UK's First Rapid-Charging Battery Train Ready For Boarding (theguardian.com) 72
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: The UK's first superfast-charging train running only on battery power will come into passenger service this weekend -- operating a five-mile return route in west London. Great Western Railway (GWR) will send the converted London Underground train out from 5.30am to cover the full Saturday timetable on the West Ealing to Greenford branch line, four stops and 12 minutes each way, and now carrying up to 273 passengers, should its celebrity stoke up the demand.
The battery will recharge in just three and a half minutes back at West Ealing station between trips, using a 2,000kW charger connected to a few meters of rail that only becomes live when the train stops directly overhead. There are hopes within government and industry that this technology could one day replace diesel trains on routes that have proved difficult or expensive to electrify with overhead wires, as the decarbonization of rail continues.
The train has proved itself capable of going more than 200 miles on a single charge -- last year setting a world record for the farthest travelled by a battery-electric train, smashing a German record set in 2021. The GWR train and the fast-charge technology has been trialled on the 2.5-mile line since early 2024, but has not yet carried paying passengers.
The battery will recharge in just three and a half minutes back at West Ealing station between trips, using a 2,000kW charger connected to a few meters of rail that only becomes live when the train stops directly overhead. There are hopes within government and industry that this technology could one day replace diesel trains on routes that have proved difficult or expensive to electrify with overhead wires, as the decarbonization of rail continues.
The train has proved itself capable of going more than 200 miles on a single charge -- last year setting a world record for the farthest travelled by a battery-electric train, smashing a German record set in 2021. The GWR train and the fast-charge technology has been trialled on the 2.5-mile line since early 2024, but has not yet carried paying passengers.
Re: or.... (Score:3, Funny)
Or, stick to horse drawn carriages!
Why not just use steam trains? (Score:2)
Re: or.... (Score:2)
You want to run public transit with a disposable energy source and higher maintenance costs?
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Yep, they should stay away from this newfangled stuff and never do anything differently and no experiments! This way they are only frightening the small people that cannot deal with change.
Light passenger rail... (Score:5, Interesting)
Light passenger rail is ideal for batteries. With lightweight trains and low rolling resistance, coupled with regenerative braking, it should be pretty easy on the batteries. The only issue would be the batteries catching fire underground...might be better for surface transport.
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Or, you could use these magical things called overhead wires or the less-obtrusive third rails to supply energy to the train along the entirety of the route. And not even need batteries.
Re:Light passenger rail... (Score:5, Informative)
The UK has a Victorian rail infrastructure that operates extremely intensively in a tightly constrained landscape, full of buried utilities, low overhead bridges made of stone that would need to be completely rebuilt, and lacking space at the side of the routes for transformers etc. Electrification costs a fortune, £8m per route mile. Third rail is dangerous and poorly suited to the unelectrified remaining UK routes, which are mainly intercity / freight and relatively lengthy, and it needs 750V DC, which needs way more current than 25kV AC.
Re: Light passenger rail... (Score:2)
Third rails come with hazard, require electrification along the full length which strains local grids, and for long distance can be very expensive. A system with overhead or third rail every 50 miles at or around a station might be very much cheaper.
Re: Light passenger rail... (Score:2)
Until they get stolen, it IS the U.K. after all, happens all the time here.
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Re:Light passenger rail... (Score:5, Informative)
This is for heavy rail, not light rail. Light rail, including underground, is already electrified, at least in the UK.
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This is for heavy rail, not light rail. Light rail, including underground, is already electrified, at least in the UK.
This one is still light rail, it's an EMU (electric multiple unit) used for passenger services on a branch line. Many branch lines in the UK are not electrified and still run DMUs (Diesel/Diesel-Electric Multiple Units). The rolling stock in question is a DMU (British Rail Class 230) that has been fully electrified, so replacing the diesel engine with battery packs for the electric motors.
