Is the US Finally Getting 'All Aboard' With Electric Trains? (theverge.com) 169
For the first time, two new all-electric passenger trains are operating in the US, which is woefully behind the rest of the world in electrifying its rolling stock. The Verge: The two new trains are operated by Caltrain. California Governor Gavin Newson and House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi were on hand to take the inaugural ride, which took place on Saturday. The trains were put into regular service the following day, running along the route between San Jose and San Francisco.
It's taken almost 20 years since the idea of electric trains was first proposed in California. But officials insisted the new trains will be quieter and faster than the diesel-powered trains in current operation while also providing a better experience for passengers. The two trains will be joined by 17 others that should be in service by mid-September.
[...] It shouldn't come as any shock that the US is lagging behind the rest of the world in introducing electric trains. India is on the cusp of electrifying 100 percent of its rail lines, while China is nearing three-quarters of its network. Over 57 percent of the rail system in the European Union is electric.
It's taken almost 20 years since the idea of electric trains was first proposed in California. But officials insisted the new trains will be quieter and faster than the diesel-powered trains in current operation while also providing a better experience for passengers. The two trains will be joined by 17 others that should be in service by mid-September.
[...] It shouldn't come as any shock that the US is lagging behind the rest of the world in introducing electric trains. India is on the cusp of electrifying 100 percent of its rail lines, while China is nearing three-quarters of its network. Over 57 percent of the rail system in the European Union is electric.
are the freight rail lines going to add power to t (Score:2)
are the freight rail lines going to add power to the tracks!
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What about a hovering wireless charger? One that travels with the train and hovers just above it.
That's no good because obviously trains, like most other things, have the charging coil underneath. If you want to do that you need to connect the 10Gigavolt USB-C+ cables to the hovering craft and then dangle the charging pad from them under the train. Apart from that, it's a good guess and "overhead" chargers are pretty much how trains work all over Europe and in most of Asia. Just don't forget to stop charging before you reach 100% charge. Remember electric trains were invented in the 1800s and they didn
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*snerk*
In case anybody takes this seriously:
You simply put the charge controller on the train, so it works like properly designed laptops and cell phones where even though voltage is still being presented to the charge port, it isn't being transmitted to the batteries.
If you have complete electrification for the route, like say, a trolly service, then you don't even need batteries. A few miles worth of batteries can be good to keep the system going during a short power outage. More batteries could allow y
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Another use for an on board battery pack is for pulling away from stations. That takes a serious amperage compared to running at a constant speed between stations. There was a line in the UK (since upgraded) where only two relatively short trains were allowed to be on a 60 mile stretch of track at any one time because if you added a third it wouldn't be able to restart after the first station stop.
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Correct. A transmission capable of the power needs and stepdown necessary for a huge train would be about the size of the entire locomotive. It's much smaller and more efficient to run diesel generators -> electronics -> Motors. Just putting "batteries" in with the electronics should be a simple engineering task.
After that, you can put on a connector for an overhead line, so you don't even need the generators all the time.
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This is how it has been for a long time. The brakes are also electric, but the electricity from those goes to heating elements on the roof.
As for electric trains, that probably isn't to difficult -- add a third wire, as from the TFA, there is the power wire appearing to hang over the train. This is also not new. Austin used to have streetcars that did this exact thing 100+ years ago, similar with SF.
Re: are the freight rail lines going to add power (Score:2)
You know BART is an electric train, right?
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With a nice, stolid steel axle and solid steel wheels connecting them.
Great idea.
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Other than subway systems, most electrified railways use overhead wires for power rather than rails (which are always additional rails, not the ones that support the wheels).
Re:Freight rail electrification (Score:2)
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This is yet more American exceptionalism as to why it can't possibly be done in America when other countries manage it fine.
