- no, you probably wouldn’t wire all of our rail mileage. they’re called “main lines” for a reason - battery electrification solution will require additional generation capacity, and last time I checked hydrogen production requires quite a bit of power. - re: OpEx impacts, see 1 - ThreadSky

a320lga.bsky.social • 4 days ago

- no, you probably wouldn’t wire all of our rail mileage. they’re called “main lines” for a reason
- battery electrification solution will require additional generation capacity, and last time I checked hydrogen production requires quite a bit of power.
- re: OpEx impacts, see 1

Comments

isanobody.bsky.social•4 days ago

Most hydrogen production is from methane (until we mandate green H2) and batteries don't need to coordinate generation and usage as precisely.

crzwdjk.bsky.social•4 days ago

Batteries mean you need a much higher power connection from the grid though!

isanobody.bsky.social•4 days ago

You just need batteries all the way down. https://bsky.app/profile/isanobody.bsky.social/post/3lj7jyhlbqk2v

crzwdjk.bsky.social•4 days ago

That is a LOT of batteries though, train locomotive power is measured in megawatts, and a freight train might have 4 of them. Now figure out how much energy a 2 mile long freight train needs to climb, say, the Donner Pass.

isanobody.bsky.social•4 days ago

Would wiring Donner Pass be subject to CEQA? It may be hopeless either way.

crzwdjk.bsky.social•4 days ago

Didn't California pass a CEQA exemption specifically for railroad electrification? @alfredtwu.com seems like someone who might know.

crzwdjk.bsky.social•4 days ago

(All that said, there will be parts of the network operated on battery and probably all electric freight locomotives will have some battery capacity for last mile kinds of stuff if nothing else)

a320lga.bsky.social•4 days ago

Re H2: yes, sorry, was assuming that green H2 gets mandated at some point.

Re batteries: that’s true-ish. Unless you’re willing to take a significant hit on loco availability your charging is going to happen when trains are in yards, which isn’t going to be strongly correlated w demand troughs.

isanobody.bsky.social•4 days ago

At some efficiency costs you could put some stationary batteries in the yards and charge the locos off them. Does the report go into the hassles of interconnecting to the grid? Behind-the-meter generation might be good for them like it is for data centers.

a320lga.bsky.social•4 days ago

this report is pretty clearly written to provide talking points to those who want to stop legislative efforts around electrifying railroads, so, well, this is about what you’d expect. but to the extent this represents the real level of engagement w research…yikes

ofsevit.bsky.social•4 days ago

What's the difference between a consultant and an expert?

A consultant you bring in from 1000 miles away to tell you what you want to hear, while an expert you bring in from 2000 miles away to tell you what you want to hear.

zmapper.bsky.social•4 days ago

It reflects poorly on HDR that they accepted them as a client only to produce shoddy work

catransitnerd.bsky.social•4 days ago

its classic. DB made a study for caltrans that recommended H2 which GoBiz and Calsta already like meanwhile a nearly identical study for Front Runner said battery+OCS hybrid was the way to go

monsieurmarko.bsky.social•4 days ago

HDR is in it to make their bread, what the customer wants the customer gets

mdasilva.bsky.social•4 days ago

Why would the Class Is be against electrification paid for by the taxpayer?

starlinechicago.bsky.social•4 days ago

Because all change is bad

a320lga.bsky.social•4 days ago

and I’m sure they’re worried they’ll be asked to pay part of the bill

mdasilva.bsky.social•4 days ago

Idea - tax diesel fuel to pay for electrification. It’ll be a race to not be the last one reliant on diesels.

starlinechicago.bsky.social•4 days ago

In the “defense” of Class Is, electrification doesn’t have all that many benefits over diesel when you’re hauling 12,000’ unit trains of coal, which is all the Class Is really want to do

prrsignal.bsky.social•4 days ago

The industry spent the past 30 years and billions to create wireless railroads. Even fiber optics were done away with for signaling in favor of wireless data. Electric power is solar or local utility.

Re-wiring would fly in the face of a major goal of dumping "line departments".

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply