Why US Railroads should Electrify their Mainlines
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- Опубліковано 26 вер 2024
- I'm feeling that Conrail Vaporwave.
www.solutionar...
Y'all are probably gonna argue in the comments either about nationalization or how diesels are more efficient or some shit, I know it.
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As you can tell by the intro being set in the winter of 2018-2019, this video has been stuck in editing purgatory. Well it's finally out now, abet with a few problems here or there. Enjoy!
@alan Fisher....the main problem is that you don't understand the realities of railroad electrification. I can explain them if you wish.
@@JugSouthgate
Oh yes, please show us your point of view !
overhead wire is a maintainer nightmare...and electric locos are half the weight of current freight engines and the tractive effort thereby is garbage vs what is needed to work the freight traffic now. this is not viable for the railroads. current us freight ops are running 390 +/- car trains as an example here ua-cam.com/video/MSov41tux2k/v-deo.html they had to use 2 locos of the most modern electric kind to haul a pittance of 22 cars of ore.
2 of our locos would have yanked 100. also you can not run doublestack container intermodal cars under that wire or oversize objects that need rail transport.
sure you can call out desil's as bad and all that , but you can not say electrics are better without providing a matching level replacement.
and furthermore passenger rail traffic is not a thing in the US and has not been since Amtrak Had! to take it up when the railroads were dumping the service because it was a black hole in the ledger book, because cheap gas and cars.
Furthermore electric rights of way need a 50% increase in width to prevent shorting, and just how many fuel powered power generation plants need to be built to support such a project? and OMG skyline! we can not have overhead wire everywhere!! Sue them for our skyline! Sue and or block construction constantly on enviromentalist points, which in most respects are garbage because they only care about talking points and not the sum of the whole that is needed to fix what they demand to be done which in most cases is brought up for Political agendas not because they give a shit.... otherwise you are talking out your ass.
@@irondarknessdarkness8900
Cut the train weight and you can go faster. Maintain the lines in good conditions. The overhead wire is not a problem for doublestack containers , it’s a question of how high you hang them. This have to be the same for all states,all lines . Your argument,increase the width by 50%, is just Nonsense !
Electric Locomotives are much more efficient than Diesel, more powerful for take off too.
Why do you want me to watch the video?
This is not an American train !
See this instead
68 Cars 1 Loco ;
ua-cam.com/video/shikK1PdE_o/v-deo.html
And if You still believe Electricity is only made by fuel You stayed Yesterday!
In Europe Germany and Austria use the “Green Current” only.
Maintaining seems to be the mayor rail problem in the US...sooooo many derailments and bridge collapses.
The longest train line of the world, 9288 km /5594 mls IS electrified , even
if it run 800 miles through forests with no human presence...
If you want you can !
@@aoilpe doublestack intermodal will not fit under the wire nor will the pantograph reach...to say nothing of oversize rail transport objects.
furtheremore cutting train weights over here is a non starter idea, trainpower vs speed is balanced out to keep it moving uphill at maximum tonnage, Us railroads are not passenger oriented in any respect,nor do we try to push trains uphill like a sports car because it is wastefull vs how much gets moved.
furthermore EU does not get the kinds of severe storms like we do , do you know what tornados do to overhead wire? it makes a rats nest of it.,as am example ua-cam.com/video/2SbQ1hbrLLA/v-deo.html&t
and this is how you really move the tonnage..iron ore train to the furnaces ua-cam.com/video/nACvV8jX7-o/v-deo.html and this is how you move the coal ua-cam.com/video/yadqgLBiO00/v-deo.html
Imagine thinking it's impossible to electrify American railroads today when 150 years ago they were running telegraph lines along the railroads.
It's not. Oil lobbyists want a fuel to sell. The trouble is the Government is basically run by a corporate cartel
A lot of them were electrified, it was all torn down when Amtrak took over.
@@joeynova3550 Yes Amtrak controlled the power generation. In the 70s Santa Fé looked at electrification. An electricity provider said to Santa Fé's president "You could run your trains at night". Legislation appears to prevent private rail companies owning the generation side which in my view is madness. There is Method in the Madness though☹️
@@Isochest Companies running public transit makes no sense. Public transit should be as efficient and usable for the public as possible. A private company has an owner, it has a profit motive, an interest opposed to the public's wellbeing (essentially, charge as much as possible and spend as little as possible on the system while still keeping ridership).
A public utility however has no incentive other than to make people happy.
@@l.u.c.a.s. A public utility has the purpose of improving everyone's quality of life and benefitting society by allowing them opportunities. Making people happy is just a nice side effect.
“What about doublestacks?” Look at India, I am not Indian but I am amazed by the fact they managed to get doublestacks under pantograph
and also double decker cars exist so that shouldnt be an issue at all.
"Look at India.........."
That's not all: they use combinations of five short coupled container wagons, which are not much lower than normal flat wagons and no well cars.
They also transport combinations of a HighCube and a normal container. The contact wire height is somewhere around seven meters. Of course, this requires a properly laid and maintained track.
@@pearlyhumbucker9065 Exactly. That’s why such high rise OHE lines are mostly laid out in highly dense freight corridors, where the container traffic is dense enough to warrant double stacking.
Also, these lines are laid out with High tensile steel rails, with the design being able to take axle loads around 30tons/axle, so that they can transport such loads.
As a European the first thing you mention which strikes me is that they change locomotives in a major station like Washington... Here in Europe almost certainly you'd just get out and hop on different diesel powered train... In the Netherlands all the major stations have "coordinated" schedules where basically all the useful changes give you 5-10 minutes to go from one train to the other... I guess if the trains have terrible timeliness that becomes a problem, but basically all services here are twice hourly so at worst you lose half an hour.
Dont know about Netherlands but in Czech Republic or in Russia for that matter long distance trains have locomotive change every so often because the loco unit is bound to some “sector” and cannot travel cross country, another reason for locomotive change in Russia is the network is subdivided to different currents, part of the network is DC another part is AC and most of the locos are not designed for dual current usage. So even if the network is electrified you still have stops of 15-20 min for loco change. Now for Russia another advantage of 30 min stop is that people can get out of train to buy products in the station during long trips. When it comes to feeder service (i assume that’s what you were talking about) then its pretty similar, local trains would arrive 5-10 mins before the regional would depart to allow people to catch it.
Yeah the only case I can think of where they change locomotives is on cross border night trains, where they also often reshuffle the cars over night to be able to serve multiple destinations with the same train.
@@dijikstra8 yep they do it here, the Prague-Warsaw (day and night) get loco change near the borders. On the other hand Austrian OBB Railjet Vienna-Prague service is done by same Austrian loco and crew without a change, kinda like the Eurostar that dont make equipment change.
That’s just false. All across Europe intercity trains switch locomotives because of their propulsion or track/loading gauge. The Netherlands are a tiny country and most trains that run in it are regional. No comparison at sll.
@@blueskiesflyer Vienna-Prague is also just 4 hours.
People: "Save the climate!"
Gouvernement: "Let's electrify the railroad then."
People: "Hell no, you crazy!?"
As if spending all of that money to upgrade the tracks to electricity would save the planet. Better to use diesel/battery hybrid locomotives than spend far too much money electrifying the tracks....
Catenary electric is cheaper for main corridors, and rapid freight rail is the only mature long haul transport alternative to long haul trucking that won't kill the planet.
@@ronclark9724 WTF would that accomplish?
@@PistonAvatarGuy close to nothing
@@ronclark9724 hybrids is basically a mix of diesel and electric and it's pretty impractical better use full electric
I'm kinda surprised that Amtrak takes 25 minutes to switch out locomotives, when in the old days the railroads could switch out locomotives between electrified and non electrified territory in 5-10 minutes.
I agree. Now granted, I'm pretty sure that this is also a crew change and smoke break but it shouldn't take as long as it does.
@@alanthefisher Agreed. Tho to add historical precedent, that these changeovers happened during extended stops/crew change locations. I am not as familiar with the east coast roads as I am with the western ones, but for the SP their Daylight had a 5-10 minute stop in slow for the same purpose. During the streamliners early years, that stop saw the locomotive changed, crews changed, and passengers enjoying a longer stop than at Santa Barbara or Salinas. During that time period, the only stops I can think of that comes close to what Amtrak allows at crew change/servicing/engine changing stops, were when the old railroads were cutting in/out mail and express or pullmans, if the cars were having their water tanks and ice boxes restocked, or in multiple sections were being cut into/out of the consist.
Having worked for Amtrak out of DC and been through the changeover there and New Haven before the extension of the electrification, there is more to what goes on than just changing the engines. First, the head-end power (HEP) is not usually turned off on the departing unit until detraining passengers are off, so 2-4 minutes for that. Then disconnecting the HEP and 27 pin communication cables (loads of fun if the train has been running through blowing snow in sub-freezing weather), then pulling the old engine away, past the signal block, then getting a signal for the replacement power to come against the train and re-couple; reconnecting all of the air, power and communication lines; turning the HEP back on, and doing a brake test (which can be done while boarding oncoming passengers is done). Also, at DC sometimes through trains get their water tanks topped off, and food service cars get en route supplies delivered. It can be done quicker if a train is running late, but not by much.