Here's a double-height electrified freight corridor in India. It runs about 1000 miles with trains up to 15,000 tonnes.
https://www.railjournal.com/freight/indian-railways-launches-electric-double-stack-container-operation/ [railjournal.com]
The efficiencies of electric traction vs diesel traction make it a winner economically in the long run, but it requires up front investment that the private owners
Goalpost move, err train station move (Score:5, Insightful)
It's taken almost 20 years since the idea of electric trains was first proposed in California.
The original plan had trains running from northern california to southern california. Its 20 years and they got one small segment running. Sort of like our federal EV charger network. By the time politicians create all the carveouts and regulations for various constituents, supporters and donors the price balloons and far less gets done.
Typical modern california, speaking from over 40 years of experience.
Re:Goalpost move, err train station move (Score:5, Insightful)
Typical modern california, speaking from over 40 years of experience.
Yet still far less backwards than most of the country.
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Typical modern california, speaking from over 40 years of experience.
Yet still far less backwards than most of the country.
With cherry picked metrics most do not care about, I suppose so.
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The UK has this problem too. The UK is in decline though, this is how it ends.
Can it be reversed? Do countries just reach a point where they can't build anything and then collapse?
It's not that the goal post was moved (Score:3, Informative)
The most famous and well documented example of interference with California's rail initiative was the hyperloop but there's been plenty more. Car companies do not want you to have access to fast rail. Neither do airlines. You wait in line so long to get on a plane these days but it can be literally faster to go by train.
It's the same thing with how health insurance companies were terrified of the public option because they could
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Its 20 years and they got one small segment running. Sort of like our federal EV charger network.
This is the first time I heard that Biden was president 20 years ago. Was this a time machine situation, did you think Biden was some future looking senator who sponsored this stuff back in the Obama era, or do you actually believe a large government program actually has a turnaround time of under 4 years? One of the things I said is stupidly unbelievable, and it's not the time machine bit.
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It's taken almost 20 years since the idea of electric trains was first proposed in California.
The original plan had trains running from northern california to southern california. Its 20 years and they got one small segment running. Sort of like our federal EV charger network. By the time politicians create all the carveouts and regulations for various constituents, supporters and donors the price balloons and far less gets done.
This is mixing up two separate projects. The high-speed train from San Francisco to LA has been laughable so far, with even the much simpler (technically and financially) Central Valley segments significantly delayed with huge cost overruns. The Caltrain electrification of the long existing line going from San Francisco to past San Jose is what is finally going forward. That latter project is far less ambitious and shouldn't have taken this long.
Meanwhile, the high-speed line from Las Vegas to Rancho Cuc
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let me check with the airline lobbyist how that progress is going.
lots of gratuity flying around.
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Re:just have to build the tracks once (Score:5, Informative)
The thing that is in the way of doing 120 mph from Chicago to Denver is: the dozen 100-car freight trains that are already on that track. That rail network is most definitely not empty - there are other trains on it. Amtrak doesn't have its own rail network; it piggybacks on the freight rail network. And Amtrak is a 2nd-class citizen on that network, having to yield to whoever else is there.
Even if there were no other trains, the rail itself isn't spec'ed for 120-mph trains. You could try, but would almost certainly derail at the first sharp curve.
Other nations that have successful high-speed rail (France, China, Japan, etc.) run their passenger trains on dedicated tracks, designed specifically for that purpose.
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People don't ride it because it's slower than driving. Fix that and people will use it. For example, the higher speed Acela train between Washington DC and NYC owns 83% [amtrak.com] of the market for air and train trips connecting the two cities.
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Denver even moved their airport farther from downtown, took 21 years to run a train to it, and redeveloped the old land.
FTFY
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Very little of the nation's population lives where high speed train service is practical.
Why is it not practical? Tornados? Earthquakes?
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Where HSR is practical in the US the areas are already built up, urbanized, have people's homes & schools & workplaces located on the land.
Or the land is considered enviromentally sensitive or green space or geologically unstable so stuff will likely never be built on it.
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Where HSR is practical in the US the areas are already built up, urbanized, have people's homes & schools & workplaces located on the land.
