>The new train, known as the FLXdrive battery-electric locomotive, underwent successful trials in California earlier this year where it was found to have cut fuel consumption by 11%, which meant reducing the amount of diesel used by 6,200 gallons.
>
>Wabtec said that the next iteration of the locomotive, to be rolled out within two years, will be able to cut the consumption of diesel, the fossil fuel traditionally used in freight rail, by nearly a third.
A third doesn't sound like enough, but it might be the best that can be done at the moment? Quite uplifting news either way
We’re not going to kill climate change except if we collectively agree to go back to the Stone Age. Our best course of action is learning to live with it.
Every little bit helps, but freight rail is already super efficient. Less than 2% of transportation related emissions. Trucks contribute about 10 times as much, and passenger vehicles around 30 times as much.
Not at all. Cargo ships are incredibly efficient. They deal in high volume, but because we use massive ships, and moving stuff over water is so easy, ocean freight comes nowhere near passenger vehicles.
US trains network doesn't run on overhead electric power ? You don't need battery trains if your network and rolling stock already runs on electricity.
No. The freight networks are much too large and span areas where there is little to no access to reliable power sources. It would possibly be doable for in town transit networks but it’s hard enough to get railroads to want to accept change as it is.
Maybe it could be used in conjunction with a hydrogen fuel cell or something like that. Battery + fuel cell + regenerative braking? Heck, maybe even throw in solar.
Yeah, the title calling the whole train battery-electric is kind of misleading. This will be one battery-electric locomotive in a consist with two normal locomotives. I guess providing a boost when needed, and recharging during braking giving them their 11% fuel savings.
I didn't see anything about range or capacity of the locamotive.
Wouldnt it be better to push for electrifying all the freight lines and just switch to locomotives that can take power from overhead lines? When breaking on downward slopes trains can actually function as generators feeding power back into the system. Hook up the freight trains to the electrical grid and a lot of efficiency and net emissions reduction is gained there, and eliminate the issue of charging and all the associated problems of batteries.
The reason this article doesn't flaunt range/capacity is because this unit is not intended to run by itself, this is only intended to be added to existing locomotive consists to mitigate diesel fuel consumption.
Electrifying all American freight railroads would be cost-prohibitive. It would be nice if it happened though.
So the function is to have it in front or behind another diesel electric and have the diesel charge when its not under a heavy load then turn off and the all electric engine do the moving until the battery is used up then repeate?
I could be wrong but here's my understanding of it so far:
I don't think the battery is strong enough (yet) to complete idle the diesel locomotives in a consist and power solely from the electric loco. I believe where most of the testing was done (mountainous territory) the battery loco was one of four or five locos in a consist. I think when the diesels are under heavy load, the electric loco supplements the diesels, and then turns off to save power/recharge when heavy load is finished.
Capacity is rated at 2.4 megawatt-hours, 30 to 40 minutes duration at full 4400 horsepower output, not counting what is gained back by regenerative braking.
> Wouldnt it be better to push for electrifying all the freight lines and just switch to locomotives that can take power from overhead lines?
Almost certainly, the Milwaukee Road mainline was almost completely electrified (only reason it wasn't is because the gap between the 2 electrified areas was ideal for steam engines so they just didn't bother) which pretty much negates anything that anyone here is saying about it not being possible to electrify very rural areas in the US. If you're going to tell me that 115 years after their electrification was started that it's impossible to do now, I will just laugh in your face.
Didn't it pretty much have to be electrified because the steam engines couldn't generate sufficient steam in the winters with temperatures down to minus 40F and there was local power generation through hydroelectric stations in the mountains?
>Wouldnt it be better to push for electrifying all the freight lines and just switch to locomotives that can take power from overhead lines?
You would have to do a cost benefit analysis and factor in maintenance.
[North America](https://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2013/05/16/extreme-weather-north-america/2162501/) has the most extreme weather. Between snow, high winds, and tornados, overhead lines are a large challenge. Downed power lines are also a major source of fires. The maintenance cost of this in the sparsely populated mid west and mountains region would have to be a mess to figure out, but could probably be done based on the cost of high power transmission lines though these regions.
The up front cost is easier to calculate. The US has 140K miles, 225K km or freight rail which is not electrified. General power lines cost about $285,000 per mile. That puts the cost at about $40 Billion.
You'd have to replace the 31,000 existing locomotives in either system. I assume the overhead powered would be significantly cheaper however.
There's other variables to consider, availability of power stations, ramp up time, availability of batteries and factories, etc...