Little facts like that are used and abused by our cringe socialist friends whom watch this channel as some sort of lynch pin for electrification. . . Cringe
@@paulw.woodring7304 No excuse. In germany there are still a few lines that need to change locomotives and that is done in usually under 10 minutes. And remember that hook and chain (or rather hook and articulated screw bar) is still the norm here. No fancy self coupling systems, no automatic connection of power, command and air lines.
When that Soviet anthem started my capitalist iPhone just shut down and typed the FBI number and started calling them.
didn't know that first iPhones already date back to the McCarthy area...
@@rudolfhaupt3718 no but FBI does.
Through days dark and Stormy, the Great Putin led us, our eyes saw the bright sun of freedom above...
@@kc4cvh To be fair, Putin is a capitalist, but still, I can see Russia's problem, and why a certain protest movement wants to fix it!
Communism detected on american soil. Lethal force enganged.
Creating jobs to build and maintain rail lines. Like that would ever happen.
Man I literally can't think of a more important thing. Like why the fuck do we even have society if we don't have trains.
Ok but who's going to pay for it? You?
@@blitzkrieg634 maybe the government
@@trilingualfudge7307 not the government's job
Everything they run is ran like shit
Keep shit private and things stay high quality
@@blitzkrieg634 Then end the government’s current practice of subsidizing cars, gas, and automobile infrastructure. Trains are competing in an extreme, distorted transportation market.
It's amazing how much mileage you get out of the vaporwave-esque shot of a train with 'the conrail era' on it
Gets better every time
Sadly the way things are at the moment, electrification ain’t gonna happen but is a really good idea. And it would be very expensive. Americans are so focused on automobiles and planes that they could care less about our railroads. I doubt the freights companies would even allow this. We suck at improving our infrastructure
But what if the freight companies didn't own the track/land and instead leased it from the government? Aka nationalization, that's the only way that I see it fully happening. Otherwise it'll sporadically happen in different places for awhile.
@@alanthefisher yes yes yes we need the government to step in, the American rail system is an embarrassment
@@Giruno56 You'll be really happy to hear that my next video coming out is going to be on RR nationalization. It should be finished within a week.
@@alanthefisher Amazing! Im looking forward to it
@@Giruno56 how an embarassment? Freight works just fine and we use jet aircraft to get between cities because they are far apart.
Someone: *spitting the facts about electric trains*
NJT ALP-46: *vibing*
Why US version of locomotive looks uglier than original?
@@petrfedor1851 the new cabs are safer for crews but god they are ugly
Siemens doesn't build the Eurosprinter any more. State of the art in Europe is the new flagship from Siemens, the Vectron. Is it more ugly than the Eurosprinter. Some people might say so.
@@yankeesforlife24 I don't get why people would want safety if they find it ugly. You rather want crews to be unsafe?
According to you, safety is ugly and unsafe is better and nicer.
@@petrfedor1851 Maybe because USA prefer ugly things.
Switzerland's railway network has been fully electrified for a very long time. Funny enough, when a storm caused big damage to the electrification fixtures that took weeks to repair, the Berner Oberlandbahn had to borrow DMUs from Germany because Switzerland had none.
Switzerland's railroads have been electrified for a long time because:
1) oil is much more expensive there.
2) lots of long tunnels
3) hydroelectricity is less expensive and plentiful
4) the railroads are not private, for profit corporations
@@JugSouthgate 5) lots of steep gradients which historically required the superior power-to-weight of electric trains
6) Comparatively compact country with hence much lower total costs to electrify (cost/km remains similar regardless of terrain).
@@OntarioTrafficMan all true! And on top of that, the Swiss railway system is a single system founded in 1902 and run by The Government from 1902 until 1999. Since 1999 it has been a special stock corporation whose shares are held by the Swiss Confederation and the various cantons.
Electrics also allows for regenerative braking, which is extra usefully in Switzerland’s hilly terrain. Rather than having a train traveling down a large gradient using dynamic brakes dump energy to the resistors on the roof of the locomotive, you can send that energy back into the grid to be used by another locomotive traveling up hill under high load, or on passenger trains to provide HEP on downhill stretches rather than drawing from the grid.
@@TheRealJLFilmsTM Right, but the European continent is not very small yet in the vast majority of countries, pretty much all the mainlines are electrified. The USSR was also not a small country, yet they managed to electrify the majority of the railway despite at the same time being the poorer party in an arms and space race with the richest country on earth. China is by no means a small country, yet 100,000 out of 146,000 km are electrified. India is not a small country, yet 70% of the country's railways are electrified.
I really like the Milwaukee Road! but the whole system wasn't electrified. the was a GAP in the system because the railroad had ran out of money to fill the gap. various amount of bankruptcy later. they still had this gap, thought about closing it, because Changing engines on your freight trains also take time and Profit from freight runs. When Dieselisation happened to the rest of the system they decided it would be easier to have them everywhere, instead of some sections. So they scrapped the electric wire and engines.
So one of my Biggest what if's is Just that, if the Milwaukee Road had been more Financially stable, closed the GAP and kept and updated their electric fleet. I really just want to see what American electric Freight locomotives design would've looked like if development had continued.
The Northern Pacific did a study to electrify part of their mainline between WW1 and WW2 and determined that even with 4x the traffic compared to the MILW, even they wouldn’t be able to make that electrification profitable hence the idea was cut.
@@northwoodsrailproductions4538 I'm a NP Railfan but know so little besides what I can Google. But being apart of the Hill lines and being owned by what would eventually Become BNSF and since the NP main line got sold off to Montana Rail link, maybe the already low traffic volume didn't justify the high initial investment. But other railroads also had success with Electrics Like Virginian, and Great Northern (over the cascades). Due to early multiple unit control, dynamic braking which puts electricity back into the catenary when electric, and steam engines don't preform optimally the higher the elevation you go. Beside the giant initial investment electrification makes sense and probably will happen eventually... especially when you factor in modern oil prices. it's cheaper to run electrics
my main source of info on MILW not on a Tape is this article, www.trainweb.org/milwaukee/article.html
Yeah, also the Pacific Extension is widely credited as causing the downfall of the Milwaukee Road. Two reasons, one the Hill lines got there a lot earlier, taking that traffic and the routes first and meaning Milwaukee's routing SUCKED!!! A big example is the fact that that they didn't serve Spokane, the biggest city between Seattle and the Twin Cities. NP and GN main both went through there and even UP had a branch to Spokane. Second the cost of the extension with electrification being a big part of that basically put the Milwaukee in eternal debt.
@@ijbos620 I disagree on both points. The Milwaukee mainline west was the best engineered transcontinental! it was the most efficient route. Poor management of the Milwaukee from 1957 on is to blame for the downfall of the Milwaukee. When the Hill Lines merged into BN It almost saved The Milwaukee. When BN Merged the ICC made them give trackage-rights to Milwaukee to Portland, and 10 other "Gate ways". Milwaukee had then controlled 80% of traffic out from the Port of Seattle from 1969 till 1974, and 50% of container traffic. But by the early 70's Milwaukee's terrible management had not been doing maintenance on the lines that cost them the traffic. So even at a bad maintenance it was the more efficient route till 1975. if Milwaukee could have held out longer, their advantage of racing across the Rocky's would have secured it today with container trains to Chicago and points east. Management ruined what would've been a Royal flush while staring at a Jack and a 10.
@@P0w2you Yeah I really don't think the Milwaukee was better engineered. The GN probably had the best line and they did a bunch of upgrades to it to make it that way. Plus if you look at the map it is probably the straightest. The NP server the most important cities, like Spokane but also a bunch of cities in Montana like Bozeman and Billings and the Tri-Cities and Yakima in Washington. The Milwaukee had neither of these advantages which is why it was always the weakest northern transcon.
Great video! I can't wait for your channel to blow up like Not Just Bikes or City Beautiful. Also, fun fact India has electrified 58% of its total railway route length.
90% by now😉🙏
@@sumeetpandey6521 97% as of July 2024. Up from 37% in 2014.
6:22 You're gonna make me fucking cry showing me that utopian, electrified, separated rail
As someone from Europe, I love diesels, but electrics are superior in almost every way. While I do hope a lot more rail gets electrified, I think It would be nice to leave a few diesels around. A single diesel locomotive is still going to be more efficient and less polluting than several trucks. Great video!
Yes, rail infrastructures are vastly superior compared to big roads and motorways, no matter what kind of energy we’re using for our trains. Maybe diesel locomotives can be used in a heritage rail line?
There are many vintage electric locomotives still running in revenue service all over the continent, most of them in Switzerland, but not only. Take Poland for example, the oldest operating juicer is Rail Polska's 140 058 built by Skoda in 1958 - that's 63 years! Numerous very old ex-PKP class EU07 examples work among private operators' rosters, while diesels equal their age or younger have been either remotorized, rebuild from ground-up or scrapped. Class SP45 diesels, built between 1971 an 1976, are now nearly completely retired, while there are still numerous "sevens" from these years operating. The reason is simple - electrics have less moving parts, thus requiring less maintenance and longer service life. In fact you can run them effortlessly until their bodies rust away.
