3 ms·
So this looks cool, but where's the improvement here over a current electric train car? Genuinely curious. The drag remains the same, and it's still electric.
by owenversteeg 9y ago
So this looks cool, but where's the improvement here over a current electric train car? Genuinely curious. The drag remains the same, and it's still electric.
Hmm, actually, I just thought of a big plus: you're not moving your massively heavy engines with you.
- brianwawok 9y agoIn a 200 car train, what percent of the weight is the engines? My rando guess is 10% max. Building all this for 10% ecceciency seems rough.
- dmurray 9y agoThere's also fuel, but I agree, that can't be much either on a typical trip. And for electric trains it's zero, with comparable infrastructure requirements (overhead power lines vs ground pvc pipe).
- ant6n 9y agoICE 3 weighs 400T, it has 16 motors that probably weigh less than 2T each. Overall the motores are most likely less than 10% of the weight (ICE 3 is a very light train overall, with lots of motors, probably giving it an unfavorable motor/train weight compared to an electric locomotive-pulled freight train). A bigger concern is the efficiency of transporting energy _to_ the train. That's one of the reasons why long distance routes use overhead electricity, because you can have higher voltage (12kv-25kv) compared to third rail (600v-1.5kv). This is like third rail on steroids -- lots of construction near the ground, probably lots of energy losses all around. Plus it's an unproven technology, with a single vendor. It'll be a hard sell.