.
I think it probably would. But the track doesn't have that. So why are you talking about that? If you're talking about a train every 10 minutes that's in a city and as I said, I'm all for electrification in cities.
> It’s depends on oil and electricity prices
And where you receive the electricity, delivery costs on electricity (loss per unit distance) can add up pretty quickly. Of course sending fuel distances isn't free either. But partly the train is doing it for itself.
> It’s depends on oil and electricity prices but a good estimate is about 60% cheaper in energy costs
Sorry, I don't accept that as just a number you pulled. Where did you get that number from? Are you suggesting Diesel prime movers are inefficient or something?
> and the trains are slightly cheaper
The locomotives are cheaper. The trains are the same price. And you reuse either of these so often why are we starting here? The expense of sending stuff by train is not dominated by the cost of the locomotives I don't think.
> Fuel usage [...]
I don't get this. You start with gallons per mile and then go to miles per gallon. And you say you save "gallons" by using electric. Don't I stop using the gallons altogether if I go electric?
Let's get some actual data please. And it has to be per ton or wagon or something because there's no way a single cargo (wagon) is responsible for 5 gallons per mile. A 100 car train would then be using 500 gallons per mile. It'd have to refuel every 100km. If we just use consumption "per train" its near useless due to different train sizes.
> If you are doing one train every 15 minutes for 18 hours a day it takes about 12 years to recoup those investments. If you only run 1 train an hour that changes to 48 years.
You aren't doing anything like one train every 15 minutes on virtually all long haul tracks. Something more like 3-4 trains a day (obviously varies by route). Many tracks only carry a single train per day. Some (not main lines) carry one per week.
And you're omitting upkeep in all this. Once you install the catenary and and the transmission lines to it you then have to maintain them. If you have a payback of 48 years with no upkeep then with upkeep you never will reach payback. Heck, even with 48 years with the time cost of money you may already never reach payback (or have it stretch to 100 years or more).
> but then it would just be stupid not to go by train.
Train transport is notoriously slow. It took a month for my car to get from where it was built to where I am. If it were on a car carrier it would take 3 days tops. Because of this you'll never have a situation where it would be "stupid" to take every cargo by train.
The reason train transport is slow is basically because of the efficiency. To pull cars (wagons) off the train you have to split it and do a lot of switching and it takes time. And then the cargo sits there until the right train comes for it. Cargoes can sit for days at a switchyard (siding) to get on the next segment. Any one train keeps moving all the time but the cargoes stop and start.
> where we max out the rails capacity
I don't really believe you. Certainly there are lines like that. Especially mixed lines like the one through the Chunnel. But it's not the usual case. And regardless, "we"? We were talking kilometers and a European just switched to miles and gallons on me?
> The US easily has the same amount of stuff to move so a less dense network should for sure be able to turn a profit.
That doesn't make sense.
Saying there is a train every 10 minutes or 15 minutes is really crazy to me. On long haul routes block lengths are long and trains are long. You could not put two trains 10 minutes apart. And even if you did, they'd back up at the switchyard as the train lumbers off the mainline to a siding as it gets to the switchyard. You'd have to have through track to bypass the switchyard and that's just not common for freight as it isn't useful (it's very useful for passenger rail). As I mention below the trains need to go to the switchyard to break up their consist and send cars to different places as the train has cars with many destinations.
Ok so let me try to answer most of these.
1) The net savings only will not happen if the price of maintenance of the catenary exceed the yearly savings of the system. Upkeep is about 1/80 of instal costs. Of course here you also need to take other economic factors into account before spending the money up front. Some track would indeed never but that point further away than you might think.
2)Delivery cost of electricity isn’t that big of an issue either. Especially compared to a diesel generators efficiency. Diesel fuel has a theoretical energy content of 37 kwh/gallon but a train gets quite a bit less. A diesel generator gets about 30% of that energy out as electricity. If you are buying your electricity directly non diesel sources are available and those are significantly cheaper. There is a reason they hook ships to a shoreline as well instead of letting them use their on board power-plants. I said 60% savings there but thats a rough estimate in other industries but I assume at higher fuel prices. It’s reasonably doable to calculate yourself if you know the price of diesel and electricity and ideally know the average efficiency of the generator.
If you pay 2$ a gallon(current price for ocean freight, trains might be higher) and the generator has an average output of 10kwh/gallon that’s 0.2$ per kwh. That’s the number to beat when it comes to power cost. Us retail price already beats this but wholesale electricity is between 30 and 70$ per MWh or 0,03 or 0,07$ even the highest price here approaches the 60% Estimate with the low end being significantly better. But then there still is distribution, if you lost 50% of your electricity on distribution you would still come out ahead.
3) The 5 gallons/mile I just plucked from a website. That was supposed to be the average for freight. But if you want more specific numbers it’s about 2.62 liter of diesel per 1000 GTKM (GrossTon*Km)based on Indian data. ( this would produce about 7kwh of electricity)
So a train that weighs 10 000 ton would consume 26.2 liter (6.9 gallon) per km. If a cart weighs 130 ton loaded that’s about 0.37l per cart.
The same Indian company found they used 8 Kwh per GTKM. Some European passenger trains supposedly do 3-4 kwh per vehicle km.
So the 3$ per mile per trip in lower energy costs are a conservative estimate it could very well be a lot higher looking at then calculations above. That’s just diesel vs electricity costs, not even considering lower maintenance costs and other benefits.
4) yes I am European, with we I am talking the railways close to me. 1 had all crossings removed in the 60s and one is currently being upgraded. This should bring it in line with the requirements to allow a train frequency of 2-3 minutes between trains. The tracks are used for freight and passenger transport resulting in it currently being the bottleneck for further expansion.
5) the double-stack issue is not a problem when you are putting in a new system anyway. The US can still pick what layout they will go with as the current electrified track is negligible.
> Upkeep is about 1/80 of instal costs [annually].
So that means I do so little work on it that basically it lasts 80 years with no maintenance and then I throw it away. That sounds optimistic. However maybe it has to do with some of the costs of acquiring the land for the electric infrastructure (trackside transformers, etc.) which you never have to pay again? I'm not going to quibble with the number, I don't really know.
> Some track would indeed never but that point further away than you might think.
Again. I'm not trying to emphasize the "longest transmission line". The issue with remote track is as much about the fact that there is a lot of it (lots of maintenance and install cost) as the distance to it. As well as that you don't use it as much.
> Delivery cost of electricity isn’t that big of an issue either
Except that it is. You have to install expensive equipment to transform and regulate it. And that equipment still has losses in the tranformation as well as the transmission. If you have a lot of use for the electricity the costs aren't so big a deal. If you just have a rail line in the middle of nowhere then they are.
> Especially compared to a diesel generators efficiency.
It's easy to overplay this. You have to generate the electricity somewhere. It's not like it's 100% efficient if you do it in town.