@@ilcubo32 Superior for who? Cars take you directly from point A to point B, run on your schedule, haul children and cargo and do a better job keeping you separate from the degenerate criminals in the general public. There's a reason why Americans continue to reject public transportation in favor of their personal vehicle. Cars are just better.
@@nonyafkinbznes1420 It is much more energy efficient, more space efficient, safer, more friendly to people with disabilities, and in many cases faster. It also removes the duty of being aware of other vehicles all the time, gives you time to relax after whatever you have done instead of sitting in traffic for 3 hours. If public space is so dangerous that it terrifies people, that’s an indication of other problems.
@@nonyafkinbznes1420 Motorways should exist. They’re very important. But not the type of motorways your country has implemented.
Upon watching some of your vids, ive come to the realization that We really need a compilation of Conrail freight, with some retrowave music
I do just want to add some notes, when it comes electrification because of the oil crisis, is because the oil crisis did not last as long as many had thought, so railroads who planned on electrification just decided not to when the crisis died down. Also in a way Amtrak and conrail are to blame for the lack of freight electrification on the ne corridor. Apparently Amtrak owns the electrification system, access charges were low at first but because Amtrak was made to be financially self sufficient, they increased electrification access charges, soo conrail also trying to be “self sufficient” they didn’t like these access charges and went with diesel. Conrail was basically trying to manage the finances of all the railroads under their control, mainly because it was designed to be a for profit railroad. With all of penn central’s debut.
The plain and simple fact was that once diesel fuel prices stabilized in the early 1980s it wasn't cost-effective for Conrail to continue electric freight operations. So they went all-diesel.
I've seen a lot of comments here & elsewhere that electrifying the US rail system would be too expensive. So I looked how much it would actually cost: about $5 million per mile. Since the US has about 140,000 route miles of railroads, that translates into $700 billion. Considering that the US sees fit to spend more than that every year on the War Dept. (DoD), along with another $100 Billion more for the "Defense" Dept (DHS), $700 billion for a fully electrified rail system seems like a bargain, especially considering the number of years that even an all-out electrification effort would take. I wonder how much it would cost to top it off with solar panels in areas with high insolation?
Electrifying only the most used lines would bring that cost down quite a bit, no need to electrify every single mile out there right away
@@herlescraft Although electrifying everything is way better than leaving some parts nonelectrified due to standardisation.
...Except the tracks and ROW are privately owned. The railroads are already deferring maintenance on power, cars and trackage, furloughing and letting go employees and doing everything else they can to make as much money for the shareholders as possible so I don't see them spending anything on electrification. The government won't spend tax dollars on this, either and that's a good thing.
It is obviously not a money problem. We Indians went from 37% electrification to 100% electrification within a decade despite our financial constraints. USA has no excuse.
Where I live in germany the system would not work without electrification. Commuter trains, inter city and freight share a line. The only reason this works is that all but a few freight trains are electric and thus capable of 120km/h or 75 mph. They obviously try try to avoid the situation, but still at these speeds catching up with a freight train is not a big issue for a passenger train.
What does electrification have to do with speed?
@@awsomevideoperson It's mostly an economic problem. Diesel trains need a lot of fuel to drive at high speeds (2 times the speed requires 4 times the energy) which means they have to carry more fuel. Making the whole issue worse.
It's possible to diesel trains at about the same speed as electric trains it's not economical to do so.
@@awsomevideoperson There are strong diesel electic engines, but they are all close to 200t which makes them not capable of high speeds. There are fast diesel electric engines in the 100t range, but they are usually not strong enough for heavy freight trains. Take the example of a Siemens Vectron, which is a somewhat common electric locomotive. 6.4MW at less than 100t. More power than a 250t beast like the Union Pacific Centennial.
@bill hammond iii The most common version weights 90t or 198.000 pounds.
@glorygeek Elecric trains and that includes heavy freight trains accelerate faster. That's more capacity at a stroke
I live in Germany and here we have some tracks not electrified. It's planed to electrify all the tracks in the next 10 years but that seems impossible for me. In nothern Germany there's an international line to Denmark where they used Diesel ICEs (InterCity Express) - this is electrified now.
Half of France's tracks is electric, and a third of British tracks is electric... Europe by no means is all electric yet...
They haven’t electrified the Vogelfluglinie so far
I don't think they would do that for example in my area are lines like Brunswick - Bad Harzburg and Brunswick - Gifhorn - Uelzen and these are mostly single tracked and on the second one (RB47) there is one train every hour and these are LINT 41s, two carriages and Diesel driven, it isn't even run by DB but erixx a private railway; IMHO it's simply not profitable enough to electrify.
But I'd like to see more dual modes like on Sylt, maybe it's not safe enough to electrify the Hindenburgdamm but most of the tracks on the island and on the landside, so you can use a locomotive like the Siemens Vectron DM and it just needs the Diesel on that part.
I also guess because there isn't really a reason to stop on the non-electrifyed part they just need one Vectron DM that accelerates with full power in the electrifyed parts and the Diesel got enough power to hold the speed, usually the Autozug is pulled by two BR 218.
And the ICE line did take a while to get through and be electrified, and a lot of Denmark is still missing. Right now you are able to get from Flensburg to Copenhagen on full electric. Want to go north or west you still have to use a Diesel loco sadly.
yes but thats pretty much just branchlines that arent electric.
Almost every developed nation has already beat us to it
Developed? Developing nation India, the one that Westerners love to mock, is ahead of them ALL and has gone from 37% electrification of Railways in 2014 to 100% in 2024, just within one decade. Already, Indian trains carry 2.5X to 3X more freight than entire EU combined (0.3 Trillion ton-kilometers for EU vs 0.9 Trillion ton-km for India). And 43% of India's electricity generation capacity is already from non-fossil fuel sources. Goal is 500 GW of renewable electric generation capacity in India by 2030, which is more than the total generation capacity of India today (450 GW).
Westerners love to talk big on climate action, yet India is the one ranked the highest among all G-20 nations in this sphere, as mentioned in the Climate Change Performance Index 2023 released by the Germans.
I dunno how to get it but we need that "conrail era" caramelldansen to be made into a full video
I think some of the reasons companies haven't invested in electrification is that modern diesel locomotives do everything an electric locomotive does, without the hassle of electrification.
They don't have to pay for power, which is a fairly turbulent and unreliable market, especially as more wind and solar energy comes online.
They don't have to get tens of thousands of new substations and high-voltage lines built to supply the power requirements for the average 3-4 locomotive freight train.
They don't have to upgrade all their signalling circuitry to protect against stray currents from electric trains (seriously, it practically doubles the size of the line-side boxes that house the cables and switches)
One part that I didn't see you mention was the inhibition that overhead catenary places on loading gauges. American railways can haul 737 wings and fuselages with minor modifications to extra-long flatcars, and WHOLE-ASS NUCLEAR REACTORS with schnabel cars.
An engineering challenge that could be met and solved, but I think the regular oversize nature of North American freight rail and its ability to carry supersize loads does preclude most electrification talk at the corporate and operational level.
Plus, if you can switch the fuel from fossil diesel to nuclear/hydro/geothermal-powered atmospheric-capture hydrocarbons, you get the cleanliness of electricity, using the existing fuel distribution infrastructure, and the same tier 4/5 locomotives.
Show me the 100 to , 8600 HP passenger diesel in the US. While I’m waiting for you to find it, I WON’T be waiting for my Keystone train to accelerate to 110 mph faster than a diesel can get to 50.
The fact is, if you want to get there fast, a diesel that puts 3500 hp to the tracks (on a good day), won’t cut it. Some of us want to get there. I guess if moving containers at 20mph is more important, I can just take the Interstate instead…
Stop it with your sense and logic!
@@philipnasadowski1060 If you want to get there fast, as a passenger, build your own rail tracks. Otherwise, stop yapping. Yes, moving containers is FAR more important to the nation. Try looking past yourself for a change!
Designated third rail electrified corridors can be created for routes that routinely carry oversized freight.
@@erkinalp Why? Third rail is infinitely more complex than catenary power and is unneeded to power freight trains as only the locomotive needs power, not the cars.
As an American railfan, I can see why one can support electrifying US railroads! After all, North America is the only continent I can think of (apart from Antarctica, which doesn't even _have_ railroads) that hasn't embraced the overhead line!
Australia. South America. Most freight trains I've seen in Europe are diesel, even under wire.
@@lowercherty where in Europe, UK yes, the rest of Europe mostly use electric locomotives
@@icheckered6837 off the main lines in Finland, Norway, Nethdrlands, Germany, Russia, Baltics, Spain, Portugal. I haven't had the pleasure of seeing freight operations in other countries.
And what would power the ERG (electrified railway grid)? In Europe, it has been LNG and nuclear power for the most part - and both are now under a cloud. The same is true of Asia - even Japan and the PRC; again - both are under a cloud. (In fact, the PRC is using its exemption from the PCA to adopt *coal* power plants.)