That's true for Europe too, yet European countries and Japan managed to build high-speed rail, so such issues don't seem to preclude it. Geologically unstable is the only real issue, but Japan seems to be able to work with that too.
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Things can change though. When trains were first put in, cities formed around areas on the tracks, because the train made life easy to go to places.
If we can get both good freight rail and high speed passenger rail, then people could live well away from a city core and commute to downtown without having to worry about driving there. It also means goods can be shipped closer to the last mile, which also cuts down on things. This won't impact long haul trucking, as there will be a ton of places where that
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It's considered problematic because of the fixed infrastructure required for rail is a perfect venue for organized labor to wield control over the terms of business. Same as shipping through ports. They don't need to worry about that with interstate trucking or air freight.
And then you can understand why we have what we have in three sentences. Cut that Gordian knot and the idiocy will end.
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I would also love to take a cross country train trip just to see the sheer expanse of everything.
Do it. It's awesome. I took the Amtrak from Denver to the east coast, because I wanted to make a few stops along the way and this blew out the cost of flights. Also it was a time when the assholes at the TSA were insisting that you arrive 2.5 hours early at the airport (and you really were in line for at least two hours).
The train was a revelation. Stations tend to be right downtown (so no airport shuttle/taxis) and if the train leaves at 8.30, you can get on it at 8.25. You can bring your bottle of water o
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Not to mention that rail and trackbed wear out, and you must maintain them.
Just like roads and airports.
Re: just have to build the tracks once (Score:4, Informative)
You are wrong. https://www.amtrak.com/content... [amtrak.com]
Federal law requires Amtrak passenger trains to receive preference over freight transportation, but the
largest cause of delay to Amtrak trains on host railroads is “Freight Train Interference,” typically caused by a
freight railroad requiring an Amtrak passenger train to wait so that its freight trains can operate first.
Host railroads often delay Amtrak trains, carrying hundreds of passengers, in favor of their trains carrying coal,
garbage, crude oil, empty freight cars, or any other freight that the host chooses to prioritize over Amtrak
passengers. Sometimes a host railroad will make Amtrak passengers trail a slower freight train, often for 50 to
100 miles, or wait in a siding while a lengthy freight train gets priority on the rail line. In the past several years,
host railroads increasingly operate longer trains that can't fit in sidings, causing service issues along main routes.
This means Amtrak trains are often forced to wait in sidings, causing more frequent and longer delays for
passengers.
Just like I said.
Re: just have to build the tracks once (Score:2)
The distance between the sidings is too long so a 30mph freight train would never get going until it's time for the next 100mph passenger train.
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Gee, why is Amtrak waiting if they have priority. Fact us frieght rules.
There is no physical way to stuff a 12 or 15,000 foot container train in a siding that is less than 8,000 feet long. So Am-Slow goes in the hole while the containers pass it by.
And before you say Just make the sidings longer know this, the railroads USED TO own the ROW next to their tracks in most places, thanks to land grants authorized by the US Federal Government. Now those lands tend to be privately owned and nobody wants a RR siding going through their house.
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As for TSA, CA is thoroughly capable of coming up with something even worse.
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I'd guess if the trains became popular you'd end up with tsa lines at railway stations,
Other countries don't - why would the USA be different?
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Cool, now do nuclear power plants.
They can be delayed for a long time, maybe even 1/3 to 1/2 the time as a wind project offf of Nantucket. 30 years for that wind project.
Swiss Train standards FTW (Score:2)
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Because Switzerland is a tiny country.
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So? Americans aren't regularly travelling form Fluffy Landings to Humptulips daily.
LA is about 2x the size of Switzerland. 2x the area, 2x the population and much less varied terrain. And yet LA sucks.
You might wish to consider why. Size does not appear to be the reason.
Re: Swiss Train standards FTW (Score:2)
(Sorry US, it is just too funny to see how you react when you are not the greatest at something. Relax, we will still live you.)
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Losers find excuses, winners solutions!