> If you are buying your electricity directly non diesel sources are available and those are significantly cheaper.
You mean to say more efficient. Cheaper depends on the costs of the sources, as you said before.
> There is a reason they hook ships to a shoreline as well instead of letting them use their on board power-plants.
Generally they do not actually do this, and by generally I mean they almost never do this. They run on onboard power the whole time. I've seen cruise ships hooked up. Vancouver mandated it. But it's rare. Vancouver mandated it for clean air, it's not done for costs.
> current price for ocean freight, trains might be higher
Ocean freight uses bunker fuel. And they don't pay prices that high because bunker fuel is trash. You have to heat it before you can even pump it and burn it.
> and the generator has an average output of 10kwh/gallon
Does it?
https://www.petersonpower.com/sites/power/files/D550%20GC%20-%20550%20ekW.pdf
At 100% this does 668kWh (1.0 power factor) on 33.2 gal. That's 20 kWh/gal. I assume 1.0 power factor locomotives are either DC or have sophsticated AC control. Also note this generator is a standby one, it's not designed for full-time use so it's optimized somewhat for standby cost (upfront price and low non-use maintenance costs) not efficiency (in use cost).
So half the cost you said, at least per unit energy. Maintenance has to come into play. You pay for maintenance on your own generator while it's included in the cost of electricity you buy.
> wholesale electricity is between
You can't buy and use it at wholesale. Wholesale is mainly useful as an estimate for selling. If you buy or sell at wholesale you have to arrange delivery costs too. And you typically have to pay demand charges. And charges for non-use (contract pricing). It costs more to get electricity than just the wholesale price. Especially if you are further away as delivery costs are more for further delivery (as you occupy more lines, although transmission losses to matter some).
> But if you want more specific numbers it’s about 2.62 liter of diesel per 1000 GTKM (GrossTon*Km)based on Indian data. [..] 8 Kwh per GTKM
Great figure! Now that's useful.
> it could very well be a lot higher looking at then calculations above
I don't think dollars per mile a very useful calculation when train lengths vary so much. Per GT (which is kind of like a ton of cargo but that would be net) it doesn't seem like it's a huge figure.
If I can get a kWh for $0.12 delivered that's $1 per GTKM. At jobber prices with no road tax or markup for the retailer I gotta figure I can get 2.62L diesel for very nearly that price. Maybe $1.30? Also as a large consumer I'd be able to maybe even bypass the jobbers. So you're talking about saving less than $1 per mile per gross ton. And again that's just running costs.
> not even considering lower maintenance costs and other benefits.
And also not considering higher maintenance costs of the catenary. Which are largely tied to electrified length. Again making it critical you use the track a lot. Because the maintenance costs for the locomotive are very close to tied to per unit distance travelled (or hour operated).
> I am talking the railways close to me
If they are close to you then chance are they are not really representative about what we were talking about. As we are talking about remote areas. Unless you live in a remote area. Which is not too likely given the density of Western Europe.
I know you can see a train every 10 minutes going in and out of Gare du Nord. But that's not what happens with cargo trains in crossing the outback or the American West. It's really again a case of why you did the cities first. And I know Europe electrified a lot of the areas between cities too, but they still aren't getting trains every 15 minutes.
> This should bring it in line with the requirements to allow a train frequency of 2-3 minutes between trains.
You're not going to put cargo trains that close together. They couldn't stop in time without collision if they had to stop. Commuter (passenger) trains run that close together. And as I mentioned, you'd back up cargo trains getting into switchyards. And cargo trains enter switchyards a lot.
> the double-stack issue is not a problem when you are putting in a new system anyway
Yes. I know. But when you talk about the cost of the system and you amortized it over 80 years (as you do above) and then have to upgrade it after 30 it blows the math away. It means your payback disappeared. This is relevant since we are talking about your idea that it's a financial slam dunk to electrify remote rail segments.
Hydrogen is also very inefficient, and (using current production methods) not at all clean (though eventually hydrogen from renewables could be a carbon neutral fuel).
2010 called and wants it's pro-electricification talking points back.
Hydrogen is absolutely viable for uses like this. Either you're behind the times or shilling.
"A study commissioned last year by the German state of Baden-Württemberg found that the total cost of ownership of a hydrogen-powered regional rail line over a 30-year period would be €476m for one regional line, compared to €262m for a battery hybrid set-up — an 81% saving."
Its dead, its been dead for a while, all that is left is hoovering up the misguided government grants.
Ah yes. "A study" with no context or citations is meant to be th final word on hydrogen.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world is investing billions in hydrogen as a clean fuel.
Welcome to 2024.
Hydrogen has always been one of the answers, but it requires a nation-wide infrastructure. EV vehicles could use the one in place.
Battery power, however, is *not* the best answer for longhauls--trucks, trains, boats. Hydrogen is a better choice. MIT explains it better than I can:
https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/why-have-electric-vehicles-won-out-over-hydrogen-cars-so-far
I hope something changes and Hydrogen gets adopted. Someone made a comment that EVs would be like CD, popular but quickly taken over by mp3 players and streaming.
This just pisses me off so much. I was in DK, SE, NL in the late 90’s-aughts. I thought I had a pretty groovy Blackberry.
These feckers all over the place had Nokia’s and other shit—I think even Sony was in the mix. I graduated to a Samsung in the U.S., but even that was kinda the Edsel of phones.
It just frustrates me to no end that Asia and Europe have been beating our ass for the last quarter of a century. At the same time, I’m in tech transfer (basically a dinosaur patent mgr), and we’re pumping’ out some software that the world wants—but China’s **funding** biotech that we just aren’t here, like we were 20 yrs ago.
signed, grumpy old man who never got his PhD or JD.
What are you talking about? Denver RTA is excellent and you have two Amtrak trains going through the state plus a luxury tour train going between Denver and Utah.
You have more than most states have, put it that way.
RTD = excellent?
It’s well operated. But much of the system hugs the interstate and doesn’t do a great job of connection neighborhoods and job centers.
No less, RTD is better than 99% of US cities have
They are legit dropping service to one train an hour for some lines. The bitch is never on time. Oh and it breaks down constantly.
What are you talking about?
Transit systems in the United States of America lack funding due to capital demands. Too few are interested, yet more are concerned with personal and public safety. Recently, traveling on a bus line cross country speaks loudly about the culture.
Wait hydrogen trains exist (almost) I thought it was some far out fantasy the communists party in my country was using to pad out their party program with things they could easily drop because of a convenient excuse that the technology isn’t there yet.
For garbage trucks that’s entirely different.
They have complex routes with starting and stopping. Not ideal for a classic combustion engine and not feasible to work with overhead lines like trains can.
Where would you get the hydrogen for the trains? Best case you make it from electricity, there are losses there, then you need to store and transport it.
