>>1734887First of all - why would american RRs want to electrify? If power/dollar from diesel is cheaper ( not saying that it is ) or at parity with electrics, than carrying the burden of getting the juice is not worth the expense. RRs would even turn down the govt if they funded the project, because govt money comes with strings attached.
That being said.
Just like on every system, american railroads carry most of their tonnage on a fairly small portion of their system. So in the beginning only the hot-spots would be electrified - I reckon that would be couple of hundred miles of mountainous routes which see heavy grain/coal traffic. Double stacks would need to be handled in one way or another - but considering that is not a problem - 96 trains per day, one every 30 minutes, with 50000hp on tow ( you want power when going over the mountains ) is _just_ 37.5MW of power. During the night the grid operator might actually like such a sink to exist. So - hundred locomotives, 100MW for the system. Easy, peasy. With 25kV you might even get away with a substation in convenient national grid attachment.
All in all - US RRs would benefit more from getting locomotives with better power/weight ratio. When I watch some videos with coal drags going with 10 locomotives ( 1800 tonnes of dead weight ) I cringe. We surely can get 6600hp diesels that are actually reliable these days.
Private operators actually prefer self-contained locomotives because of their flexibility. Even in europe. Give them the opportunity, and all of them would ride Class 66 derivatives.