It's really funny because Americans always manage to find excuse for their dogshit infrastructure.
I think last time it was about the electrical grid. After some back and forth discussion, it turned out that the population was, at the same time, too dense, but also not dense enough to support a robust grid.
Really weird how it always happens to be JUST the exact conditions where better things aren't possible. The whole country is too big to cover with rail, but the North-East or California are already too bui
Re: Swiss Train standards FTW (Score:2)
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Los Angeles, the greater metro area.
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Because Switzerland is a tiny country.
Yes. A tiny country, with a tiny population, thus a tiny GDP, tiny amount of resources for construction, tiny budget from taxes.
If you want to compare landmass you need to compare everything else. Let's compare
California's area is 10x that of Switzerland
California's population is 5x of Switzerland
California's GDP is 5x that of Switzerland
So based on that California's trains should be half as good as Switzerland. .... Half... Not "fucking atrocious", not "the butt of every joke about American infrastructure"
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Because Switzerland is a tiny country.
With lots of accessible hydro power due to annual melting of snow pack and slow melting of ancient glaciers.
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california is 10 times the size of switzerland
Right, but places like India, China and Russia manage to do okay with trains and they are even bigger still. Even Canada's rail network seems okay if slow.
california has a huge car culture.
As do Germans. I think there are big differences in public policy too.
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Because Switzerland doesn't have massive entrenched financial interests dedicated to keeping a car-based system. That prevents the significant investment we'd need to make to get such trains.
Re:Swiss Train standards FTW (Score:5, Insightful)
Because America is stupid. No really. The political system is set up so that good ideas will fail. Half the politicians truly believe that federal government should do lieterally nothing, while ensuring that their own states are incompetent. There is no long term planning to speak of. Some of the big success the US has were due to Cold War fears (interstate highway system, getting to the moon). Before WWI the US was essentially an isolationist backwater, and some people seem to have nostalgia for that.
Probably we're too big as well. But left to individual states to be independent, we'd have fabulously wealthy California, no longer sending out more in taxes to the feds than it gets back, Alabama would be dirt poor with refugees heading out to find a better life, and Texas would be rich and also still have slaves (because in real life it fought in two separate wars to retain slavery). Probably the time when Unites States were the most united was during the Cold War, again, though even then there was a lot of infighting over whether they had to treat their people like people or not.
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Yes.
But also the US like most Western countries have levels of bureauacracy, studies and reviews. And of course things like environmental impact studies are important and all, but holy shit.
As a fun example, someone showed me the Vermont BRT project in LA that I now keep going back to. They initially started a study in 2011 to identify the candidate locations. They indentified Vermont in 2013 and and today... nothing has been built 13 years after they started.
IT'S A FUCKING BUS LINE. Sure, for BRT you might
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Yes.
But also the US like most Western countries have levels of bureauacracy, studies and reviews. And of course things like environmental impact studies are important and all, but holy shit.
As a fun example, someone showed me the Vermont BRT project in LA that I now keep going back to. They initially started a study in 2011 to identify the candidate locations. They indentified Vermont in 2013 and and today... nothing has been built 13 years after they started.
IT'S A FUCKING BUS LINE. Sure, for BRT you might need to build some new stops but c'mon. The estimated completion for BRT was 2028 and who knows if that's on track, and 2067 for rail. Twenty sixty seven. Like half of the population won't live long enough to see... an urban light rail line. Not fusion power.
Not trying to shit on this specific project, they seem to be doing all they can to move faster, but the overall system is just nuts.
https://threadreaderapp.com/th... [threadreaderapp.com] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I will say the Swiss have cornered the market on bureaucracy. But somehow they made it effective and ended up with a much better result - the trains would not be so good if not for the bureaucracy tat set the bar so high. With regards for the arguments "State xyz is 10 times the size of Switzerland" - With the exception of some of the rocky mountain states, the complexity of the Swiss rail system is astonishing - tunnels bored through mountains, trains running under towns with not hint of their existence
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Switzerland is a monoculture with about 9 million people total.