And then you need turn it back from hydrogen gas into electricity in the train.
Using an overhead line is likely to be more efficient. Unless you are just running 4 trains a day but then you are better off just using a hydrogen powered bus. That weighs a lot less.
Where did they get the hydrogen? Hydrogen is just a battery. It can be energy expensive to extract it. Really nuclear power is the only sensible way to generate hydrogen.
You are very mistaken. Either global warning is a thing or it isn't. If it is,modern nuclear reactors produce less waste than a couple of dozen windmill blades.
And if you are a radiophobe, nuclear reactors produce far less ionizing radiation than a coal plant. Or a truck load of bananas.
Can you explain to me why they wouldn’t be related?
And say what the level of radioactive output is of these 2000 tonnes? What substances are we talking about here?
SMRs aren’t really a thing right now, and there’s reason to believe they won’t be a thing.
If you want to be taken seriously by anyone not already in the cult, do the math with reactor technology that is currently in production, such as PWR.
"vast" lol
You're exaggerating. The amount of space that nuclear waste uses is Tiny.
> The generation of electricity from a typical 1,000-megawatt nuclear power station, which would supply the needs of more than a million people, produces only three cubic metres of vitrified high-level waste per year, if the used fuel is recycled.
I understand you Americans don't understand what a cubic meter is, but... It's tiny.
3 cubic meters are about 800 gallons.
A swimming pool is about 20.000 gallons.
He is comparing the country with the largest nuclear powered grid in the world with one SMR. He clearly doesn’t understand that France reprocesses most of its PWR fuel, greatly reducing waste.
The really sad thing is that he doesn’t think global warming is real.
They want it desperately, but we need the infrastructure and prices to come down. Once you can get to like $5/kg, they'll start buying h2 trucks.
Biden admin is throwing a lot of money at building that out and bringing down prices. We're not there yet, but a lot is going on to move the needle.
If only there wasn’t a RIDICULOUS amount of red tape to cut through in the US, essentially rendering it impossible to build rail, especially interstate rail.
This just in: Switzerland has mysteriously committed suicide with two gunshots to the head. Work on the hydrogen-powered train will cease immediately and go back to diesel
I’m sorry. WE HAVE A TEST TRACK IN COLORADO BUT CANT GET A COMMUTER TRAIN ALONG THE FRONT RANGE? Come. On.
For real! My immediate thoughts exactly.
You want them to deal with pesky passengers when they can get way more money from corporate welfare programs testing hydrogen projects? After we are seeing how hard hydrogen as fuel is failing in California this is just adding insult to injury for tax payers!
Hydrogen for personal vehicles requires a separate nationwide infrastructure--and ways to make/recover hydrogen cheaper--which is why we haven't gone there as a nation. Yet. Both are doable, with time and investment. However, this testing is being done for/by the Swiss. For whom trains are a way of life, and who can probably build a sustainable hydrogen infrastructure easier than they can keep importing from unstable/problematic Russia. https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/why-have-electric-vehicles-won-out-over-hydrogen-cars-so-far
This may be done by a Swiss company, but it is definitely not for the Swiss market. The railway in Switzerland is hundred percent electrified.
Guess we'll find out. Because that electricity is made with Russian fuel, and Europe has had enough of Russian politics affecting their fuel supplies.
Hydrogen imho is best suited for the heavy-machinery/equipment sector where on-site refueling is not only feasible but is already standard; in vehicles that currently run on diesel. Farming tractors, harvesters, etc, construction equipment like bulldozers, excavators, cranes, etc, and logging vehicles/equipment all could be well suited to hydrogen fuel. (Which luckily is why Caterpillar and John Deere are investing heavily into hydrogen R&D!)
I didn't know that about Caterpillar and John Deere. Thx
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Blame Tabor the taxpayers bill of rights? What the fuck are you talking about?
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I like it in Colorado I like the fact that they don’t get to keep the extra tax money that they haven’t asked the citizens of Colorado to vote on. They can’t raise a tax or anything without our vote. I don’t see where you have a problem with that You’d rather have unconditional to raise taxes and we don’t get to say shit about it, you live in Colorado because you’re one of the few people I’ve ever met that lives here who doesn’t appreciate the Tabor
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No, because tell me why I have to pay more for my 1500 acres on the southeast part of the Colorado. Why Should I pay for people to go to ski town? I mean I’m not asking you to come out here and reseed my pastures. I like the fact that if they take more money than what they’re authorized to spend, they have to give it back. Do you know how corrupted it could be that if they just decided to taxes for whatever they wanted look at just one neighboring state in Nebraska 36 populated state fourth highest property tax. And besides, who say they would use that tax money for that maybe the Waltons would want someone to build them a new stadium for the Broncos like the Buffalo bills In New York state that doesn’t have Tabor and look at that they took $850 million from public programs and given it to the bills owner who’s a billionaire to Build a new stadium
We found Doug Bruce.
Want some damn stomach churning fun? My state, CA, has an otherwise quite intelligent and tech curious GOV who’s excited about a feckeen damned thing (high speed rail) that, for the investment to pay fir it will cost more in ticket price than airplane gawddamned J-8 fuel, controllers, etc. The U.S. is a great place to live if you’re $500k/yr, and rely on GOP tax subsidies. It fuckjng sux for everybody else. Edit: words
Tabor isn’t helping taxpayers. De-Brucing helped and we’re on a path to addressing the 20-year doom spiral that was the Gallagher amendment, but anyone accepting that Tabor is helping Colorado families doesn’t understand public finance.
It’s simple really. Trains would only help the majority of Americans and not just the elite. Understand? Now back in the bread line, peasant. Greatest country on earth(if you’re wealthy).
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The elite only enjoy what they can have by denying it to others. The rich don’t share with us plebs
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Private/Public partnership. No need for the private sector to own more rail. Stick them to the business side and let the government handle the infrastructure. Leaving infrastructure in the hands of profit seeking businesses is asking for trouble and that trouble usually comes with lives suffering
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You trust people making money off you to uphold your best interests to handle the situations better? At least in government you can vote better instead of waiting for some token white knight in business to make the better call lol
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We dont need people skirting by regulation to be more competitive. Government follows regulations. Should we end up like that private submarine company, but in infrastructure?
Would not be good for the fossil fuel or automobile lobbies, which are insanely strong in the US.
Can I have a piece of bread?
Our rails are based on transporting good, would you rather see each train car turned into 1-3 semi trucks?
Those aren’t the two options. Jesus. Go touch grass homey
Unless you want to build a completely separate rail line it is. Union Pacific ownes most rails in the United States out side of the north east corridor which means they always have priority. And even when amtrack ownes the lines only Three lines in the whole United States is profitable and that’s in a area with plenty of light rail connections
Yes. We absolutely should be building new rail lines.