@@lowercherty Germany's freight trains certainly seem to mostly be electric. Look at any mainline, almost every freight train is electric. Sure, at the ends of the net, you see diesel - mostly because Germany has made some bad decisions about electrifying those and keeping them electrified. This is why there's some interest in dual-mode locomotives of various kinds, and why regional passenger networks are starting to invest in hydrogen and battery trains. Oh, and why the current list of train projects includes a number of electrification projects.
You can electrify all the rail networks, all you want, but when the electric grid is down, who's gonna rescue stuck electric trains??
Diesels!
Diesels can't be phased out..as they're the only trains to rescue non-working electric trains
Exactly. The "Electrify everything" movement is primarily a religious movement. It lets them pretend they are "saving the planet" when all they are doing is just hiding what is generating that electricity. There's no cost/benefit being done that shows it's cheaper. They just pretend that electricity magically appears and powers things. Sometimes handwaving the issue by muttering "windmills and solar panels" the same way someone might muter "God will provide us with what we need".
Well Swiss Railways are 100% Electric since over 60 Years, but they still keep a few Diesels as Backup for such Scenarios, as well as Construction Work. They even suffered a complete Blackout in 2005 (ONCE, that never happened before or again), but managed to get the Grid going again within a few Hours. Electrification doesn't mean abolishing all Diesels, and neither does Electricity just magically come out of nowhere. European Railways usually have their own Powerplants, which in Case of Switzerland are exclusively Hydropower.
But I'd guess this is a different Story with rolling Blackouts in America.
Wrong. There is always the option of using a dual-mode locomotive (i.e the ALP-45DP)
Genius at work said a lot before me, but yeah, number time.
British Railways owns the fastest diesel locomotive, which can go at 125 mph. Of course spending fuel for that included. Caltrain has a LITERAL ELECTRIC DOUBLE DECKER running at that speed, while saving money and actually saving planet, because electric train gets outside input of energy unlike battery trains, which are just barely better than diesels (especially if you take into account service of batteries). Besides, fair point, how often does it happen anyway? You want to trade off clean air, saved hours daily for some phantom "reliability" even though electrics are even cheaper to maintain?
"Where does electricity come from?" The difference between electric and battery is that they don't care where it comes from, so it could be even wind, sun, water, coal and oil, even nuclear energy of all.
The reason Pennsylvania and Milwaukee Railroads were able to successfully electrify was because the choice when they built the electrification (1930s) was between steam and electric locomotives. Now the choice is between diesel and electric. The return on investment between steam and electric is more significant than between diesel and electric. Where electrification has been done more recently was with commuter/passenger railroads (Caltrain in San Francisco, Denver RTD, Amtrak New Haven to Boston). The other significant railroads that were electrified during the 1930s and are still electrified are South Shore line in Chicago and Reading Railroad (now Septa) in Philadelphia. It's easier for commuter railroads to justify electrification when they're running dozens of trains over a 40 miles route than a freight railroad over a 1000 mile route. As for the locomotive change in Washington DC most of the 25 minutes is pad time/smoke break (yes really it's a smoke break). The locomotive change only really takes about 10 minutes. The state of Virginia now has a deal to buy the line between DC and Richmond they're planning on increasing the number of tracks but not electrification. It might happen if they get to 20 passenger trains each way a day.
This feels like the prefect application for a Bi-mode locomotive. The UK has some fairly significant portions of unelectrified rail, including the main lines like the Midland Main Line, so bi mode trains are fairly common, especially on routes which are partially electrified, and the switch over is as simple as raising a pantograph or starting a diesel engine. For a company like amtrack that offers services in both electrified and unelectrified routes, a bi-mode loco seems like the obvious choice.
Look up the EMD FL9
India will electrify it’s entire railtrack within 2024. Out of 65000 km, 40000 is finished, another 7000 km will by added by July 2021. The goal is to make the rail Carbon neutral by 2030. It's progressing pretty well. US needs to work urgently on this regard, it'll save a lot of money on the long run.
Not 65000 km 65ooo mile
And what will India use to power their ERG? Nuclear power and COAL - because the PCA does not apply to India. (That is why the PRC gets away with using coal (imported from Australia and New Zealand); that PCA exemption.)
@@PGHammer21A hey, itd be cheaper to run still at least
@@jwalster9412 India does NOT have large petroleum reserves, does it... So India will use fossil fuels to make electricity..
@@ronclark9724 India is currently having the fastest-growing solar network and nuclear power program. True the dependency on fossil fuel is high but going down.
India has increased its solar power generation by 11 times in last 5 years. Already the Delhi metro system one of the largest Subway systems in the world is also the greenest.
Conrail's "Job" was to restore profitable function to the railroad so that bankrupt northeastern railroads didn't crash the economy. Penn Central and early Conrail were devouring millions of bailout dollars every day since 1971. How well do you think it would have went over to ask the government for more money to expand electrification?
The problem you're forgetting is that unless you electrify railroad "end to end" such that a whole route is under wire, You will need duplicate to triple the locomotives, because the trains starting from one end would need to swap engines at one end of the electrification, run the electrified segment, then switch to diesel again to finish the run.
The way it was going, Conrail was burning through millions of dollars keeping the electrics around, when it could not afford to expand that electrification to something that was financially viable. That is why the quit operating them. It wasn't their call and they couldn't afford it.
Electrifying the railroads makes more sense than electric cars.
We don't even need to wait for x thing to exist could start whenever people want to.
And the cost for dedicated locomotives could be held off since diesel trains can run on cantanery track like normal.
Strange you mention the USSR when large swathes of the European Continent are Electrified. You can build it. What you neglect to mention is whether a high maintenance cost Electrified Line is financially worth it in the first place. The other thing you neglect to mention is man made structures cutting swathes through the countryside. And what will power all of this network? Coal or Nuclear or tens of thousands of acres of wind turbines? You suggest simple solutions to Very Complicated Problems.
Even if you use all the diesel the locomotives would use in a central powerplant it would still be more efficient...
For 2 big reasons:
- energy recoup on breaking
- higher efficiency on big centralized plants
thats what im saying
this article doesnt mention this but in recent times, India has a lot of railway track under electric traction (around 50000km, more being added) , not to mention, most trunk rail lines are dual track ie no need wait on loop lines to pass one another
Trunk routes are now being tripled or quadrupled and electrification in the Railways this month reached 97%.
Late to the conversation. But i would also add that electrification of the northeast corridor is the reason why all of the heavy industries where even able to start along the east coast during that time. Here in southern Connecticut. None of companies would have been able to electrify and exist without the rail authority making all of that sweet sweet cash from making money off that distribution network. And now in the modern era, we need even more power distribution to help with the switch to renewables. So... electrify rail and upgrade the the national grid? Spend a dollar and make a 100
Lets hope that we NEVER see a CSX ACS64 Charger.
Yep
While eventual electrification is undoubtedly the best way to go, I can't see it happening for a long time. It'll take forever. In the meantime, dual mode locos or multiple units are probably the best solution for eliminating changeover times. We have them all over the place in the UK and it works pretty well. Battery trains are also a new tech that could prove useful in rural areas.
You have the right idea, all diesel trains actually have electric motors. I would not take much to have ability to choose power source. A device like the switch on backup generators.
@@tonyromano6220 Pretty much exactly what the Hitachi Class 800 and Steadler Flirt Bi-Modal trains in the UK do. They usually switch modes at the station nearest where the electrified lines start/end, takes just a few minutes and most passengers don't notice the transition.
@@kevinh96 And the class 800 can also change on the move! This always happens when I get the GWR from Reading to Oxford
Yes. Focus on some key infrastructure, expand some commuter electrification, invest in dual-mode trains... I don't see a massive electrification happen in the US soon, though.
The problem with batteries is they are _terrible_ uphill and under load.
At least, they must start electrifying the conmutting services.
Many are already but you need really heavy service, close station spacing, etc. to justify. Diesel trains are just way cheaper to run. Conrail used diesels under the wire on the NE corridor since it was way cheaper than paying the electric bill.
@@henryostman5740
I'll give you the heavy service (which would be more or less all US main lines), but other than that what you wrote isn't true.
Electric locomotives are in fact cheaper to run, as they require far less maintenance (no diesel engines to service), with electricity also being cheaper than diesel (unless you can show me otherwise; outside of places like the Antarctic I'm pretty certain there's nowhere). You'll also need far fewer locomotives, as a single electric locomotive can match the power of two or even three of your average EMDs (the locomotives pulling the six car regional trains that run where I live have around 6000 hp). Conrail stopped using electric engines because they were few in number and far older than most of their diesels, and because they wanted to avoid changing engines where electrification ended.
If you have steep inclines, electric traction is better. If you want high speeds, electric traction is better. If you have heavy trains, electric traction is better. At high altitudes and with very cold or very hot weather, electric traction is better. Running in cities, electric traction is better. And if you want to send trains over long distances without downtimes for refueling and engine maintenance, electric trains are the way to go.