The S in USA stands for 'States', as in separate sovereign entities of which there are currently 50. All of Switzerland would fit into Texas (one of the States) nearly 17 times. Starting to get an idea of the scope of the problem?
I really did try not to be condescending when crafting this; it is just a side effect of reducing the issue to simple terms.
Re:Swiss Train standards FTW (Score:5, Informative)
Switzerland is a monoculture with about 9 million people total.
The S in USA stands for 'States', as in separate sovereign entities of which there are currently 50. All of Switzerland would fit into Texas (one of the States) nearly 17 times. Starting to get an idea of the scope of the problem?
I really did try not to be condescending when crafting this; it is just a side effect of reducing the issue to simple terms.
Switzerland is a not a monoculture: It is called Swiss Confederation, hence the CH code, for a reason. Switzerland is a federal state, as are the USA.
Additionally there are four official languages, which makes it even less of a monoculture.
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Additionally there are four official languages, which makes it even less of a monoculture.
We have no official language! I promise you more languages are commonly spoken here than there. And we have mandates in at least some states that we will communicate with you in any language at no cost to you, and use translation services like AT&T language line to meet them.
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Switzerland is a monoculture with about 9 million people total.
Los Angeles County has more than that.
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Spoken matter-of-factly, while ignoring the fact there was nothing in the OP that could be remotely considered racist, nor are culture and race the same.
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A train vacation through large parts of Europe is quite a bit of fun.
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The main issue as I see it is how spending is allocated in the US vs smaller European countries. In the US, it might make sense, even be profitable to do a large infrastructure project that would help tens of millions of people, but such projects have to get approval through the house and senate and the senator from Wyoming doesn't want to spend billions on an east coast rail project, he wants it to go to farming subsidies or tax cuts for his rich donors.
Even if the tax payers in the region are contributin
Re: Swiss Train standards FTW (Score:2)
A project that only benefits one region should be funded by region getting the benefit.
Why should California taxpayers be subsidizing a commuter rail system in Mass.? Or vice-versa?
Government passenger trains should be revenue-neutral, the vast majority of Amtrak routes operate at a loss, why do we run them? Why are taxpayers subsiding trains people aren't taking?
Stupid headline, not the first at all (Score:2, Informative)
Implying this is something new is just dumb. Lots of commuter lines are either full electric or have locomotives that are both diesel and electric. They can use diesel if there is a section that lacks overhead lines. The entire NYC MTA subway and above ground rail system is electric. Every light rail in my area is full electric.
Now, what is big news is California actually completed something, only 20 years after it was proposed. But the article says "These tracks we're running on were built 160 years ago"
Uh, no. Caltrain only runs in N. California . . . (Score:3)
. . . and N. California is obviously not the entire US.
FWIW, the Northeast Corridor has been electrified since the very early 20th Century [wikipedia.org].
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Don't forget Chicago, New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia commuter lines, too.
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Chicago and the NY-NJ region along with Philly have a fair share of diesel powered trains.
Lots of Metra diesel power departs and arrives Union station with passenger cars in-tow loaded with paying customers.
NY-NJ region has a number of lines that are still the province of diesel power: the farther reaches of the LIRR, some lines in Metro-North (Port Jervis Line, the Danbury Turn), and parts of NJ.
Philly area I only suppose they still have some diesel powered lines about, no actual knowledge of the area.
Bost
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There's a lot of NIMBYs in this area of California. The obvious route for BART was to go down the peninsula. But the ultra wealthy in Menlo Park won't give up any land, and they won't even allow a decent bypass freeway east to west (thus the cars all coming off of a bridge fanout onto residential streets). CalTrain is only through there because it was there when Menlo Park was just for the weekend mansions of the San Francisco robber barons. Today people complain when there's any noise in building infras
fair spending vs. logical (Score:2)
News flash everyone, especially the older generation: people will not take transit/bicycle/alternatives until automobiles, and the experience surrounding automobiles, are worse than any alternative. This means being ok with gridlock, high gas prices, high
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We have this car-centric culture because of a literal conspiracy which stifled competition and manufactured consent through government manipulation. Some of the original members were found guilty of it, though none were punished (they literally handed out $5 fines) and it is still ongoing today.