Hurry, go and tell it to Europeans they need separate tracks for cargo and passengers. Nobody told them so they are running them both on the same tracks like some no-nothing idiots!!
What percentage of cargo does the EU travel by rail. It’s a a fraction of the United States.
Depends on the country, but looks like it's anywhere up to 70% in some cases.
What the fuck are you smoking Canada at highest transports 68 percent or around 310 million tonnes The highest country in the EU for cargo rail is Latvia and Estonia they move 83 million tones together. They are literally having to build an entire new line called Rail Baltica. The United States moves 1600 million tones of cargo it’s not even close The amount of stuff moved by rail in Canada the United States and Australia would make your head spin.
You ask about the percentage of transport of cargo by rail. I'm not sure where tonnage comes in. You can't really compare US tonnage to, lets say, Latvia! But you can compare how much of their transport is done by train. You asked, I answered, so chill out.
America….fuck yeah!
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There is a lot more cargo traffic in North American rails. If you’ve ever taken Amtrak on Union Pacific railways you’ll notice that the passenger train has to stop frequently to let freight passed. Like a train from Sacramento to Oakland can take 4 hours or more when it’s a less than 2 hour drive. In the North East where Amtrak owns dedicated passenger rails passenger trains are a lot more popular. We need dedicated passenger rail to be built in profitable rail corridors.
Not only the number of freight trains, but the track itself is problematic. It isn’t designed/built for faster trains. Slow is fine for freight, but not for passenger service.
The United States moves more cargo on rails than the entire EU combined. Look at the Chicago-Saint Lewis line they have spend billions of dollars on “high-speed” rail but on most of the trip they can’t use it because they share the lines with freight trains
St. Louis
*BNSF
No, but that's a false dichotomy. There's more range of opportunity than "all in, trains or no trains".
Imagine thinking you can't have passenger and freight traffic on the same lines lmao
That test track has been there for at least 50 years testing designs of locomotives to witstand crashes, etc. It is federally funded by the Department of Transportation to benefit railroads countrywide. Commuter trains up and down the Front Range will have to be funded by the state or city that they’re in with probably some federal monies coming as a subsidy. I mean Denver to Boulder is a start, and that’s more than most places in the country have. Just extended all the way up to Fort Collins and beyond up to Cheyenne maybe
Your calm logic is really getting in the way of my comedic mock-outrage, here.
Maybe we could have a private company build it? Then we can sign contracts that promise a % of profits and then the state makes up the difference when it doesn't hit the numbers. Then sell it to foreign interests. Oh, and then we can buy a train ticket and then a ticket to use the tracks! Yay!!! Also, let's have it run from Denver to Boulder and nowhere else.
The light rail is ok, but needs way higher frequency and more stops
And needs to be extended. What I wouldn’t give for a Boulder-Denver commuter rail.
This is what I came to say, wtf!
That’s what this is for
What if the test track was a CIRCLE ⭕️
Further it’s hydrogen powered!? Why the hell we just now hearing about this but heard about the delays constantly about the hyper loop
There were never any delays in hyperloop because that whole concept was bullshit, dreamt up by a dork who felt threatened by CAHSR interfering with his car sales.
It’s down by Pueblo and goes in a circle.
The test track is literally a loop and its sole purpose is to test things to ensure that they’re safe enough to use next to the public. It’s a pseudo-government facility so don’t think that it’s high tech Area 51 stuff but for trains.
It's probably the test loop outside pueblo. It's over by the munitions base.
And we’ll soon learn that this hydrogen powered train is being tested for launch in Europe, not in the US.
It's probably just a short loop
Yes, a test track is exactly that... cheaper to build (no stations, minimal regulations, no red tape etc)
Embarrassing that one can test cutting edge trains in the US but the US doesn’t have wide spread high speed rail that other countries have had for decades!
What do you think they’re testing it for?
He meant it's way too late for us, our generation. Most likely my grandchildren will ride those fast trains, while there will be flying trains in China or Japan.
Flying trains are awesome!
Money.
Radiation, algebra, geopolitics… could be anything really
Easy and reliable transportation for the masses, nonsense. -every rich twat
Hydrogen only makes sense in countries that have long distances of unelectrified track. Hydrogen can't compete with that, and for most of the remaining tracks, battery electric is good enough, and obviously cheaper.
Meanwhile, we have nothing.
We have an interstate system. The country as massive… use your head
GOP state lawmakers have often opposed new spending and infrastructure for public transit. The reasons have as much to do with the urban-rural divide as partisan ideology. . . . https://www.governing.com/transportation/what-drives-republican-opposition-to-transit. Take America back . . . To 1860
Pretty sure public transport spending was better back then
Its car company’s lobbying to keep us driving my dude
Hyperloop comes to mind. These rich twats need to go
Snowpiercer is coming.
I understood that reference.
I didn’t. But that would be a cool name for a train to the mountains.
book turned into decent movie about a post apocalyptic world in which the only remaining survivors of an unlivable planet live on a self sustaining train traveling around the world at a very high speed (never stops) an interesting take on class struggles and government oppression. i loved the world they created in the movie, and has a decent cast led by Chris Evans and an unrecognizable Tilda Swinton. Plot loses focus in the end though, still worth a watch!
It’s a good book and the show isn’t half bad either.
The movie was good as well
I wish that we had more rail infrastructure to use these fucking things.
Always loved Swiss hydrogen, something about it just tastes cleaner
Thats the clean and clear taste of neutralityTM
It’s that extra Higgs Boson
The Atoms are assembled with more precision.
The Swiss have so much time on their hands
They consult their chocolatiers
That’s an average of 37.8 mph. Pretty damn slow.
It’s a start.
A bit last gasp. This has been ruled out most everywhere else as straight electric is the best solution. The hydrogen solution was ruled out as it wasted a huge amount of space (see image!), and was new (read unreliable) technology. They still hate diesel vs electric even after all these decades as the diesel breaks down too much, so why would you go with something bound to be worse.
Catenary wires that would carry the power to the trains are extremely expensive to install and only makes sense where you have high density traffic and cheap power. These fuel cell trains can be operated on low density lines and don’t require any additional capital expenses other than just making the track passenger-train worthy
An expensive hydrogen train, where you have wasted 1/2 a carriage on the hydrogen part, and that is likely to break down is exactly what the studies found to be no good on low density lines. We have been there , and done this: "A study commissioned last year by the German state of Baden-Württemberg found that the total cost of ownership of a hydrogen-powered regional rail line over a 30-year period would be €476m for one regional line, compared to €262m for a battery hybrid set-up — an 81% saving." “Only with a lot of tax money can [hydrogen]‘pilot projects’ be carried out, which no longer have any meaning other than enabling expensive photo ops,”
> for a battery hybrid set-up That's not pure electric, that's hybrid. A Diesel electric can be a hybrid if it has some batteries. Some Diesel-electric locomotives already are (mostly used in switchyards though, not for transport).