The upfront cost of electrification is high, but after you consider the better locomotives that are also cheaper to buy and maintain, it works out both cheaper and with better service in the long run.
@@mikeblatzheim2797 Electricity isn't cheap. You did recognize the infrastructure cost of electrifying the railroad, but you ignore the upkeep cost of the overhead and line losses (it's like a really long extension cord). I did say that if the system had enough heavy traffic that wire was the way to go, but lots of systems simply don't have that kind of traffic. As for power, few passenger trains really need high horsepower, rather they need tractive force to get it moving, on most commuter lines you are probably better off with a freight loco geared for lower speed. Tractive force is largely based on the locomotive's weight. The Europeans build diesel passenger locomotives with higher horsepower than we use here since they operate at high speeds (125 mph) where horsepower rules. You wouldn't want to use a diesel locomotive in service much faster than that due to the the weight and high up weight at that. Diesel locomotives are very reliable and most can operate for a thousand miles or more without refueling and would not require maintenance within this distance. The big item needing electrification is tunnels, long ones. Most of the commuter RR electrification happened back in the day of steam since electrics were way easier than steam that needed lots of TLC, frequent stops for water, and less frequent stops for coal. Diesels aren't like that, kiss them goodbye in the morning and they'll easily run all day. If there was a big economy by changing to electric you can bet the railroads would have done it long ago. Some western lines used electric but as I stated before that was related to long tunnels and much of this has been discontinued since it isn't a big issue for diesel freight trains. There are darn few passenger lines with grades over 2% and this is easy for a diesel, likewise high altitude operation is again no problem as modern diesels are supercharged
@@henryostman5740
In Germany you'll find freight locos geared for 140kph, passenger locos geared for 200kph and specced-down (meaning 6500 hp) regional locos that are good for 160kph. Then there's some overachievers like the Siemens Taurus, which does 230kph in regular service but can also do frequently stopping commuter services, 100mph express freight and heavy freight trains on mountain routes. The ACS is basically a cut-down version of said locomotive.
Traction these days is far less of an issue; in addition to sanding and magnets traction control systems have proven effective to the point where four axle electric locomotives have more traction than their six axle predecessors which would easily weigh 50 tonnes more.
The UK is the only country in Europe that uses widespread diesel traction with passenger services, in Germany for example the last mainline diesel intended to also pull passenger trains was built in the 70s.
Electric trains are still far more reliable than diesels. There's far fewer things to go wrong, and unless your locomotive is from Bombardier and needs to be rebooted because the software crashed, they'll run without issues. Light maintenance intervals are usually 2 weeks, between which they can run 24/7 and accumulate tens of thousands of kilometres. Major maintenance with disassembly of components generally only happens every five years. Locomotives from the 50s and 60s lasted in revenue service until the mid-2000s, and some are still running to this day having gone millions of kilometres without breaking down in service.
Tunnels are an issue with catenaries, although some creative solutions include installing a third rail for the tunnel and using locomotives fitted with pickups. Usually existing tunnels can be widened, and given that most US tunnels are around a hundred years old, they need to be rebuilt anyway. After all, in order to fit double stacks a number have been widened already.
Grades and especially altitude are definitely an issue for diesel trains. Grades because they'll require the diesel engines to run at high power for extended periods of time (which causes quite a bit of wear and tear), and cause issues with ventilation in tunnels. Whilst superchargers or the far more prevalent turbochargers can do a bit to mitigate the loss of power at higher altitudes, it's still significant. On China's Tibet railway the diesel locomotives lose around 40% of their power, and whilst the US has no railroads that are that high, cities such as Denver are at an altitude where the power loss will pass 10%. Keep in mind that fuel consumption generally still remains the same.
@@mikeblatzheim2797 Diesel/battery locomotives are even more environmentally sound than installing all of those metal electric poles... Yes, GE and EMD are testing hybrid locomotives. Stadler is developing Class 777 EMUs hybrids...
Indian rail to achieve 100 % electrification by 2023-24
Progress report: 97% as of July 2024.
You forgot the Virginian railroad who had electric mainline fron WV to Newport news till N&W ripped it out
Till the United States wakes up understands that full electric R&Rs are the only good option and decides to better it’s public transportation we will forever have this problem it’s quite sad really
The Milwaukee Railroad has some fascinating history, and it's very much missed. At least in Minnesota, the old Milwaukee Rail corridors have been converted into miles and miles of Dedicated bike and Pedestrian trails, like the Midtown Greenway.
That random Caramelldansen out of nowhere sent my sides into orbit (via electrified railroad tracks). Also, I keep being surprised that train lines in many places still aren't electrified, as if it's the 19th century or something.
Why is that surprising? Why is it better to have the diesel generator sitting on the side of the tracks, instead being driven by coal or natural gas. Then sending power over a glorified extension cord, to the engine vs just putting the diesel generator on the train itself?
All electrification does is sweep the source of that electric power under the rug while incurring significant transmission losses. Against steam I could see it making sense. Against diesel-electric it seems like a giant waste of time and money.
@@Crosshair84 It's better to use hydropower, geothermal, and nuclear power on account of no air pollution.
@@Crosshair84but with electric you can use hydropower, nuclear, solar, Wind, you get the idea. a diesel locomotive can only burn diesel, and maybe Biodiesel, while electric can use all these different methodes of power supply. electric is the future.
Honestly in 2021 it's all about PSR, immediate profits for shareholders and upper management. Electrifying would never even be considered in the current environment. On a different note, electrification appears to be better for the environment on the surface but people forget that nearly 75% of energy in the U.S. comes from coal fire and fossil fuel 🤦♀️. Then there's nuclear 😬, and finally about 5% renewable energy. Electrifying is not soo good when you look at where the electricity comes from.
Flawed logic. Eventually the electricity will have to come from non-fossil fuel sources, no? Whenever that happens, will you wait till then to start the electrification?
In India, only around 43% of our installed electricity capacity is from non-fossil fuel sources. Yet that did not stop us from going 100% electric in our Railways, even though barely a decade ago we were at 37%.
When you take the IC Train from Berlin to Amsterdam you also stop at the boarder to change the Electro Locomotive because the German and Dutch use different electrical systems.
The ICE trains switch voltages ⚡ on the fly. I have seen a video of such a train switching from 1500v dc to 15kv ac going through Bad Bentheim station. Some locos have to be switched though
@@Isochestice can even do this while going 200kph. or more.
@@SimonBauer7 I expect an example of this would be the border of Germany 15kv 16.7Hz and France 25kv 50Hz?
if Amtrak can't or doesn't want to electrify the main lines, why don't they buy hybrid locomotives like PESA Gama?
In Austria, we have almost all tracks electrified. Execpt for the very small lines where ÖBB 5047 and battery-run Bombardier Talent 3s.
Lmao. I misread Austria as Australia and was about to write a very strongly-worded reply. Phew.
The problem is that the average American citizen is thinking that investing in railroad infrastructure isn't benefiting them, whereas investment in roads does, giving a shorter and more comfortable travel.
But what he forgets is that the railroad is accountable for one fourth of all the goods and energy he/she consumes, and having all these goods going by road in trucks wouldn't benefit their own travel by car much either.
But roads and airports queuing up with cars and planes, and counting the number of derailments plus collapsing bridges etc shows that something needs to be done, the American railroad system was in a far better state in the past.
The TransSib is a good example, being the bussiest long distance railroad in the world, but another example is China with its high speed network stretching thousands of miles countrywide, and also their freight routes are electrified at an unbelievable rate (although to a huge cost I have to admit, in the region of 30 billion Dollar per year)
well are there electric trucks around? electric trucks getting power from overhead wires like an electric train? Would be on the road, but still I don't or hardly see any of that in the US, whereas they're testing and actually using them in parts of Europe.
There are three certainties in life. Death, taxes, and unexplained traffic jams on I95 between Richmond and DC. To Fredericksburg and beyond!
Great video talking about electrifying the US rail network, we are on our way to electrify all our rail in Denmark but even for such a small country it still takes time and money.
What version of caramella dansen is playing at 3.33 when Conrail era is introduced?
Strange, last I checked, Denmark was nowhere near electrifying all its railways. Not even 50% last I checked.
It's worth mentioning that Califorboa is in the middle of two electrification projects. Caltrain is putting up electric wires to transform existing services (which I have seen in person), and California High Speed Rail is also putting up wires with brand new lines.
Both projects are related to the new California HSR... What started ten years ago as a $30 billion 500 miles HSR has already reached $100 billion which has grown to 700 plus miles... And the price is growing $10 billion every year...
@@ronclark9724 and voters are saying no but the gov don't care..
California HSR is a boondoggle. Ron Clark is on point.
CA HSR is a waste of money and time. It’s a high speed fail and would people really want to use that? I think not. Caltrain, on the other hand, even if the electric project is complete for them, some of their diesels will still operate to Gilroy since that segment of track is owned by UP and not Caltrain.
@@-SkyCat- If the voters say no to HSR, then this High Speed Fail project should not have happened but yes GN don’t care.