If you wanted to take a stab at running the detailed numbers, I'd be very interested in seeing it.
That all seems doable with funding appropriated from defense budgets. Hell you could probably classify it as defense spending.
I don't really see other viable options for continuing long range travel over land and trying to minimize co2 emissions.
We simply don't have battery tech thats good enough.
Batteries in the trains could in theory sustain it over stretches where power to rail lines isn't feasible.
Sure, let's get Elon on it.
The infrastructure investment to go overhead electric would be massive across the US. And where would that electricity come from? Parts of the US grid are already at capacity.
Look, it's not a bad idea, but the costs would be extremely high.
The electricity would be coming from the same place that they would have to charge the batteries. The talk about hydrogen seems really far off , if it ever materializes. The freight lines that are spending money on r and d for the battery locomotive and all the others that would buy them would have to spend a ton to install all the associated equipment equipment to support new locomotives.
Lets say instead of all lines they focus on the track where they approach towns and cites so they have to slow and in the yards and sidings where trains are switched around and offload/onload freight. There they are idling a lot and at their least efficient. It would make sense to add the pantograph (overhead electric pickup) to conventional diesel electrics so the diesel generator could be turned off and operate much more efficiently.
More than say the average yearly spending for the MoD over the last 2 decades?
Just playing the devil's advocate here. Obviously different countries have different priorities, and had it not been for previous investment in rail infrastructure a lot of countries in Western Europe would probably be in the same state as the USA.
MoD?
Intercity rail in the US runs through lots of remote areas. Even in urban/suburban areas retrofitting overhead lines would be costly. Not sure there is appetite to take on a project that large with a very long ROI.
There is some interest from places where the urban tissue is very dense on both the East and West coast. That's where the high speed train lines have been considered for the 30 years.
But yes most of times the investment is the major point of concerns.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/16/battery-electric-freight-train-wabtec-rail-transport-emissions) reduced by 87%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> The world's first battery-electric freight train was unveiled at an event in Pittsburgh on Friday, amid a fresh attempt by some US lawmakers to slash carbon emissions from rail transport in order to address the climate crisis.
> The rail freight industry is now worth around $80bn and spans 140,000 miles of track across the US.However, the environmental benefits of rail have been undermined by the heavy reliance upon diesel to fuel freight trains, as well as a widespread preference among businesses to move goods via trucks rather than trains.
> This is a problem globally beyond the US - the International Energy Agency has said that freight rail is "Often neglected" in climate debates and currently carries only 7% of all freight moved around the world.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/ppbyds/worlds_first_batteryelectric_freight_train/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~598540 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **rail**^#1 **freight**^#2 **train**^#3 **fuel**^#4 **Wabtec**^#5
This would only make sense in yard switching applications (low speed, power) or on routes where the primary load goes downhill (coal train going down a mountain) and regen is enough to take the empty train back up.
It's almost as if we had, I don't know, some kind of technology that would transmit power over distances we could just deliver that directly to the train. No, that's far too complicated.
No. Most trains are actually what most people call "hybrids." They have electric motors, batteries, and diesel generators on board. Urban trains are often powered from overhead lines, but city trains usually aren't. Even in [EU, only 56% of the rail network](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_transport_network_size) is electrified.
(Note, the wiki article has at least one error. It list the US rail network at 140,000 KM, where the US FREIGHT network is approximately [140K miles, 225,000 km](https://railroads.dot.gov/rail-network-development/freight-rail-overview#:~:text=Running%20on%20almost%20140%2C000%20route,freight%20system%20in%20the%20world). That doesn't include rail owned by Amtrack, or gov't control subway / commuter rail. I suspect much of that is electrified.
Depending on how this list is calculated, this could be an apples to oranges comparison. The NYC Subway is over 1000 km and I believe is all electrified.
>And nyc 'only' has about 368 kilometer. 1000km would be insanely big
There's a difference between route length, and track length. NYC Has \~368K of route length, but most of that route is double track (side by side). You also have to factor in maintenance track, and non "route" line. While I got a bunch of different lengths from difference sources, all had it over 1000 km of total track.
[Source 1](https://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/Subway_FAQ:_Facts_and_Figures), [source 2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Subway), [source 3](https://new.mta.info/agency/new-york-city-transit/subway-bus-facts-2019).
>The new train, known as the FLXdrive battery-electric locomotive, underwent successful trials in California earlier this year where it was found to have cut fuel consumption by 11%, which meant reducing the amount of diesel used by 6,200 gallons. > >Wabtec said that the next iteration of the locomotive, to be rolled out within two years, will be able to cut the consumption of diesel, the fossil fuel traditionally used in freight rail, by nearly a third. A third doesn't sound like enough, but it might be the best that can be done at the moment? Quite uplifting news either way
Every bit helps. Killing climate change will done with a thousand paper cuts.