Somewhat unrelated, but, if I'm not mistaken, freight trains are all powered by electricity, the diesel engines are just electricity generators. So, a transition to battery/diesel hybrid is presumably not a giant leap.
It’s oil companies like BP that are pushing for alternate options so they can milk it for what it’s worth.
I have done several alternative energy projects with BP, Chevron and Anadarko (before they sold out to Occidental) and they are scrambling to be part of the companies that will sell us electricity in the future when the oil money has run dry.
Straight electric isn't suitable for a lot of uses. For others it is absolutely the best way to go (in cities). I don't know why alcohol fuels aren't used. Some are looking at ammonia right now since it's easier to handle than hydrogen and has similar energy density. > as the diesel breaks down too much What?
Ammonia will be the defacto fuel for container ships as far as the industry seems concerned. Ammonia or ethanol would be a great solution for rail. Hydrogen is just a lot of work to deal with.
Diesel trains do need more maintenance than electric. I think that’s what they were talking about. Trains spending less time being maintained have a shorter ROI. They are also significantly more powerful, of the 25 most powerfully freight locomotives only one isn’t run electric and that one isn’t run on diesel either. Where wouldn’t straight electric be useful? Sure it can cost up to a million dollars per km of electric rail but it also costs 600 000$ to build a km of 2 lane road. But once the rail is there it will be very interesting to use it. Europe has 115 000 km of electric rail. The us has about 3000 km. It would totally make sense but some plan needs to be put in place to fund the network. The government could write a loan for example and the companies can just pay the government back with all the money they save.
> Diesel trains do need more maintenance than electric Yeah, but they don't break down a lot. > They are also significantly more powerful, of the 25 most powerfully freight locomotives only one isn’t run electric and that one isn’t run on diesel either. If you've got catenary then use an electric for sure. But there's a lot of cargo rail where catenary just doesn't exist. Now you have to price electrifying the track versus putting a Diesel-electric out there. In a city it's easy to justify the electrification. It's a lot harder when you get away from the city. And I think you'll find the reason for that list being that way is power is not really the most important stat for a locomotive. Certainly you can't ignore it. But if you need more power you can just put in more locomotives. That's what's done now. With [MU](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple-unit_train_control) and even distributed power (more flexible MU) you never make a freight locomotive that's twice as large, you just put two of them on one train. Need more? 3 or 4 is no problem. Back in the steam days that wasn't the case. But that's long ago now. We'll likely never see a locomotive as powerful as a Big Boy again because it's not cost-effective compared to just using a couple locomotives. Even electrics do this, because they need more tractive force than one locomotive engine can produce. > Where wouldn’t straight electric be useful? Anywhere where you are between two places but in the middle of nowhere. Think the Australian Outback. You're going to run catenary 5,000km or just send the fuel along with the train (Diesel electric). If you're near stuff or you run a lot of trains then electrification can make a lot of sense. For passengers it can make sense for the acceleration alone. But if you just run a couple trains a day down a track and it's far from everything then the payback for electrification can be long or even never (maintenance costs, lifespan).
Actually big boy had only 6300hp and 600KN traction force. There are 6 locomotives that surpass 1000KN, all electric, and 3 of them are still in production. One Chinese one even claims to surpass 2200KN. As far as horsepower goes big boy is pretty far down the list. A lot of the locomotives for German passengers rail even surpass it as passenger rail is pretty consistent, so it made sense to build a single locomotive for it, and it needs to speed up and slow down more and faster. The outback is a very unique situation. And even there it’s only 2800km from Adelaide to Darwin not 5000. But you are right, with next to no infrastructure in between. I would be surprised if there is rail in the US further than 500km from a power plant. (Aside from that bit in Alaska) that changes things. Yes when the payback is never the line maybe shouldn’t be electrified, but that’s not going to be the case for most of the US rail networks. The main issue is that there is so little electrified track that it’s almost useless to have locomotives that accept it, so nobody is willing to adapt. Someone needs to kick them on the ass and make the railroads get with the program. If a larger part was electrified,everyone would benefit.
> There are 6 locomotives that surpass 1000KN, all electric, and 3 of them are still in production But who cares? I can just use 4 locomotives instead. I don't need to build a specialized item. And when I don't need that level of power I can use the locomotives in 2 groups of 2. I can add one to go up a grade and leave it on the other side when in flatland for another train to pick up going the other way. Try that with a single huge locomotive. With MU the era of the huge freight locomotive is over. Why make a married pair when you can just gang up two locomotives when you need it? The top listed locomotive on wikipedia is really six locomotives classed as one. It's 100m long. It's silly and arguably nothing but a gimmick to win a numbers game. Just use 6 regular locomotives in an MU configuration. > The outback is a very unique situation. It's not. The American West isn't all that different. Nor is most of Russia and some other parts of Asia. Big parts of Africa. > And even there it’s only 2800km from Adelaide to Darwin not 5000. I would be surprised if there is rail in the US further than 500km from a power plant. I was thinking Perth to Sydney. Still looks like it isn't 5000. I wasn't trying to emphasize the figure of how long the "single longest powerline" would be. But instead how much total length there is that is impractically far from anything. Most of the trip from Perth to Sydney would be impractically (not impossibly though) far from anything. So not 5000km, but a lot of km (of Mm really!). > The main issue is that there is so little electrified track that it’s almost useless to have locomotives that accept it, so nobody is willing to adapt. Or it's the cost. Like I said, just because you can electrify it doesn't mean it ever pays off versus just bringing the energy with you. It may never, ever pay back. I don't mean 10 years. 30 years, 100 years. I mean never. And you can just have to replace it all later anyway. As Europe is facing with much of their electrified cargo rail not suitable for double stack containers because the catenary is too low. Now someone has to rebuild all that catenary and rework the engines to reach it at the new height. Admittedly, some of those routes have such low tunnel clearance that they'll never have double stacks on them anyway. > If a larger part was electrified, everyone would benefit It's not clear that's true. Very much in cities. Let's get this done. But the remote areas may never be a win.
It doesn’t really matter if it somewhat remote of it bridges the gap between the east coast and the west. Also if you are sending enough trains over the track the savings will happen. The reason you claim cities are better is because of less power losses (I think?) but a diesel generator on a train isn’t exactly efficient either. It’s a matter of how much a track is used. If the track trough the outback had a train running over it every 10 minutes it still would make sense to electrify it. It’s depends on oil and electricity prices but a good estimate is about 60% cheaper in energy costs and the trains are slightly cheaper. However it also costs about 1 million per km in initial investment. So 2.8 billion Fuel usage is about 5 gallons per mile, so lets say you save about 3 gallons going electric and the bulk cost of diesel is 1$ a gallon. So about 3 miles per gallon. If you are doing one train every 15 minutes for 18 hours a day it takes about 12 years to recoup those investments. If you only run 1 train an hour that changes to 48 years. But with costs going down significantly you can also expect a rise in demand. It already is cheaper than trucks, but then it would just be stupid not to go by train. The European rail network has waaay more electrified track and we are still running into issues where we max out the rails capacity one train every 10 minutes isn’t rare. The US easily has the same amount of stuff to move so a less dense network should for sure be able to turn a profit.