I love the running joke of: "but Alan, X wouldn't" *Sudden Soviet Anthem* "here is why your wrong"
Wonderful video, extremely informative! :)
Loved the Caramelldansen vaporwave in there, nice touch lol.
I would absolutely way rather take a ride in a locomotive than in a car, it'd be way more enjoyable.
It's unfortunate that the likelihood of this happening will most likely not be for a while, if at all.
Great work, keep it up!
Our lines in the U.K. are only gradually being electrified, and all the track is owned by the government. My local line only finished electrifying 2 years ago
Are they? We were neck and neck with you guys a decade ago in 2014. Both our nation's railways were 37% electrified. Fast forward one decade at the number for my country this month is 97% while for UK it is still 37%. I don't think UK is "gradually" electrifying its Railways at all.
Was... was that Caramelldansen playing when "Conrail Era" popped up?
Y e s
Don't forget, the electricfication is part of the future high speed rail.
But not on existing rails, so both need to be done
Not only HSR, but also conventional rail and rapid rail ... both Rapid Freight Rail and Rapid Passenger Rail.
@@reinerw.1158 Existing rail can take high speed trains into the cities where building new trackage is the most expensive.
@@lars7935depends, the ones going to cargo hubs won’t be of much use and outside of Cities the tracks are not suited for HSR at all
@@reinerw.1158 Yeah between cities you mostly need newly constructed high speed rail. But you can save a lot of money by using existing (preferably commuter and regional) lines that lead into the city.
You can also lead the high speed line around smaller cities and connect them to existing lines. Though that is only really viable for less important towns that receive infrequent service.
It really pains me because the US used to have a really good passenger rail network that was able to transport people all over the country, but then we got rid of it and replaced it with CARS. Why?
General Motors was profit-hungry, that's why.
In India, 40,000 km out of the 67,000 km rail network is electrified, with 5,000 km undergoing electrification every year.
How much of the rail lines were built by the British? I’m curious
@@sc1338 Probs a good chunk hehe.
Meanwhile us brits only have about 1/3rd of our track full on electric Most of it being trunk mainline express routes
@@davidty2006 Aren't Mainlines all that's left after Beaching II?
@@sc1338 those were not build by british
@@davidty2006 sorry all of that tracks were build by indian labor indian money and most of the times indians not even allowed on trains , it was used to carry all the loot to the ports , and that too was built 9 times the cost of anywhere in the world, and we ourselves has expanded it since independence don't try to act you are some kind of higher white being who came to develop us
From what I've seen, electric freight trains are usually lighter. You don't see mile long electric trains. They are lighter, quieter, and have shorter stopping distances. We should be able to transport are cargo across the country on electrified rail lines instead of clogging our highways with noisy and polluting 18 wheelers. These trucks are also very damaging to our roads. You will still need truck drivers to transport containers from rail yards to their final destination. You just won't need them to make cross country trips anymore. With diesel fuel being so expensive, this becomes more and more likely in the future.
Just makes so proud that in india we have already achive 90% electrification and 100% will be achives by the year 2025.
Bro 100% electrification by 2024
It is mid-2024 and it is already 97% as per this month's official report.
As a Romanian, I'm more enraged by the fact it takes 28 MINUTES to switch from electric to diesel. That's like double the time it takes a romanian train to do the same thing, and we don't have knuckle couplers.
There's a reason why Burlington Northern walked away from their freight electrification project.
And what was that reason?
@@darthmaul216 It's not self sustainable and the large amounts of money and energy needed out way the benefits.
And in Germany we fucked(and we still do) up our electricity network. We took all nuclear power plants down and decreased the amount of coal power plants, now we mainly rely on green power and gas. But our Gas tanks are pretty empty and the Russian pipeline is very controversial and not in service. Solar sucks in the winter and in the night and the wind changes. The electricity price has gone up a lot and now some rail companies think about using diesel again(which also got 50% more expensive thanks to taxes but railway companies are excluded)
It's worth saying that the high Energy Price in Germany is caused mostly by Compensation to Nuclear Powerplant Operators, plus Nuclear Powerplant Decomissioning being insanely expensive and paid entirely by Taxpayer Money. And the Story behind the Coal Powerplant Moorburg in Hamburg being decomissioned after just six Years of Operation really puts the Absurdity of German Energy Politics in a Nutshell.
Germans, huh? Your politicians love to virtue signal. Especially to us Indians. Yet India is leaving Germany behind in some things these days. Elect better leaders folks. I don't like seeing the current ones de-industrialized your country and handed it all on a platter to effin Chinese. At least you lot were only virtue-signalling snobs. Chinese are outright enemies to us.
what americans should do and what americans actually do are 2 different things
3:34 On my left we have people that like trains. On my right we have people that like Caramelldansen.
It took decades for the Soviets to get electrified. You made it sound like they did it overnight.
This.
I bet America could do it in half that time with its superior technology and wealth of resources.
@@FancyUnicorn In reality no due to lazyness of western workers in general.
@@davidty2006 and the willingness of the companies involved to put the greater good aside and line their pockets with government cash
And it happened under a tyrannical government that enslaved its populace.
Just extrapolate the ridiculous cost of Caltrain electrification...
Oh, it's impractical alright - impractical for penny pinching companies with only short term profits in mind!
Why should the railroads spend the hundred of billions to increase railroad speeds when they are quite happy going the speed they are presently? None desire to file for bankruptcy anytime soon.
@@ronclark9724 Or spend millions on "green" options when there's a more cost-efficient option available already?
@@ronclark9724 Because this perfect solution for tiny, dense countries (that barely move any freight) must be the right solution for us, right? ...Right?
The island of java had planned electrification of it's main lines by the Dutch. Sadly the great depression hit, only one main line got electrification and there's no progress until 1987 and it's restricted to the Jakarta Metropolitan area, only recently electrification took place outside the capital, on the Jogja - Solo corridor.
Said mainline is now the busiest commuter rail line
Indonesia is just an Islamic version of the USA
@@qjtvaddict But with islands.
The Netherlands really should do something with you’re guys infrastructure of railroads
It's "since" in this case, not "until".
Forgive me if you don't care, I'm not trying to be a grammar Nazi, just trying to help improve your English skills.
Jaman Suharto mana ada kemajuan
along with electrification we need a new amfleet
Easiest way would be buy some oldish european and modify them.
Someone should show this to the head of the MBTA, that is, when they dig themselves out of debt hell
How would electrification improve Amtrak's service over the entire country if they still have to share rails with freight trains and have low priority?
change da rules
@@anincompetentmoron8497 What rules, dude?
Amtrak could potentially add its own trackage along busy routes, if electrical infrastructure was in place, running higher speed services, but that’s an investment Amtrak just can’t afford.
@@jirky015 the rules that say that freight has priority over passenger.
@@Jehty_ The freight carriers own the tracks and right of way.
I find it comical that you use the Milwaukee road as a legit example of a successful electrified system. They literally ate shit in the 80s and tore down its electrified system specifically because diesel was a better economical option.
I learned something new today. I never knew that there were electrified freight trains in the United States at one time. I knew that other countries had/have electrified freight trains, but I never knew that Conrail, Milwaukee Road had electrified freight trains. Never too old to learn something. I am a train enthusiast by the way.
The Pennsylvania Railroad electrified a considerable part of their system in the 1930s. Their system was based on the New Haven system (11 kV 25 Hz) and was designed for freight, intercity passenger and commuter trains.
The PRR's goal was to electrify all their main lines and many of their branch lines. However. WW2 put an end to their plans due to shortages of steel, copper, and workers. When the war ended, the PRR was busy catching up on maintenance that had been deferred during the war.
The absolutely incomprehensible de-electrification of the Milwaukee Road is one of the stupidest moves in a long history of stupid moves.
@@daniellewis1789 It's not incomprehensible at all, if one understands what the Milwaukee Road was up against at the time. The railroad was going bankrupt, and the electrification was old and needed serious work. The electric locomotives were reaching end of life as well.
@@JugSouthgate 1. The deferred maintenance on their most profitable routes is part of the problem, and 2. Scrapping their competitive advantage sure worked out well for 'em.
@@daniellewis1789 Spot on. Electric locos are lighter on track and using diesels line speed and capacity halved and maintenance costs doubled. Mergers were a common reason for scrapping electrification in the US. One day there will be a mad scramble to electrify but the disaster that triggers it hasn't happened yet
When I was traveling to and from VA/NC and Baltimore for college I had enough time to run out the train, run into Union Station, grab me Chipotle or a Spicy Cheeseburger, and run back on the train while it’s still switching between Diesel and Electric.🤣🤣🤣
Electric catenary infrastructure is expensive to install and maintain. And when it's used in places with high winds and winter weather the problems increase exponentially. 96% of the delays on NEC trains are due to wire and power issues. All our winter delays are always ice on the wire, high winds, excessive arcing due to ice, etc. NONE of those issues exist with diesels.
Russia didn't let their Winter weather stop the electrification of the Trans Siberian Railroad, and Russian weather destroyed Napoleon and Hitler's armies. Also, not everywhere ness to be electrician with overhead catenary, trains operating at less than a top speed of 125mph can be powered by a third rail, like the New York Central did for it's trains in and out of the NYC tunnels. For every challenge, there's a solution to overcome it. We can electrify, we just need the will to do it.