The Greenford Branch Line is a 2 mile line London with 5 stops between two major rail lines (Great Western Main Line
Re:Light passenger rail... (Score:5, Informative)
LFP batteries are very unlikely to catch fire. You can find videos of people trying on YouTube, attacking them with power tools. One I saw only managed to set the plastic housing on fire with a blowtorch, the battery itself didn't ignite.
Plus most of the London Underground is actually above ground.
There is a train using batteries in Japan. It's not light rail, it's a conventional high-ish speed train. There is a section of the track that isn't electrified, which it uses a battery to bridge.
Re:Light passenger rail... (Score:4, Interesting)
Looks like a good trial to me. It's doing a 5 mile run between charges on a 200 mile range, so 2.5% usage. 2MW charge for 3.5 minutes is 117kWh and the battery is about 4.7MWh capacity. It's those 4 stops that are the killer. Hope there's regen braking.
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Did a bit more research, turns out, these trains were originally built by Vivarail [hoppecke.com] (using Hoppecke NMC battery tech) before being acquired by GWR.
LFP batteries aren't able to charge as fast, especially under 5 minutes using an enormous 2 MW (2000 kW) charger.
For comparison:
* A Tesla Supercharger V3: 250 kW [wikipedia.org]
* A modern electric bus with LFP: 300-450 kW
So the GWR train is charging at 5x the power of a modern fast-charging bus, and 8x a Tesla.
LFP charges at a slower pace, is a lot heavier, and has lower energy a
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Did you not read the article you posted to?! It literally says the following:
"Undoubtedly, fast charge is an exciting innovation. Capability is up to 2000kW. This compact system is powered by three of our 70kWh lithium-ion phosphate battery rafts. Each has the capacity to store 84kWh. Accordingly, 504kWh is available for use by the train’s four AC traction motors. The system incorporates two battery racks on each driving vehicle. Only two vehicles are in use at any time. The third is a spare."
Lithium-
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Wouldn't it be more efficient to provide an electric rail on the tracks? Then the train wouldn't have to carry a battery around.
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Third rail is dangerous and expensive on long overground routes.
Re:Light passenger rail ideal for wired power. (Score:1)
Rail of any kind is ideal for live wire. You already have a rail, just add one more and electrify. Either on the ground for cheap, or in the air for a minor additional cost.
Batteries are heavy. They cost power to move. You need one for every train. They have life spans less than the rail.
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Please for the love of god do some research before farting this kind of rubbish out into the world.
Electrification is wildly expensive in the UK context, because we have Victorian rail infrastructure that cannot accommodate the wires, transformers, etc, without major rebuilding of tens of thousands of structures, such as stone bridges. It costs £8m *per mile*.
Electric trains (Score:1, Insightful)
Why batteries? We've had technology (called "wires" or "third rails") to deliver electrical energy to trains for about 100 years now. Why not just electrify the route?
Re:Electric trains (Score:5, Insightful)
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Come on ... according the time stamps, he put three minutes of thought into it.
Surely that's enough.
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With that UID you've probably done the same at least once, as have I. Just keeping up the tradition!
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"... the route modernisation ... including upgrades to signalling, the modification of more than 100 bridges and structures, and work on the Severn Tunnel.
https://www.theguardian.com/bu... [theguardian.com]
Re:Electric trains (Score:4, Informative)
OK, I know the article says some routes are "difficult or expensive to electrify" but I have to call BS on that. Surely it can't be more difficult or expensive to use an old, proven technology rather than batteries and high-power chargers?
I'm not sure what you're asking here. Are you seriously dense enough to question why building hundreds of miles of electric infrastructure on existing railways sometimes in terrain that doesn't support the addition of such infrastructure (such as low bridges or tunnels) is more difficult than storing electricity in a chemical cell, something we've been doing for 200 years at this point, and building a charger in a convenient location which works while the vehicle in question is already stopped?
Do you know how long train lines are and how expensive electrification is? There's good reasons we haven't done the thing we've been capable of doing for 100 years now everywhere.