Consequently, driving should be considered a human right in this country, unless and until this situation can be remedied.
However, as you have noted, it is not. Therefore it is just another way to separate the haves
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Re: fair spending vs. logical (Score:2)
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...This means being ok with gridlock, high gas prices, high parking prices, intensive state inspections, high registration fees and taxes, surcharges on everything, not being able to park directly next to your destination, not mandating parking minimums with new construction, not spending $150mil to re-do a single interchange, heavily regulating vehicle size, and adding congestion pricing to every major American downtown. Suck it up, younger people are sick of having to pay for your "right" to drive.
Do you understand that this plan would hurt the poor people most of all? Not every job is accessible by public transit even within city limits. You'd basically be forcing poor people to only have jobs in their poor neighborhoods. The jobs in those areas don't usually provide an opportunity to get out of poverty.
Freight lines (even if electrified) won't get the product to most destinations without having to be put on a likely gas powered semi-trailer. The price for having that vehicle and fueling it under
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I've lived in Boston, Dallas, Sao Pa
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People love the idea of self driving cars, because then they can nap while stuck in gridlock :-) It will be like using mass transit but without being reminded that poor people exist.
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The US will not be "all aboard" with any sort of transit until the government and its citizens stop demanding equal or better spending on single passenger automobile infrastructure. This ridiculous balance was present even in Biden's infrastructure bill.
And why not? Cars are the superior mode of transportation, except for very long distances or in dense hellscapes like Manhattan.
There's electric trains... (Score:2)
I wonder what Californian electric trains will be like?
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Not a fair comparison at all. Spanish and French high speed trains run on dedicated tracks built for that speed. It's also easier to run high speeds tracks as the countries are much larger and have lower population density outside major cities etc. which makes land appropriation easier. The UK High speed line currently only runs between London and Paris via the Tunnel. Spains network only came into existence in the last 20 years built entirely with EU generosity as train services outside France and Germany
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Re: "It's also easier to run high speeds tracks as the countries are much larger and have lower population density outside major cities etc." - Again, nope. Train lines in Spain run through some of the most expensive real estate in the country. Commuter & high speed rail stations increase the
Not really (Score:3)
what is the law? (Score:2)
SF to San Jose? (Score:2)
Big deal, what's the deal with SF to LA?
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No, these are just regular low-speed commute trains.
Also the "high speed" trains really aren't ... they'll go a little faster than normal, for a few parts of the trip, but they won't be that much faster (nothing like the Japanese bullet trains), and for a lot of the trip they'll be operating at standard speeds.
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A few decades back, EV batteries were around an order of magnitude more expensive, and diesel a fraction of the price.
If the costs of Fuel A have doubled over time, and the costs of Fuel B have been cut in half, then it's entirely possible that the economics have flipped.
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This has nothing to do with batteries. An electric train uses overhead HV wires and a pantograph. Since trains are used differently in US and most other countries the power source economics won't always work out the same. The closest country to US as far as freight transport is China, but I can't find info now on how much of their rail is electrified and how that electricity is paid for.
In the UK most of the passenger and commuter trains run on electric, either OHV wires or 3rd rail or both.
UK freight trains, oddly enough, all still seem to be diesel powered.
There are any number of YT videos that back up my statements.
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It has lots to do with batteries, at least potentially. That current electric trains use HV wires and pantographs is something I well know. I also know that there's nothing stopping them from having batteries as well.
Running overhead HV wires is expensive if you have to string them huge distances. If, on the other hand, you can get similar range out of a locomotive that has batteries rather than diesel generators and a big fuel tank, for less money over time, the train companies should jump on it. I say