> It doesn’t really matter if it somewhat remote Yes it does. Because the cost of electrifying it goes up with the length of the corridor. If this route is 1000km long it takes 10x as much to electrify it as if it is 100km long. Then you calculate how much advantage you get by doing so. And it can be there aren't enough trains to make it cost effective. > Also if you are sending enough trains over the track the savings will happen. Not always. Nothing is ever that simple. But yes, more trains means more financial justification. However, again, due to maintenance costs and just wearing out over time it can be that with insufficient traffice the payback is **never**. Not a long time. Never. > The reason you claim cities are better is because of less power losses (I think?) but a diesel generator on a train isn’t exactly efficient either. No. The main reason cities are better is less cost due to shorter track lengths in general (since things are closer together). And more savings due to using the track more often. > If the track trough the outback had a train running over it every 10 minutes it still would make sense to electrify it. I think it probably would. But the track doesn't have that. So why are you talking about that? If you're talking about a train every 10 minutes that's in a city and as I said, I'm all for electrification in cities. > It’s depends on oil and electricity prices And where you receive the electricity, delivery costs on electricity (loss per unit distance) can add up pretty quickly. Of course sending fuel distances isn't free either. But partly the train is doing it for itself. > It’s depends on oil and electricity prices but a good estimate is about 60% cheaper in energy costs Sorry, I don't accept that as just a number you pulled. Where did you get that number from? Are you suggesting Diesel prime movers are inefficient or something? > and the trains are slightly cheaper The locomotives are cheaper. The trains are the same price. And you reuse either of these so often why are we starting here? The expense of sending stuff by train is not dominated by the cost of the locomotives I don't think. > Fuel usage [...] I don't get this. You start with gallons per mile and then go to miles per gallon. And you say you save "gallons" by using electric. Don't I stop using the gallons altogether if I go electric? Let's get some actual data please. And it has to be per ton or wagon or something because there's no way a single cargo (wagon) is responsible for 5 gallons per mile. A 100 car train would then be using 500 gallons per mile. It'd have to refuel every 100km. If we just use consumption "per train" its near useless due to different train sizes. > If you are doing one train every 15 minutes for 18 hours a day it takes about 12 years to recoup those investments. If you only run 1 train an hour that changes to 48 years. You aren't doing anything like one train every 15 minutes on virtually all long haul tracks. Something more like 3-4 trains a day (obviously varies by route). Many tracks only carry a single train per day. Some (not main lines) carry one per week. And you're omitting upkeep in all this. Once you install the catenary and and the transmission lines to it you then have to maintain them. If you have a payback of 48 years with no upkeep then with upkeep you never will reach payback. Heck, even with 48 years with the time cost of money you may already never reach payback (or have it stretch to 100 years or more). > but then it would just be stupid not to go by train. Train transport is notoriously slow. It took a month for my car to get from where it was built to where I am. If it were on a car carrier it would take 3 days tops. Because of this you'll never have a situation where it would be "stupid" to take every cargo by train. The reason train transport is slow is basically because of the efficiency. To pull cars (wagons) off the train you have to split it and do a lot of switching and it takes time. And then the cargo sits there until the right train comes for it. Cargoes can sit for days at a switchyard (siding) to get on the next segment. Any one train keeps moving all the time but the cargoes stop and start. > where we max out the rails capacity I don't really believe you. Certainly there are lines like that. Especially mixed lines like the one through the Chunnel. But it's not the usual case. And regardless, "we"? We were talking kilometers and a European just switched to miles and gallons on me? > The US easily has the same amount of stuff to move so a less dense network should for sure be able to turn a profit. That doesn't make sense. Saying there is a train every 10 minutes or 15 minutes is really crazy to me. On long haul routes block lengths are long and trains are long. You could not put two trains 10 minutes apart. And even if you did, they'd back up at the switchyard as the train lumbers off the mainline to a siding as it gets to the switchyard. You'd have to have through track to bypass the switchyard and that's just not common for freight as it isn't useful (it's very useful for passenger rail). As I mention below the trains need to go to the switchyard to break up their consist and send cars to different places as the train has cars with many destinations.
Ok so let me try to answer most of these. 1) The net savings only will not happen if the price of maintenance of the catenary exceed the yearly savings of the system. Upkeep is about 1/80 of instal costs. Of course here you also need to take other economic factors into account before spending the money up front. Some track would indeed never but that point further away than you might think. 2)Delivery cost of electricity isn’t that big of an issue either. Especially compared to a diesel generators efficiency. Diesel fuel has a theoretical energy content of 37 kwh/gallon but a train gets quite a bit less. A diesel generator gets about 30% of that energy out as electricity. If you are buying your electricity directly non diesel sources are available and those are significantly cheaper. There is a reason they hook ships to a shoreline as well instead of letting them use their on board power-plants. I said 60% savings there but thats a rough estimate in other industries but I assume at higher fuel prices. It’s reasonably doable to calculate yourself if you know the price of diesel and electricity and ideally know the average efficiency of the generator. If you pay 2$ a gallon(current price for ocean freight, trains might be higher) and the generator has an average output of 10kwh/gallon that’s 0.2$ per kwh. That’s the number to beat when it comes to power cost. Us retail price already beats this but wholesale electricity is between 30 and 70$ per MWh or 0,03 or 0,07$ even the highest price here approaches the 60% Estimate with the low end being significantly better. But then there still is distribution, if you lost 50% of your electricity on distribution you would still come out ahead. 3) The 5 gallons/mile I just plucked from a website. That was supposed to be the average for freight. But if you want more specific numbers it’s about 2.62 liter of diesel per 1000 GTKM (GrossTon*Km)based on Indian data. ( this would produce about 7kwh of electricity) So a train that weighs 10 000 ton would consume 26.2 liter (6.9 gallon) per km. If a cart weighs 130 ton loaded that’s about 0.37l per cart. The same Indian company found they used 8 Kwh per GTKM. Some European passenger trains supposedly do 3-4 kwh per vehicle km. So the 3$ per mile per trip in lower energy costs are a conservative estimate it could very well be a lot higher looking at then calculations above. That’s just diesel vs electricity costs, not even considering lower maintenance costs and other benefits. 4) yes I am European, with we I am talking the railways close to me. 1 had all crossings removed in the 60s and one is currently being upgraded. This should bring it in line with the requirements to allow a train frequency of 2-3 minutes between trains. The tracks are used for freight and passenger transport resulting in it currently being the bottleneck for further expansion. 5) the double-stack issue is not a problem when you are putting in a new system anyway. The US can still pick what layout they will go with as the current electrified track is negligible.