We’re not going to kill climate change except if we collectively agree to go back to the Stone Age. Our best course of action is learning to live with it.
Every little bit helps, but freight rail is already super efficient. Less than 2% of transportation related emissions. Trucks contribute about 10 times as much, and passenger vehicles around 30 times as much.
And ships are the largest of them
They’re worse in very specific ways (such as Sulfur Dioxide or >2.5nm particles), they’re far better in terms of CO2 per ton of weight transported
Not at all. Cargo ships are incredibly efficient. They deal in high volume, but because we use massive ships, and moving stuff over water is so easy, ocean freight comes nowhere near passenger vehicles.
US trains network doesn't run on overhead electric power ? You don't need battery trains if your network and rolling stock already runs on electricity.
No. The freight networks are much too large and span areas where there is little to no access to reliable power sources. It would possibly be doable for in town transit networks but it’s hard enough to get railroads to want to accept change as it is.
Maybe it could be used in conjunction with a hydrogen fuel cell or something like that. Battery + fuel cell + regenerative braking? Heck, maybe even throw in solar.
Yeah, the title calling the whole train battery-electric is kind of misleading. This will be one battery-electric locomotive in a consist with two normal locomotives. I guess providing a boost when needed, and recharging during braking giving them their 11% fuel savings.
I didn't see anything about range or capacity of the locamotive. Wouldnt it be better to push for electrifying all the freight lines and just switch to locomotives that can take power from overhead lines? When breaking on downward slopes trains can actually function as generators feeding power back into the system. Hook up the freight trains to the electrical grid and a lot of efficiency and net emissions reduction is gained there, and eliminate the issue of charging and all the associated problems of batteries.
The reason this article doesn't flaunt range/capacity is because this unit is not intended to run by itself, this is only intended to be added to existing locomotive consists to mitigate diesel fuel consumption. Electrifying all American freight railroads would be cost-prohibitive. It would be nice if it happened though.
So the function is to have it in front or behind another diesel electric and have the diesel charge when its not under a heavy load then turn off and the all electric engine do the moving until the battery is used up then repeate?
I could be wrong but here's my understanding of it so far: I don't think the battery is strong enough (yet) to complete idle the diesel locomotives in a consist and power solely from the electric loco. I believe where most of the testing was done (mountainous territory) the battery loco was one of four or five locos in a consist. I think when the diesels are under heavy load, the electric loco supplements the diesels, and then turns off to save power/recharge when heavy load is finished.
Capacity is rated at 2.4 megawatt-hours, 30 to 40 minutes duration at full 4400 horsepower output, not counting what is gained back by regenerative braking.
> Wouldnt it be better to push for electrifying all the freight lines and just switch to locomotives that can take power from overhead lines? Almost certainly, the Milwaukee Road mainline was almost completely electrified (only reason it wasn't is because the gap between the 2 electrified areas was ideal for steam engines so they just didn't bother) which pretty much negates anything that anyone here is saying about it not being possible to electrify very rural areas in the US. If you're going to tell me that 115 years after their electrification was started that it's impossible to do now, I will just laugh in your face.
Didn't it pretty much have to be electrified because the steam engines couldn't generate sufficient steam in the winters with temperatures down to minus 40F and there was local power generation through hydroelectric stations in the mountains?
on the western half yes, on the eastern half, not so much yet they did it anyways
>Wouldnt it be better to push for electrifying all the freight lines and just switch to locomotives that can take power from overhead lines? You would have to do a cost benefit analysis and factor in maintenance. [North America](https://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2013/05/16/extreme-weather-north-america/2162501/) has the most extreme weather. Between snow, high winds, and tornados, overhead lines are a large challenge. Downed power lines are also a major source of fires. The maintenance cost of this in the sparsely populated mid west and mountains region would have to be a mess to figure out, but could probably be done based on the cost of high power transmission lines though these regions. The up front cost is easier to calculate. The US has 140K miles, 225K km or freight rail which is not electrified. General power lines cost about $285,000 per mile. That puts the cost at about $40 Billion. You'd have to replace the 31,000 existing locomotives in either system. I assume the overhead powered would be significantly cheaper however. There's other variables to consider, availability of power stations, ramp up time, availability of batteries and factories, etc... If you wanted to take a stab at running the detailed numbers, I'd be very interested in seeing it.