Re: Electric trains (Score:2)
Well, we won't know for sure unless we try. That they are getting to passenger trials suggest that, yes, it will be cheaper.
Re:Electric trains (Score:5, Interesting)
Welcome to the UK. It's extremely difficult and expensive to build anything, such as overhead wires or the hardware needed to support a third rail. The feasibility and safety study alone would probably cost hundreds of millions. We spent over a billion just looking at the feasibility of a tunnel under the Thames.
Much easier to just install a charger at one end of the line, and use battery powered trains.
Reminds me of efforts in Germany to install overhead wires on some roads, so that trucks could charge without stopping. Nice idea, but pointless given how cheap batteries are and how fast they can charge now.
Re: Electric trains (Score:3)
I imagine there's also other advantages, for example the overhead cables are easier to sabotage.
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True, and cable theft is an issue in the UK.
Re: Electric trains (Score:2)
That's in large part because the UK does overhead electrification in the most expensive way possible.
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We seem to do most things in the stupidest way possible.
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What's the cheap way to do overhead electrification in the UK context? Is there some magic that doesn't require you to rebuild bridges etc? If you think engineers haven't already exploited gapping, you're wrong, but it's not a magic bullet and brings its own set of problems such as managing pantograph arcing.
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Why batteries? We've had technology (called "wires" or "third rails") to deliver electrical energy to trains for about 100 years now. Why not just electrify the route?
Tell us you didn't read to the second paragraph of TFS without telling us.
Re:Just because we can, doesn't mean we should (Score:5, Informative)
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My god, you really didn't read the very article you posted, did you? Once again:
"Undoubtedly, fast charge is an exciting innovation. Capability is up to 2000kW. This compact system is powered by three of our 70kWh lithium-ion phosphate battery rafts. Each has the capacity to store 84kWh. Accordingly, 504kWh is available for use by the train’s four AC traction motors. The system incorporates two battery racks on each driving vehicle. Only two vehicles are in use at any time. The third is a spare"
LFP, n
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Moderated as "troll" and "off-topic", really?
"Redundant" perhaps, but my comment is entirely on-topic and not being a troll or insulting anyone
.
After some research, found out some of what I knew is outdated, especially regarding types of lithium technology.
This is bad for the environment (Score:1)
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If a fraction of those people choose to use cars
Why would they? I doubt most of the riders will even notice the difference.
And then to use that faulty premise to conclude that this is an environmental problem is ... let's go with 'motivated reasoning'.
Re: This is bad for the environment (Score:2)
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Big problem, trains only go from A to B, far from where most people need to be.
????
also trains make so much more noise.
You have it back to front. Cars make far, far more noise. Motorways are incredibly loud.
And most people think dieseltrains are powering the actual train much like an engine powers most ice cars, but that's not true, most dieseltrains are actual electric trains, where the dieselgenerator is generating electricity.
Not universally. The class 171 and 180 uses a hydraulic transmission.
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A full train can hold hundreds of people.
Thousands!
A modern high capacity train like the Elizabeth line holds 1500 passengers.
What about dynamic electrification of a rail? (Score:2)
A train runs on rails. What about a system where the set of rails on one side of the track is dynamically electrified? Charging wheels on the same side of the train receive energy through the dynamically-electrified 'charging rail'. The rail is comprised of separate charging segments (eg. distinct rail segments), each of which can switch its voltage to high or ground. The rail is also intelligent - it communicates with the vehicle and predicts its position in time. That way, the rail switches the correct s
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Re: What about dynamic electrification of a rail? (Score:2)
Too much - except the job of electrical isolation of rail segments may already have been done for us.. see reply to the other responder below.
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Not needing a pantograph but needing isolators between rail segments is just trading one problem for another. Pantographs aren't cheap, but they are simple in principle and highly reliable.
Re: What about dynamic electrification of a rail? (Score:2)
Thats true, but I think using a pantograph vitiates against high speed.
