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Anonymous Thu 14 Jul 2022 02:13:23 No.1825593 View View Reply Original Report

Quoted By: >>1825638 >>1825649 >>1825664 >>1825672 >>1826536 >>1831567 >>1831569

What are actually the advantages of railway electrification nowadays?
I know historically in the early 1900s it was simply not having to deal anymore with the pollution of coal and oil fired steam engines in urban areas and tunnels anymore, and being independent of fossil fuels as opposed to diesel and coal, but what else, especially in an operational sense?
Do electric trains, taking into account the overhead wires, really require that much less maintenance than modern diesel ones?

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 14 Jul 2022 02:37:57 No.1825599 Report

Quoted By:

electric trains also have way higher top speed (this could maybe be achieved by diesel electric but that is not really an efficient way to do it)

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 14 Jul 2022 05:33:23 No.1825638 Report

Quoted By:

>>1825593
Power, efficiency and top speeds are the advantages, yes.
As for maintenance - less on the locos (it's basically the diesel-electric without the diesel prime mover), but way more maintenance in the infrastructure as additionally to the catenary you also need all the power lines to the tracks and substations. And every tree near the tracks is a risk which puts your operations to a halt for several hours...
So electrification in high pop density areas, where you can build and maintain the infra - yes. On long overland routes (US/Canada TransCon routes), where you are hours from civilization... Yeah, not really.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 14 Jul 2022 06:59:21 No.1825649 Report

Quoted By:

>>1825593
as with most things there's unfortunately no neat, simple answer. still, in a general sense, something that draws power from an overhead cable to drive a motor, will therefore have fewer consumable & moving parts (and thus a different maintenance regime) than something that draws power from igniting hydrocarbons in its belly.

>what else, especially in an operational sense?
an overhead cable can supply more power to a motor than the output of a diesel-electric generator, and in a faster timeframe - and of course an electric train doesn't need to carry their fuel around with them either. which is how electric trains can reach high top speeds - but more importantly, how they can accelerate to reach that top speed faster than their diesel-electric or diesel-hydraulic counterparts. so you can therefore (in theory) get faster, more frequent service out of electric trains by virtue of their superior acceleration, compared to their diesel counterparts.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 14 Jul 2022 07:02:04 No.1825650 Report

Quoted By:

which was also the original argument for diesel displacing coal/steam - less manpower, simple fuelling, a more potent fuel with greater energy output.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 14 Jul 2022 07:43:34 No.1825664 Report

Quoted By:

>>1825593
Diesel trains are for amerifatties and their freight rails lines. The civilized world uses electrified high speed rail networks

Anonymous

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Anonymous Thu 14 Jul 2022 08:14:26 No.1825672 Report

Quoted By: >>1825692 >>1825806 >>1825834

>>1825593
All trains are electric except steam engines, it's just a question of whether the electricity is generated in a highly-efficient stationary industrial plant or by a diesel generator that the train has to carry around with it everywhere it goes.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Thu 14 Jul 2022 09:38:58 No.1825692 Report

Quoted By:

>>1825672
there are diesel-hydraulics and diesel–mechanicals
and there were even a few steam-electrics

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 14 Jul 2022 16:34:39 No.1825806 Report

Quoted By:

>>1825672
>i know you know this but, i simply *must* show you how clever i am
fuck off, pedant

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 14 Jul 2022 17:31:05 No.1825834 Report

Quoted By:

>>1825672
>a diesel generator that the train has to carry around with it everywhere it goes.
Those prime movers are robust though, they don't go much higher than 1000rpm at max throttle and their weight is an asset rather than a hindrance for freight, as the heavier a locomotive is, the more tractive effort it can provide.

