The issue with electrifying rail networks is that it’s very expensive and modern diesel-electric locomotives are already over a hundred times more efficient than trucks. So while it does reduce emissions to replace a diesel locomotive with a fully electric train you’re far better off getting hundreds of trucks off the road and adding one new diesel-electric locomotive!
The main issue with Diesel trains is that they tend to be in service for 50+ years. So while they might be decent today, that won’t hold true for very long. Sure, better than diesel trucks, but if there’s a EV truck revolution in 10 years, the Diesel train still has 40 more years to go.
Electric trains on the other hand have been very close to the theoretical limit of efficiency for decades now, and their total system efficiency keeps getting better the more renewable energy sources go online and coal and gas powerplants go offline.
An electric train keeps getting better and better, while a Diesel train does not.
But suppose we eliminated 99% of all trucks on the road. Emissions from trucks would then be insignificant in the big picture.
Well that’s what diesel trains do for us. If we could reduce global emissions by 99% across the board we’d be done. Tearing the earth apart for an EV revolution just to eliminate that last 1% would not be worth it.
Basically all diesel locomotives are actually diesel electric, where the deisel engine is just a giant generator which feeds the electric motors. It should be extremely easy to put on pantagraphs and have it run on electric power on electrified portions of the tracks while transitioning.
Heck imagine if they just electrified the mainlines and tracks running through city centers then powered up the diesel generator for going onto branch lines and sidings
Of course the biggest benefit of overhead wires is the insane amount of acceleration it enables, plus for big climbs the locomotives don’t have to pollute so much, and dynamic brakes (where the motors are reversed into generators and the energy is dumped into giant resister banks) could be adapted into regenerative brakes to dump energy onto the grid too
The issue with electrifying rail networks is that it’s very expensive and modern diesel-electric locomotives are already over a hundred times more efficient than trucks. So while it does reduce emissions to replace a diesel locomotive with a fully electric train you’re far better off getting hundreds of trucks off the road and adding one new diesel-electric locomotive!
I would say that’s an efficient diesel vehicle which just sort of slots in with its vehicle type in the list above, but good points.
The main issue with Diesel trains is that they tend to be in service for 50+ years. So while they might be decent today, that won’t hold true for very long. Sure, better than diesel trucks, but if there’s a EV truck revolution in 10 years, the Diesel train still has 40 more years to go.
Electric trains on the other hand have been very close to the theoretical limit of efficiency for decades now, and their total system efficiency keeps getting better the more renewable energy sources go online and coal and gas powerplants go offline.
An electric train keeps getting better and better, while a Diesel train does not.
But suppose we eliminated 99% of all trucks on the road. Emissions from trucks would then be insignificant in the big picture.
Well that’s what diesel trains do for us. If we could reduce global emissions by 99% across the board we’d be done. Tearing the earth apart for an EV revolution just to eliminate that last 1% would not be worth it.
Basically all diesel locomotives are actually diesel electric, where the deisel engine is just a giant generator which feeds the electric motors. It should be extremely easy to put on pantagraphs and have it run on electric power on electrified portions of the tracks while transitioning.
Heck imagine if they just electrified the mainlines and tracks running through city centers then powered up the diesel generator for going onto branch lines and sidings
Of course the biggest benefit of overhead wires is the insane amount of acceleration it enables, plus for big climbs the locomotives don’t have to pollute so much, and dynamic brakes (where the motors are reversed into generators and the energy is dumped into giant resister banks) could be adapted into regenerative brakes to dump energy onto the grid too