Also, the job of electrically isolating individual rails segments may have been done for us. Yes, adjacent rails are often electrically bonded together. However, the entire track is divided into track circuit sections or "blocks". At the boundary of each block, an insulated joint is installed.
These joints physically separate the rail segments, breaking the electrical connection between them to define a specific, isolated block of track.
Re: What about dynamic electrification of a rail? (Score:3)
That is what this train does. It's just that the dynamic charging section is very short.
Re: What about dynamic electrification of a rail? (Score:2)
Yes :). It's basically one spot in the entire rail network..
Orders of magnitude cheaper than electrification (Score:5, Insightful)
Just to give a rough sense, for a 100 mile intercity route, it would cost about £900m in capex to electrify in the UK (£8m per mile plus power supply upgrades etc at £100m). Deploying the BEV technology would cost about £40m in capex (8 trains at £3m per, 3 charge sites at £2m per, grid strengthening at £10m). BEV opex is mainly battery replacement, figure £24m; electrification opex is OLE and equipment, figure £200m. So it’s like 10% of the costs.
Electrification is justified where traffic density is high (4+ tph) or expected to be high, or where there’s lots of freight, high speeds, or long gaps between stations. That said, the UK has a terrible track record of failing to electrify, and personally, I’d rather see BEV passenger trains roll out now where they can, than wait for some putative full electrification that may well never happen
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Operating expenses aren't always as predicted. A whole 'nother set of employees is going to be needed to know how to service these things. Reliability of new things is another question mark. So is the supply chain. So, have fun, we'll see how it looks in a few years.
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Well, blow me down with a feather, I would never have known that opex isn't fully predictable had it not been for your piercing insight. And as for the revelation that *staff*, actual humans, will be required for *actual servicing*, I mean my god, you have upended years of dogma and what we thought we knew about railway engineering with a single mighty blow. Truly, you are some colossal titan of intellectual vigour. Except for the bit where you think railway staff cannot be trained to service these trains,
Another idea (Score:3)
You put the batteries in the caboose. Instead of needing a fast recharge, you pull the caboose off the train, and shove on a fresh one, then go and park the old caboose somewhere where it can charge for 24hr
Or maybe you have the 2nd car of the train hold the batteries. (remember in the days of steam trains there was a coal car next to the loco)
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British trains do not have a caboose. If the second car held the batteries, then swapping that car out would require decoupling two cars, moving both ends of the train (with no traction power from the battery), moving in the replacement battery car, and re-coupling. That would take far too long for a passenger rail service
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Put the batteries in the driver cabs. At the end of the line, detach the cabs and replace them while people are deboarding and boarding. This could be done without human assistance.
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How is this better than just recharging the batteries?
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Re: Another idea (Score:2)
I'm no train expert but I've taken them in the UK. Think about the space and logistics to move a rail car 'out of the way'. If the battery packs are similar size, you need multiple of those for a single train. You're also buying at least twice as many batteries to have two packs, possibly more if you want to swap batteries less often than you would have charged. And for what benefit? Perhaps you now have battery packs that last 2-4x longer but much higher upfron
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We don't use cabeese for passenger rail in the UK.
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Cabooses are not really a part of modern rail, and they've always been a freight thing.
Now that's not to say the idea of having a dedicated railcar that's batteries is a bad idea, but it's almost certainly not necessary. Single floored passenger railcars generally have a lot of space underneath the main carriage - and Britain's loading gauge is too restricted for double decker trains (before anyone comments, no, Bullied's odd interlaced thing isn't really double decker and doesn't disprove the point! Plus i
Firstly, it's a 2 MW charger (Score:2)
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I give them a pass on that one. Their readers (not the ones on /.) are probably familiar with kW, but might not know what a MW is. The usual stupidity is things like "kilowatts per hour", or my favorite "kilowatt-hours per day."
I built a station in Ealing. (Score:2)