I wonder if they have done studies on what the cost of electrification is for hybrid trains. A lot of the complication of electrification is that you have to r

I wonder if they have done studies on what the cost of electrification is for hybrid trains. A lot of the complication of electrification is that you have to raise road bridges to make space for the overhead power lines, you have to make tunnels larger and you have to put power lines 100s of places where they are really hard to install. But imagine a train that can go for a kilometre or two without power lines, because it's a hybrid. Suddenly every low bridge and most tunnels are handled by just lowering the pantograph (power pick-up) as you go under them. If lines cross in strange ways or go under buildings you just don't put power lines there. At level crossings you skip the power lines, so no tall trucks will hit them. I think there are probably huge savings to be made by putting the power lines in the easiest places and bridging the rest with hybrid. The battery recharges at speed as soon as power returns. You can even install a small diesel motor on the locomotive that has enough power (with gearing?) to creep to the next overhead power line if the train is unexpectedly stranded. When a power line is downed by a tree (or a cable thief), the cleanup crew just removes that section. It is put up later when the backlog from the storm has been cleared. Of course you need the train to know its location and have an updated list of where to lower the pantograph. That seems to me like a totally solvable problem in 2022. It's like 100 times easier than a self-driving car or landing a rocket with retropropulsion.