Maybe the US needs to ask Russia for help. They know a little about running railways in adverse conditions.😎
@@Colonel_Blimp that would be a good idea, if both countries weren't stuck in the Cold War "them or us" mentality
@@Colonel_Blimp if you understood how electric trains operate, Catenary design and applying those things to a country where you can’t just do anything you please with no regard for your citizens you wouldn’t be comparing Siberia to the Continental US.
@@FFred-us9tw well I do have 45 years railway experience. I’m not sure how stringing overhead inhibits your Yankee freedumbs.
Where is the electricity coming from? Midwest continually looses base load generating plants each year.
nuclear power maybe
@@blu.e5253 Only a small percentage of Nuclear Power contributes to the overall US energy generational load, I believe I read is was less than 10%
@@blu.e5253 Per the US Energy Information Administration the number is closer to 9%
Please see attached article for clarifications.
www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/data-and-statistics.php
@@caseystein9021 Nope nope. Nuclear makes up 18.9%, Fossile fuels 60.8% and Renewables 20.1%. And yes your armgument is true if the US was to keep using Fossile fuels as strongly as they are now, which regarding climate change will not happen. Whith the shift to renewable energy trains will make more and more sense. Think into the future instead of thinking like an American ;).
WTF!? Your comment just made me look it up, I had no idea that USA did not have a single national synchronous grid. Are you guys planning to fix this? I mean, we got HVDC tech now.....shouldn't be too difficult, especially for you rich folks of the developed world.
We can't even electrify the UK and this guys talking about electrifying the US.
Here in iowa we have the last electric freight railroad. While cars did kill most interurbans, this one survived because it did freight from day 1. Electric freight seems like seems like it has tons of potential in modern america
But Alan, the U.S is too big for electrification. Everything is too far apart, it is so impractical. It is so impractical, Alan, didn't you know that?
/s
-You forgot the "/s" at the end, homie.-
To accomplish this we'd have to get the oil and automaker lobbies out of Congress.
Very interesting for me as a European.
Maybe this was written already, but the Siemens ACS-64 is not based on the Siemens Eurosprinter series, but its successor, the Vectron series.
while I respect your opinion, there are a few things that I would like to point out. First, shouldn't the passenger network and freight network be separate? ik that europe works with both, but the US's freight rail infrastructure is world class, so wouldn't having a passenger network that doesn't interfere with the freight network be a much better investment than just electrification? Second, what equipment is there? the only thing that I could think of is the E60C in a GEVO body, and maybe the Bombardier iore in an ALP-45 body. that's it, nothing more. nothing else has the 244k lbs of starting tractive effort that is necessary to get a 4 KM long intermodal train started up a hill.
To better add, we had duplicate lines years ago but now America is being overrun by the corrupt Rails to trails organization which is removing a lot of valuable rail infrastructure that could be used to run passenger train separated from freight.
I agree. We Indians are also moving towards passenger-freight line separation where possible, and the results speak for themselves. It is well worth it.
They don't do it probably because spending their money on war weapons.
it would probably be more enviromently friendly less polution from diesel fumes plus electric freight is possible just look at india
Type 4 locos buddy.
1973 oil crisis happens.
Conrail: "THROW AWAY ALL THE ELECTRIC STUFF THAT DOESN'T RUN ON OIL!!!"
"After all, this is the highest that oil will ever go, and it will soon go down again." ...
... 1979 oil crisis happens.
Totally agree. I gave a presentation on the Milwaukee Road operations in the Montana, Idaho and Washington and because of the low cost of electricity, they had the lowest operating cost of any of the Pacific Northwest Railroads. We need to follow the lead of Europe and Asia and electrify our railroads!
no the MILW was not the lowest cost . the Gn had lower cost. the MILW had the highest cost. how young are you. If Milw so good then why did no one buy it
You could not have written anything more wrong... There is a reason why the Milwaukee Road went bankrupt... There is a reason why the Great Northern was the only railroad that never went bankrupt... Please learn why...
@@ronclark9724 wrong. can you not think. Milw had 4 2% plus grades. the gn had marias pass that had a lot lower grades then saint paul pass. the gn only need to changd crews 4 times to go 800 mies. The Milw need to change crews 8 times to go 800 miles. the Mile also has very short passing sidings and very little CTC. the GN has Long passing sidings and lots of CTC. the MILW cound not handle the 16000 ft trains that run on the ex Gn. Yes the MILW went bankrupt 3 times. the Gn never had any land grants
Forget it! Like I mentioned before, it's never going to happen!!!! For Example: the Cost of installing the overhead Wires. The Cost of installing Electric Substations and maintain them. The Electric Locomotives being under power. Plus the clearance for the Double Stack Trains! This Goes with the same scenario with Amtrak Auto Train. If a Person in New York wants to Put their Car on Amtrak Auto Train, They would have to Drive to Washington DC. Why, Low On the overhead Wires on the Northeast Corridor!!! Trust me, It's not going to work. Not To Mention, when they mentioned Clean air in which is Always a Good thing. But you need fossil fuel to generate electricity!!!!
@@josephscarfo5972 In India and China, they run electric double stack trains- that's the easiest problem to fix, all you need is a higher wire and a longer pantograph. Electric locomotives are far more powerful than diesel electrics, since they don't need to haul their power generation equipment with them. You also don't need fossil fuels to generate electricity, and even if you do, it's still more efficient than a diesel electric locomotive.
20 minutes to change a loco?
Is it really so nice to smell diesel?
I don’t remember, here in Switzerland we don’t have Unelectrified Lines...
They do a lot more than change the locomotive. It's a crew change point, various supplies are replenished, plus lots of people getting on and off.
What does a litre of gasoline cost in Switzerland?
@@JugSouthgate
Without taxes 0,35 euros , with taxes 1,54.- /1.63.- for 1 L.
Europe is rich in water power...
In 10 minutes you could change loco and
Store food and drinks as well ... they do it every day here.
Learn a little bit about SBB and the integrated timetable from wiki...
The Best Train system of the world ...(except Japan )
@@aoilpe Here in USA the current price where I live is about US$2.59/gallon with taxes. That would be about 0,56 euros per litre. Or, to turn it around, 1,60 euros per liter works out to about US$7.33 per gallon.
Americans have had low low LOW gasoline and diesel prices for a very long time and so the energy efficiency of railroads and electrification have not driven transportation choices.
@@JugSouthgate
I hope this will change
As someone from Glasgow, Scotland where the suburban rail network is almost completely electric, I have to say that it’s really surprising to me that the US (and much of the Uk) hasn’t even rolled out electric lines even in places (particularly cities) where the advantages greatly outweigh the disadvantages.
im not sure the advantages outweigh the disadvantages having a bunch of overhead powerlines in the middle of the rocky mountains or the great plains miles and miles away from any place making power
theres also an issue with the amount of tractive effort given by electric locomotives since they weigh less combined with the long and heavy north american freight, trains in north america are underpowered enough and having a bunch of electric locomotives struggling up a 2% grade instead of diesels isnt going to fix much
@@gutter1what? look up the lkab iore, These haul huge iron ore trains across norway.
I say, the Milwaukee Road, and its Electrified Portions should be revived, but not only revived, but improved via finally connecting the two Electric Sections of the Milwaukee Road together. And not only that, but than connect it to the rest of the electric lines of the USA to create the first Transcontinental Electric Railroad line.
During my various visits to the USA, I was always very surprised at the poor condition of the rail network. I wanted to go from Chicago to San Francisco by train, but the price and the travel time were so immensely high that I did not do it. Too bad actually. I was not aware until then that a large part of the rail network in the U.S. belongs to private companies and freight trains get priority over passenger trains. This means that the schedule for passenger trains often has long delays because these trains have to wait for freight trains. This makes rail travel very unattractive. In Europe, passenger trains always have priority. This is probably also due to the fact that it is not private but state-owned.
Keep my fingers crossed for a better situation in future. 😉
San Francisco and Chicago are extremely far apart.there is no way in he11 even with the best passnager trains in the world that trip isn't going to take a long time or be cheap.even for planes that is a long trip.
@@starandfox601 I looked up a train route across China, from Ürümqi in the west to Beijing in the east the train takes 30 hours for the 1,700 mile long distance and it would cost $51; The 2,100 miles from San Francisco to Chicago would take 50 to 85 hours by train and cost $285
I think Chicago to San Fransisco should be doable in about 12 to 15 hours with high speed rail. It's not a distance that high speed rail makes a lot of sense on but at least in theory you could have a one night sleeper service between the cities.
The much larger benefit would actually be the towns and cities in between.
Lets take a trip from Denver to San Francisco (just an example based purely on distance, I don't know where these high speed lines would potentially go). You could get on the train at 10pm (giving you a lot of time to get to the station in Denver), and arrive at 7 or 8 in the morning well rested, showered and already having had breakfast.