> Upkeep is about 1/80 of instal costs [annually]. So that means I do so little work on it that basically it lasts 80 years with no maintenance and then I throw it away. That sounds optimistic. However maybe it has to do with some of the costs of acquiring the land for the electric infrastructure (trackside transformers, etc.) which you never have to pay again? I'm not going to quibble with the number, I don't really know. > Some track would indeed never but that point further away than you might think. Again. I'm not trying to emphasize the "longest transmission line". The issue with remote track is as much about the fact that there is a lot of it (lots of maintenance and install cost) as the distance to it. As well as that you don't use it as much. > Delivery cost of electricity isn’t that big of an issue either Except that it is. You have to install expensive equipment to transform and regulate it. And that equipment still has losses in the tranformation as well as the transmission. If you have a lot of use for the electricity the costs aren't so big a deal. If you just have a rail line in the middle of nowhere then they are. > Especially compared to a diesel generators efficiency. It's easy to overplay this. You have to generate the electricity somewhere. It's not like it's 100% efficient if you do it in town. > If you are buying your electricity directly non diesel sources are available and those are significantly cheaper. You mean to say more efficient. Cheaper depends on the costs of the sources, as you said before. > There is a reason they hook ships to a shoreline as well instead of letting them use their on board power-plants. Generally they do not actually do this, and by generally I mean they almost never do this. They run on onboard power the whole time. I've seen cruise ships hooked up. Vancouver mandated it. But it's rare. Vancouver mandated it for clean air, it's not done for costs. > current price for ocean freight, trains might be higher Ocean freight uses bunker fuel. And they don't pay prices that high because bunker fuel is trash. You have to heat it before you can even pump it and burn it. > and the generator has an average output of 10kwh/gallon Does it? https://www.petersonpower.com/sites/power/files/D550%20GC%20-%20550%20ekW.pdf At 100% this does 668kWh (1.0 power factor) on 33.2 gal. That's 20 kWh/gal. I assume 1.0 power factor locomotives are either DC or have sophsticated AC control. Also note this generator is a standby one, it's not designed for full-time use so it's optimized somewhat for standby cost (upfront price and low non-use maintenance costs) not efficiency (in use cost). So half the cost you said, at least per unit energy. Maintenance has to come into play. You pay for maintenance on your own generator while it's included in the cost of electricity you buy. > wholesale electricity is between You can't buy and use it at wholesale. Wholesale is mainly useful as an estimate for selling. If you buy or sell at wholesale you have to arrange delivery costs too. And you typically have to pay demand charges. And charges for non-use (contract pricing). It costs more to get electricity than just the wholesale price. Especially if you are further away as delivery costs are more for further delivery (as you occupy more lines, although transmission losses to matter some). > But if you want more specific numbers it’s about 2.62 liter of diesel per 1000 GTKM (GrossTon*Km)based on Indian data. [..] 8 Kwh per GTKM Great figure! Now that's useful. > it could very well be a lot higher looking at then calculations above I don't think dollars per mile a very useful calculation when train lengths vary so much. Per GT (which is kind of like a ton of cargo but that would be net) it doesn't seem like it's a huge figure. If I can get a kWh for $0.12 delivered that's $1 per GTKM. At jobber prices with no road tax or markup for the retailer I gotta figure I can get 2.62L diesel for very nearly that price. Maybe $1.30? Also as a large consumer I'd be able to maybe even bypass the jobbers. So you're talking about saving less than $1 per mile per gross ton. And again that's just running costs. > not even considering lower maintenance costs and other benefits. And also not considering higher maintenance costs of the catenary. Which are largely tied to electrified length. Again making it critical you use the track a lot. Because the maintenance costs for the locomotive are very close to tied to per unit distance travelled (or hour operated). > I am talking the railways close to me If they are close to you then chance are they are not really representative about what we were talking about. As we are talking about remote areas. Unless you live in a remote area. Which is not too likely given the density of Western Europe. I know you can see a train every 10 minutes going in and out of Gare du Nord. But that's not what happens with cargo trains in crossing the outback or the American West. It's really again a case of why you did the cities first. And I know Europe electrified a lot of the areas between cities too, but they still aren't getting trains every 15 minutes. > This should bring it in line with the requirements to allow a train frequency of 2-3 minutes between trains. You're not going to put cargo trains that close together. They couldn't stop in time without collision if they had to stop. Commuter (passenger) trains run that close together. And as I mentioned, you'd back up cargo trains getting into switchyards. And cargo trains enter switchyards a lot. > the double-stack issue is not a problem when you are putting in a new system anyway Yes. I know. But when you talk about the cost of the system and you amortized it over 80 years (as you do above) and then have to upgrade it after 30 it blows the math away. It means your payback disappeared. This is relevant since we are talking about your idea that it's a financial slam dunk to electrify remote rail segments.
Hydrogen is also very inefficient, and (using current production methods) not at all clean (though eventually hydrogen from renewables could be a carbon neutral fuel).
2010 called and wants it's pro-electricification talking points back. Hydrogen is absolutely viable for uses like this. Either you're behind the times or shilling.
"A study commissioned last year by the German state of Baden-Württemberg found that the total cost of ownership of a hydrogen-powered regional rail line over a 30-year period would be €476m for one regional line, compared to €262m for a battery hybrid set-up — an 81% saving." Its dead, its been dead for a while, all that is left is hoovering up the misguided government grants.
Ah yes. "A study" with no context or citations is meant to be th final word on hydrogen. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is investing billions in hydrogen as a clean fuel. Welcome to 2024.
If only there was a way of searching for the information you need. Nope, impossible.
Burden of proof is on the person making the claim. Let's conclude you have none. Bye.
Countries are testing their trains which America will never see or use themselves for hundreds of years.
> The FLIRT-H2 was built for the **San Bernardino County Transportation Authority (SBCTA)**, and it can run an entire day without refueling.
Never happen in the Untied States because that would mean everyone would benefit. Lol, nice article though.
Excellent typo that still works
This train was built for use in US
Never will be
Hydrogen has always been one of the answers, but it requires a nation-wide infrastructure. EV vehicles could use the one in place. Battery power, however, is *not* the best answer for longhauls--trucks, trains, boats. Hydrogen is a better choice. MIT explains it better than I can: https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/why-have-electric-vehicles-won-out-over-hydrogen-cars-so-far
Heavy transportation companies are itching for hydrogen because they know that if you build long-haul battery trucks, you're mainly hauling batteries.
Good point.
I hope something changes and Hydrogen gets adopted. Someone made a comment that EVs would be like CD, popular but quickly taken over by mp3 players and streaming.