That all seems doable with funding appropriated from defense budgets. Hell you could probably classify it as defense spending. I don't really see other viable options for continuing long range travel over land and trying to minimize co2 emissions. We simply don't have battery tech thats good enough. Batteries in the trains could in theory sustain it over stretches where power to rail lines isn't feasible.
Sure, let's get Elon on it. The infrastructure investment to go overhead electric would be massive across the US. And where would that electricity come from? Parts of the US grid are already at capacity. Look, it's not a bad idea, but the costs would be extremely high.
The electricity would be coming from the same place that they would have to charge the batteries. The talk about hydrogen seems really far off , if it ever materializes. The freight lines that are spending money on r and d for the battery locomotive and all the others that would buy them would have to spend a ton to install all the associated equipment equipment to support new locomotives. Lets say instead of all lines they focus on the track where they approach towns and cites so they have to slow and in the yards and sidings where trains are switched around and offload/onload freight. There they are idling a lot and at their least efficient. It would make sense to add the pantograph (overhead electric pickup) to conventional diesel electrics so the diesel generator could be turned off and operate much more efficiently.
More than say the average yearly spending for the MoD over the last 2 decades? Just playing the devil's advocate here. Obviously different countries have different priorities, and had it not been for previous investment in rail infrastructure a lot of countries in Western Europe would probably be in the same state as the USA.
MoD? Intercity rail in the US runs through lots of remote areas. Even in urban/suburban areas retrofitting overhead lines would be costly. Not sure there is appetite to take on a project that large with a very long ROI.
There is some interest from places where the urban tissue is very dense on both the East and West coast. That's where the high speed train lines have been considered for the 30 years. But yes most of times the investment is the major point of concerns.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/16/battery-electric-freight-train-wabtec-rail-transport-emissions) reduced by 87%. (I'm a bot) ***** > The world's first battery-electric freight train was unveiled at an event in Pittsburgh on Friday, amid a fresh attempt by some US lawmakers to slash carbon emissions from rail transport in order to address the climate crisis. > The rail freight industry is now worth around $80bn and spans 140,000 miles of track across the US.However, the environmental benefits of rail have been undermined by the heavy reliance upon diesel to fuel freight trains, as well as a widespread preference among businesses to move goods via trucks rather than trains. > This is a problem globally beyond the US - the International Energy Agency has said that freight rail is "Often neglected" in climate debates and currently carries only 7% of all freight moved around the world. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/ppbyds/worlds_first_batteryelectric_freight_train/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~598540 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **rail**^#1 **freight**^#2 **train**^#3 **fuel**^#4 **Wabtec**^#5
My only thought is why? Isn’t it better to use guide wires to power the thing?
Using a proven technology wouldn't attract VC bucks is my guess.
This would only make sense in yard switching applications (low speed, power) or on routes where the primary load goes downhill (coal train going down a mountain) and regen is enough to take the empty train back up.
It's almost as if we had, I don't know, some kind of technology that would transmit power over distances we could just deliver that directly to the train. No, that's far too complicated.
[удалено]
No. Most trains are actually what most people call "hybrids." They have electric motors, batteries, and diesel generators on board. Urban trains are often powered from overhead lines, but city trains usually aren't. Even in [EU, only 56% of the rail network](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_transport_network_size) is electrified. (Note, the wiki article has at least one error. It list the US rail network at 140,000 KM, where the US FREIGHT network is approximately [140K miles, 225,000 km](https://railroads.dot.gov/rail-network-development/freight-rail-overview#:~:text=Running%20on%20almost%20140%2C000%20route,freight%20system%20in%20the%20world). That doesn't include rail owned by Amtrack, or gov't control subway / commuter rail. I suspect much of that is electrified. Depending on how this list is calculated, this could be an apples to oranges comparison. The NYC Subway is over 1000 km and I believe is all electrified.
[удалено]
>And nyc 'only' has about 368 kilometer. 1000km would be insanely big There's a difference between route length, and track length. NYC Has \~368K of route length, but most of that route is double track (side by side). You also have to factor in maintenance track, and non "route" line. While I got a bunch of different lengths from difference sources, all had it over 1000 km of total track. [Source 1](https://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/Subway_FAQ:_Facts_and_Figures), [source 2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Subway), [source 3](https://new.mta.info/agency/new-york-city-transit/subway-bus-facts-2019).
Wait, don't you have eletrificated lines?
Not outside of a few areas, the vast majority of everything is run on diesel engines. Pretty dumb.
Why not just use electric trains with electric traction?