You'd sleep over the long travel time, a thing that isn't really possible on flights. And if rail would get as much subsidies as highways and airports it could be affordable, especially if you factor in that it would often save on at least one night of hotel stay.
Imagine the possibility of taking an extended weekend trip halfway across the continent and not needing a full day (or two half days) just in travel time.
For that very scenario I'm very excited that sleeper trains are making a comeback across europe.
Of course such long range high speed rail lines would be very expensive but that investment could be great for kickstarting the american economy into recovery from covid. It could also mean jobs and better infrastructure for rural USA.
@@lars7935 it defaintly is not do able in 12 to 15 hours with high speed rails unless you break the laws of a physics.that is a several day trip by rail of any kind.
That is the kind of distance you use a plane for unless moving.
@@starandfox601Ok let me do the math:
It's about 3000 km as the crow flies. That would mean about 4000km of track length (using typical rates of straight line distance to actual travel distance). Useful track speeds over such distances would be around 350 km/h. That's quite possible as in China and some other countries that is already done and both Japan and France are looking at having some trains go at 360 km/h. With these top speeds and only a limited number of stops you can expect average speeds far in excess of 250 km/h but for the sake of the argument lets take the low estimate.
That would mean 16 hours of travel time.
I used estimated figures and always took the less optimal estimate so there's room for improvement but my low estimate of 12 hours was maybe a bit too optimistic. However that would still mean it's a single night (and some daytime) instead of two full days.
I'm not saying it makes sense from an economic standpoint. I'm just saying that it would be possible.
Edit: The oldest high speed line in the world, the Tokaido Shinkansen, already reaches an average travel speed of 213km/h over its 515 km length with it's Nozomi services. And the is despite very limiting factors:
The line is very heavily used with 16 trains per hour per direction during peak times.
At stations the switches any allow diverging trains at 70km/h (quite slow for high speed rail standards), worsening the congestion.
There are 4 intermediate stops. During the approaches to these stations there are sharp turns slowing down operations considerably.
Maximum speed is only 285 km/h with most of the distance actually having a top speed of 275 km/h.
The curve at Atami has a radius of only 1500m. This means that in this curve even passing trains must slow down to 185 km/h.
But even on a 60 year old line there are already average travel speeds of over 200 km/h for the fastest services.
New construction high speed rail can do much better.
Great video! Love how i actually can understand what they sing in the conrail segment with caramelldansen😂😂
A lot of railroads looked at electrification in the 1920s. However, stringing and maintaining all of that overhead was deemed too prohibitive. Outside of the PRR east of Harrisburg and what became the NEC and the New Haven, I think the only non-traction roads to embrace electrification was the Virginian in southern West Virginia (!) and the Milwaukee Road in their western reaches. In a way, railroads did "go electric" but it was with on-board diesel engines generating the juice for the traction motors. What might have been...
The price tag alone would throw most of the RR boards into some form of stroke. One needs to remember that in order to put up wires, you will need substations along the way which may require some land purchases, and while electrics are probably much more reliable vs diesels, the price tag associated with maintenance of over head catenary, and electric equipment still outweighs the expense of having an all diesel fleet. It works very well in Europe, and the PRR had the GG1s that were a marvelous piece of rail equipment that was light years ahead of it's time. Had Conrail been given money to clean up the mess properly, you would still have been able to see electric freights operating in the northeast. It may happen eventually if politics plays out a certain way, but it won't happen over night.
That is exactly what the PRR did - along the NEC and Keystone Corridors; those substations - with upgrades - are still in use/service today. However, you still must build power plants to supply the substations; nuclear power makes sense - however, it is under a cloud (Fukishima and TMI). LNG? Nonstarter. Renewables cannot supply the amount of power needed.
At 25kV and "conservative" approach you will need one large substation only every 40 miles, and with modern approach with inverters and primary system using 2x25kV (could be even asymmetrical like 25+35, or 25+65kV) and autotransformers, you can have inverter stations anywhere it is best and then quite small that will feed overhead wires.
It is a government decision to tax rail corridors and not road corridors, to borrow for road corridors at public rates and make railroads pay commercial rates, that makes it "too expensive" to electrify and upgrade to 90mph-110mph. The Federal government could easily borrow the funds for the program and charge private railroads a user fee, so there is no added debt on the books of the private railroad companies.
@@PGHammer21A generating the electricity is the least of the problems.
The real issues are the costs, both to build the system and operate it.
@@PGHammer21A that is for sure, Ask the Fed Gov TVA about their rolling Blackouts. Ask the Fed Gov TVA on How Renewables failed then
There's also something to be said for the longevity of electric locomotives.
Yes. Here in the UK we have some nearly 60 years old still in use
Both the Virginian and Norfolk and Western were once electrified in West Virginia. They removed the catenaries because it wasn't cost-effective. Which disapproves your point - the big, bad private companies WILL invest in electrification IF it is cost-effective. It ISN'T at the moment.
If the push towards zero emissions continues, electrification will happen - slowly. But one of the problems is that most long distance rail traffic is freight, and double stacking of containers is widely used. This is a problem for electrification. If you put the wire up high enough to clear double stacked containers, you need very tall pantographs on all your trains. And if freight lines cross existing electrified lines, they cannot carry double-stacked containers.
Take a look at India. Dedicated freight corridors with electrification high enough to accommodate double stacked freight trains.
and where is the Electricity going to come from. the Us is very Short on Megawatts
India has double stack container trains with tall pantos running at 100 kmph on dedicated lines.
Early electric railways often used relatively low voltage DC current and these are not as efficient as modern high voltage AC systems in many ways.
Also with the different currents if you merge two railroad companies with electric lines it's not certain they can drive on each others lines.
An advantage a railroad has today is that it could use the national electric grid for power this was not possible at the beginning of the 20th century and late 19th century because there was no standardisation there either.
There is a reason modern european railways are preferably built with 25kv 50hz power as that can come straight from the main power grid. While the slightly weaker 15kv 16⅓hz is not being replaced but it needs special transformers or it's own power grid but it was the best state of the art technology you could get in early 20th century Europe.
If the US builds more electric railways they should standardize on 25kv 60hz or 50kv 60hz
The European System that using 1500 V DC (Netherlands and part of France) are need to be upgraded i think. Locomotive run under this kind of weak voltage are limiting their power. For example Siemens Vectron can only run with 5200 kW under 1.5 kV DC vs 6400 kW under AC catenary (no matter it's 15 kV 16⅔ Hz or 25 kV 50 Hz). Doubling voltage to 3 kV solve this problem, but you still need many substation and thicker wire. So yeah AC is better in terms of power delivery and infrastructure.
By the way some portions in Northeast Corridor still using 25 Hz power frequency, don't know how it's converted from 60 Hz. In case of Germany/Swiss/Austria they use dedicated power supply and dedicated high voltage line, although some are direct conversion from 50 Hz supply.
Some dual power locomotive like Stadler Eurodual can using diesel engine as power booster when the loco using weaker catenary like 1.5 kV DC or 3 kV DC
Agreed. Indian Railways has also standardized its entire network on 25,000 V and synchronized to National Grid.
Also, turns out USA doesn't have a single synchronous power grid. Weird. Hopefully they use the HVDC tech to build some more interconnects and rectify this problem.
I hear the ideas about requiring electrification of cargo ships, electrification of trucks. All of this requires batteries with the inefficiencies and the need for production of batteries. The money on electrification of rails does make a lot more sense then the really stupid ideas like Carbon Capture. Maybe Carbon Capture will work, but I, for one, will not bet my life on it. It will be a very long road to do Carbon Capture with lots of issues. Electrification of the railroads is a give me.
Full electrification of trucks (anything beyond short-haul) sounds massively impractical, given that there is no solid evidence that the necessary battery technologies are ever going to become practical in the real world.
Full electrification of cargo ships could be done if small modular reactors (SMR's) take off. However, synthetic carbon-neutral hydrocarbons already exist.
@@electric7487 Full electrification, but could do on most important interstates by running electric power lines like in Sweden
ua-cam.com/video/27100u7IcII/v-deo.html
Trains are one of the most least polluting forms of transport, and way more efficient than cars, so the freight trains don't need to be electrified, and they barely pollute, electric trains isnt for freight trains
just because diesel locos are more effective than cars, doesn't make them super clean and environment-friendly :D
Huge tanks which still need to be refilled quite often aren't quite an argument for being clean and effective tbh.
Why aren't electric locomotives for freight trains? There are some electric locomotives which are specificly built for freight train usage?! Built and used in central and northern Europe, Russia, China, ...
Google Uzhhorod-Košice broad-gauge track. Build only for freight trains and it´s electrified since begining.
"Electric trains isn't for freight trains"? Someone give this dude a tour of India's dedicated freight corridors.
In Chicago We have the Former Illinois Central Suburban line and since 1926 it has been Electrified!!! it is currently under Metra rule and named Metra Electric District. The MED only shares its tracks with the Also Electric South Shore Passenger line. so best of all No freight trains come into conflict with the MED!!! The MED is currently Metra's best Commuter line since it was all replaced with new equipment within the last 10 years.