Gears !MT5GearsOc

Gears !MT5GearsOc Fri 15 Jul 2022 21:57:19 No.1826536 Report

Quoted By: >>1826542

>>1825593
Will run on whatever energy carrier is available at the time and place. Coal, water, oil, gas, solar, wind, nuclear, whatever.
Very high efficiency
Very high power to weight ratio, thus either lots of power in a locomotive of given weight (DB class 103 had to be limited to 12MW because 70's catenary couldn't take more, today more would work but typically in double traction) or a rather light but also powerful drivetrain for a passenger train that's not weight limited. Power is a very important thing if you're running a line used by many trains an hour. Can't have one crawl through there because it has the traction to move but not the power to do so reasonably fast. Especially in local passenger traffic you need fast acceleration and deceleration (with break engery recovery) to maintain an attractive schedule and avoid affecting the lines capacity too much. Typical euro freight locomotives have 5.8MW continuous at 88t.
Regenerative breaking
No diesel exhaust either (although that's not that much of a problem anymore)
Locomotives only need occasional, scheduled maintenance. Wiper fluid, toilet water, sewage and sand aside, but those are rather easy to take care of. No refueling has to be scheduled.
Track maintenance is expensive, but quickly worth it if you have enough trains going through.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 15 Jul 2022 22:06:10 No.1826542 Report

Quoted By: >>1826546

>>1826536
>Locomotives only need occasional, scheduled maintenance. Wiper fluid, toilet water, sewage and sand aside, but those are rather easy to take care of.
They have an air compressor, air brake systems, transformers, inverters,cooling fans, traction motors & blowers, and electronics to control everything from throttle to dynamic/regenerative braking. I don't know about European operators but locomotives in the US and Canada are required to have basic daily inspections and more thorough inspections every 30 days. I imagine European railroads have similar requirements. They're not maintenance-free because they don't have a prime mover.

Gears !MT5GearsOc

Gears !MT5GearsOc Fri 15 Jul 2022 22:22:54 No.1826546 Report

Quoted By: >>1826548

>>1826542
Certainly they do require scheduled maintenance, but no daily or more frequent refueling. And quite a bit less still than if they had a prime mover. I'm not quite sure how frequent the little checkups are but the amount of places where these are done are few and far inbetween, so seems like it's not something done particularly often around here. None of the systems on these electric locomotives is particularly maintenance-intensive. The diesels usually need a proper depot though, small switchers aside.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 15 Jul 2022 22:26:07 No.1826548 Report

Quoted By: >>1826550

>>1826546
Electrics definitely required less maintenance than steam locomotives, but compared to modern diesels the difference is not enough to justify the switch in North America.

Gears !MT5GearsOc

Gears !MT5GearsOc Fri 15 Jul 2022 22:30:35 No.1826550 Report

Quoted By:

>>1826548
found numbers, the TRAXX3 (current wide-spread universal locomotive) needs a basic service every 40,000km (that's about 26k miles)
Dunno how much that clarifies.
North America has the disadvantage of having very long stretches of single-rail, freight-only track that sees long, but slow and few trains a day for the most part. Often in the middle of nowhere too, where the added infrastructure is very expensive, while diesel is cheap.
That's different in europe, where most major lines see dense but comparably light traffic and there's towns all over the place.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 20 Jul 2022 01:27:36 No.1828512 Report

Quoted By:

bump

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 27 Jul 2022 02:08:22 No.1831512 Report

Quoted By:

bumping

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 27 Jul 2022 04:56:44 No.1831567 Report

Quoted By:

>>1825593
Cost per kilowatt hour is generally cheaper for electric than the adjusted price for most diesel engines. Diesel trains are typically diesel-electric, so you're effectively running a diesel generator for your electric drive. The volatile shitstorm that is the oil commodities market also plays a factor in the price of operation.
The other advantage is weight savings. An electric motor is going to be lighter than diesel-electric, as it doesn't need to have a diesel generator on board the locomotive. Admittedly, this isn't such a valuable selling point when you start working with long hauls with several dozens or over a hundred cars, but for smaller trains or light rail, this actually represents some serious cost savings.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 27 Jul 2022 05:03:57 No.1831569 Report

Quoted By:

>>1825593
India's going hard on electrification. They're aiming to have all of it done by 2023.
Stated reasons/advantages are
Saving money on fuel costs, lowering dependence on foreign energy sources, leveraging railroad ROWs for solar energy generation, laying ground for HSR, lowering procurement costs, lowering emissions, contributing to national climate strategy, etc.

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