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There are around 300,000 km of active rail in the US, essentially none of which is electrified. Then there are 10s of thousands of diesel locomotives that would
by gok 5y ago
There are around 300,000 km of active rail in the US, essentially none of which is electrified. Then there are 10s of thousands of diesel locomotives that would need to be all replaced. This would cost trillions of dollars, more than any reasonable estimate of rail revenue for the several decades. Then those overhead wires would need to be maintained, which is much more expensive than just keeping rails functional.
- dylan604 5y agoAren't they diesel-electric though? It's not like a diesel engine is turning the wheels. The diesel is just power the electric motor driving the wheels, or are these not the norm?
- gok 5y agoYes but the expensive part of the locomotive is either the diesel generator or the equipment to take power from overhead wires (on-board inverters and the pantographs). It's not generally practical to convert one to another.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- projektfu 5y agoThere's almost certainly a power law applying to which tracks are getting the most use. If you can electrify 50% of traffic you would make a great upgrade, and it wouldn't require anything near 150,000km of track.
- gok 5y agoThe operational complexity is nontrivial. You would need to attach both diesel and electrical locomotion to every train that has even a small segment in unwired territory, which would be most runs, in exchange for relatively small fuel savings.