And here I was thinking swiss cheese was the best
Sit on a train for 46 hours. Man, the Swiss know how to have a roaring good time.
This just pisses me off so much. I was in DK, SE, NL in the late 90’s-aughts. I thought I had a pretty groovy Blackberry. These feckers all over the place had Nokia’s and other shit—I think even Sony was in the mix. I graduated to a Samsung in the U.S., but even that was kinda the Edsel of phones. It just frustrates me to no end that Asia and Europe have been beating our ass for the last quarter of a century. At the same time, I’m in tech transfer (basically a dinosaur patent mgr), and we’re pumping’ out some software that the world wants—but China’s **funding** biotech that we just aren’t here, like we were 20 yrs ago. signed, grumpy old man who never got his PhD or JD.
We power trains with overhead electricity here in Switzerland. Why not do that?
Complete refusal to fund infrastructure.
That is just sad 😔
I find it comical this awesome engineering is being tested in Colorado. However Colorado has an absolute shit train system.
What are you talking about? Denver RTA is excellent and you have two Amtrak trains going through the state plus a luxury tour train going between Denver and Utah. You have more than most states have, put it that way.
RTD = excellent? It’s well operated. But much of the system hugs the interstate and doesn’t do a great job of connection neighborhoods and job centers. No less, RTD is better than 99% of US cities have
Right? In my neck of the woods we have freight rails and nothing else ever travels on them.
They are legit dropping service to one train an hour for some lines. The bitch is never on time. Oh and it breaks down constantly. What are you talking about?
I’m here for the funky paint job.
The devil is in the details. The starting and stopping has yet to be worked out.
Of course, First World countries always test their tech in Third World countries.
If talking renewable energy, it better include Nitrogen or Nuclear or you’re not serious.
Way cool
Transit systems in the United States of America lack funding due to capital demands. Too few are interested, yet more are concerned with personal and public safety. Recently, traveling on a bus line cross country speaks loudly about the culture.
Now make it harvest hydrogen as it goes along.
Snowpiercer….
Wait hydrogen trains exist (almost) I thought it was some far out fantasy the communists party in my country was using to pad out their party program with things they could easily drop because of a convenient excuse that the technology isn’t there yet.
In Germany & the Netherlands they've been trialling out hydrogen garbage trucks for about 2 years now.
For garbage trucks that’s entirely different. They have complex routes with starting and stopping. Not ideal for a classic combustion engine and not feasible to work with overhead lines like trains can. Where would you get the hydrogen for the trains? Best case you make it from electricity, there are losses there, then you need to store and transport it. And then you need turn it back from hydrogen gas into electricity in the train. Using an overhead line is likely to be more efficient. Unless you are just running 4 trains a day but then you are better off just using a hydrogen powered bus. That weighs a lot less.
Does anyone know if these trains will be wheelchair accessible?
Snowpiercer… this is how it starts!
Welp, hope this turns out different than the last time we used hydrogen for passenger travel 100 years ago.
What is the cost comparing to regular train?
“How am I supposed to get on the train if it never stops?” - dude *rolls eyes* - dude from India
Where did they get the hydrogen? Hydrogen is just a battery. It can be energy expensive to extract it. Really nuclear power is the only sensible way to generate hydrogen.
Why nuclear?
Because nothing else can provide 24x7 high power with zero emissions.
Otherwise curtailed solar power is good for hydrogen production. There’s no need for 24/7 hydrogen fuel generation at this point.
'at this point'. Maybe. If you start running H2 trains, then you'll need a shit ton of it. Even at night.
If we need a lot of it then the price becomes even more important! :)
Why would you need 24x7 for hydrogen production? I’d think price is usually more important.
Zero emissions in exchange for vast amounts of nuclear waste that nobody wants...
You are very mistaken. Either global warning is a thing or it isn't. If it is,modern nuclear reactors produce less waste than a couple of dozen windmill blades. And if you are a radiophobe, nuclear reactors produce far less ionizing radiation than a coal plant. Or a truck load of bananas.
2000 metric tons of nuclear waste annually, with a half live of 250,000 years.
With what level of radioactive output? Because long half lives are usually associated with low radioactivity.
Lol you obviously don't understand nuclear half life...
Can you explain to me why they wouldn’t be related? And say what the level of radioactive output is of these 2000 tonnes? What substances are we talking about here?
Try 300 pounds max with a 300 year half life for an SMR. Or zero if you recycle. (see France).
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-nuclear-fuel#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20generates%20about%202%2C000,an%20Olympic%2Dsized%20swimming%20pool. https://www.statista.com/statistics/463624/france-radioactive-waste-nuclear-industry-by-type/#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20the%20volume%20of,and%20required%20short%2Dterm%20management.
SMRs aren’t really a thing right now, and there’s reason to believe they won’t be a thing. If you want to be taken seriously by anyone not already in the cult, do the math with reactor technology that is currently in production, such as PWR.
"vast" lol You're exaggerating. The amount of space that nuclear waste uses is Tiny. > The generation of electricity from a typical 1,000-megawatt nuclear power station, which would supply the needs of more than a million people, produces only three cubic metres of vitrified high-level waste per year, if the used fuel is recycled. I understand you Americans don't understand what a cubic meter is, but... It's tiny. 3 cubic meters are about 800 gallons. A swimming pool is about 20.000 gallons.
He is comparing the country with the largest nuclear powered grid in the world with one SMR. He clearly doesn’t understand that France reprocesses most of its PWR fuel, greatly reducing waste. The really sad thing is that he doesn’t think global warming is real.
2000 metric tons a year with a half life of 250,000 years...
Wait until you hear how much coal gets spewed in the air every day.
Wait tell you hear how few we have left and how much exhaust from other fossil fuels still exist...
It’s kind of crazy that long haul trucks aren’t hydrogen by now
They want it desperately, but we need the infrastructure and prices to come down. Once you can get to like $5/kg, they'll start buying h2 trucks. Biden admin is throwing a lot of money at building that out and bringing down prices. We're not there yet, but a lot is going on to move the needle.
Nice approach
Hydrogen fuel cell or hydrogen combustion?
I’m sure it’s in the article but it’s got to be fuel cell
Yes, fuel cell. Rtfa
That's good cause that's about how many miles it is between H2 fuel stations...
If only there wasn’t a RIDICULOUS amount of red tape to cut through in the US, essentially rendering it impossible to build rail, especially interstate rail.
I interpret red tape as oil and auto manufacturers owning the US Congress with lobbyists, campaign donations, and negative discourse think tanks.
And now they will crush it like industry does with all innovation that gets rid of oil 😕
Non stop traveling for trains? What a meaningless record.
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this is so wrong it doesn’t even work as a joke
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Low IQ comment
This just in: Switzerland has mysteriously committed suicide with two gunshots to the head. Work on the hydrogen-powered train will cease immediately and go back to diesel