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> It is bad enough that Germany is keeping some outer regional rail branches in the exurbs of Berlin and Munich unwired; that New York has not fully electrified

by Lammy 4y ago

> It is bad enough that Germany is keeping some outer regional rail branches in the exurbs of Berlin and Munich unwired; that New York has not fully electrified is unconscionable. I think about this a lot every time I see the glacial pace of the ongoing electrification work for Caltrain on the SF peninsula — "studied" since 1992, groundbreaking in 2017, and hopefully in service by 2025 if there are no additional delays: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrification_of_Caltrain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrification_of_Caltrain Electric motive power was novel in 1895 when the B&O electrified part of the Baltimore Belt Line, but we should be good at it by now! For comparison, the PRR was able to electrify their line from New York City to Washington D.C (225 track-miles, 1928–1935) in roughly the same amount of time it will take Caltrain to build out their 77 track-miles, at which time 90 years will have passed since GG1s were zooming up and down the NEC at 100mph: https://thebhc.org/sites/default/files/beh/BEHprint/v009/p0143-p0151.pdf https://thebhc.org/sites/default/files/beh/BEHprint/v009/p01... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak%27s_25_Hz_traction_power_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak%27s_25_Hz_traction_powe... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Railroad_class_GG1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Railroad_class_GG...

lbriner 4y ago
I don't know what physical issues exist but there are immense challenges with these projects, not least of which is that you often have to do most or all of the work before you can get any benefit. You then have old trains that need replacing as well, driver training, maintenance training etc. Oh, and you also need to find a workforce of several thousand skilled workers and mostly do the work at night so that you can still run a train service. In the UK, they recently electrified a lot of the Great Western mainline and decided to go with a cheaper/quieter type of installation method - auger drills iirc - for the pillars (why not), but at certain points, they started finding large granite boulders from the original railway construction which wouldn't be drilled, which meant new plans, new equipment, new training and loads of cap-ex when they were still years away from service. They also found tonnes of electrical system conflicts which meant whole signalling systems being replaced even before they had life-expired. I love trains and I love modernisation but most of us underestimate the enormous amount of work involved in an upgrade like this.

by Lammy 4y ago

lbriner 4y ago

I don't know what physical issues exist but there are immense challenges with these projects, not least of which is that you often have to do most or all of the work before you can get any benefit. You then have old trains that need replacing as well, driver training, maintenance training etc. Oh, and you also need to find a workforce of several thousand skilled workers and mostly do the work at night so that you can still run a train service. In the UK, they recently electrified a lot of the Great Western mainline and decided to go with a cheaper/quieter type of installation method - auger drills iirc - for the pillars (why not), but at certain points, they started finding large granite boulders from the original railway construction which wouldn't be drilled, which meant new plans, new equipment, new training and loads of cap-ex when they were still years away from service. They also found tonnes of electrical system conflicts which meant whole signalling systems being replaced even before they had life-expired. I love trains and I love modernisation but most of us underestimate the enormous amount of work involved in an upgrade like this.