Hi. I’m Sam, a railfan based out of Eastern Massachusetts. I film trains from all around the world and make narrated videos explaining how the railroad works. Thanks for watching and I’ll see you out on the mainline!
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0:00 – Intro
0:42 – Context
1:40 – Battery-Electric Locomotives
4:00 – Hybrid Battery Locomotives
5:16 – Battery-Diesel Locomotives
5:50 – When Battery Locomotives Work
6:36 – Battery-Electric Passenger Locomotives
9:45 – Ending on a Good Note
10:20 – Conclusion
11:10 – Outro
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YouTube: WorldwideRailfan
Instagram: @worldwiderailfan
Flickr: Sam Dwyer Photo
Railroad.net: Sam Dwyer
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Background songs:
IndigoChildRick – Back On The Block OG Instrumental
dryhope – Focus
Evil Needle – Illusion
C Y G N – Zodiac
Aviino – Slim Bobby
Outro song:
Otis McDonald – Birdbrainz II
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WorldwideRailfan uses a specific system for locomotive model classifications. Further details can be viewed at the following link.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jUu7VuPn6VpdKedAdtmC2jHwlnqEW0cbat-GZGYRYSs/edit?usp=sharing
All WorldwideRailfan videos are kid-friendly.
©2022 WorldWideRailfan
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The main reason we haven’t electrified most of our freight rail network is because it’s vast… You look at other long-haul freight networks around the world and they’re mostly diesel-electric.
You have to get the electricity from somewhere. The grid is not capable to support electric rail.
why not putting solar panels on top of the engines and cars how much power would that generate cause trains are surprisingly long, so they have a larger footprint then a car for solar🤔
The green zealots pushing battery locomotives are not electrical engineers. Electrical engineers know that in addition to the problems noted in this video, the ultimate problem for either battery locomotives or overhead electrified rail is that the power grid requires investment in many new power plants of nuclear, oil and coal. Wind and solar won't cut it. The greenies refuse to accept this because they have no engineering experience but they have lots of political activist experience.
You showed my favorite railfanning location, Horseshoe Curve.
Batteries have way to low energy density to work well in heavy use equipment like locomotives. You'll be stopped at charging stations at lot of the time….Also all the exotic metals require for LION batteries are in short supply and expensive….We'll also create another ecological disaster while trying to correct another.
You do realize that judging a technology like this based on CURRENT state of the art, completely ignores the idea that it will IMPROVE? And that a lack of investment in innovation and experimentation is the only thing that guarantees failure in the long run? 😊
They will really be running on coal and natural gas when not running on diesel.
I think you kind of glossed over the potential opex benefits of using BE locos. Electricity is far cheaper than diesel, and will likely only become more so. It's also not incompatible with running catenary on busy corridors where it is warranted.
Where is the next this month on the railroad episode?
We have screwed up by passing over the hybrid electric/gasoline powered cars and instead going straight for the battery only cars. The hybrids were a nice step in the right direction towards ultimately reducing carbon footprints…but no, let's go right to the damn battery cars….
When will the next this month on the railroad come out
I'm surprised that diesel trains are now considered dirty. Trains have always had a reputation of being cleaner and more efficient that trucks by nature. I hate it when they go on a tangent just to look good
Nationalize the rails.
Great video.
You have this exactly right.
My only quibble is that I think frt RRs can find good ROI for electrifying their heavy mainlines. They just have to include all the benefits elecification gives them. Such as higher avg speeds, improved equipment utilization, longer crew districts, greater intermodal market share….
I also would like to see diesel electric hybrids in commuter service. Huge savings from regenerative braking.
Battery locomotives for yard service make sense. Good niche product.
Maybe I missed it in the video , but dont you use electricity to charge these things and we get that from burning coal so have you really cut your footprint? Face it wind is not the answer, only answer I know that might work is Nuclear and everyone has cows about that.
If you stop and think about it every on earth creates waste biological or mechanical.it’s just controlling the amount of waste that is important And the toxicity.
If you have rails, why in earth would you need batteries?
Climate change is natural. The crisis is FAKE. GROW UP!
Can you just imagine how many trucks less means a full train? And woke people insist that railroads must put down their non-existent so called carbon footprint…
You say electrification as if it is a magic bullet and fix everything. All it does, is shunt the carbon down the road to the power plant. And it takes more to transmit the power down the lines to the engine than if the engine generated it itself. Yeah it LOOKS cleaner, but isn't.
So what's the point of battery powered anything whenever its fossil fuels being used to charge them in the majority of cases?
Kind of moronic when you think about it, let's stop using fossil fuels directly so that we can use them indirectly.
Basically it just sounds nice to say battery powered because your not solving pollution if fossil fuels are still powering the batteries.🤦♂️
for the partial electrification of a line I think that it is a good way to spread out the cost of full electrification. Use battery-electric locomotives on the partly electrified rails and then fully electrify the rails and swap to pure electric locomotives
The math may not work for the technology's feasibility, but it certainly does work at improving public perception. Environmental theater while boosting next quarter's profits, what more could you ask for?
The cost of electrifying railroads will push shippers to ship by truck, dramatically increasing fossil fuel burn.
And then there's the elephant in the room… Battery power is woefully inefficient when you get down to basics and consider how much energy it takes to charge them for the amount of work they can do. That energy has to come from SOMEPLACE that has a high-capacity supply. Since the USA is too chickenshit to invest in safe, clean, nuclear energy, then it has to come from gas or coal fired sources. Gas is a great source and most of its byproduct is water vapor. However, we have a dipstick puppet in the Whitehouse that is putting the screws to or gas supplies.
I applaud your enthusiasm and research into the hardware. That said, where does all the electricity come from? We've torn down dams over the last 20 years while refusing to consider building any replacements. Wind and solar farms do not provide the amount of energy you're talking about. We wet ourselves anytime "nuclear power" even comes up (odd given so many of our "leaders" appear to be hell-bent on touching off that energy when it's attached to a warhead). In a place like California, where you are not supposed to use a.c. during the hottest part of the hottest days of the year, are told not to charge electric vehicles during those times and experience rolling blackouts, they still want to add 25 million more electric vehicles to the grid. I'm sure it won't be long before some clueless official in Sacramento decides they have a great idea, let's require all passenger and freight rail to go electric as well. Are they subject to those same blackouts? Carting around an extra diesel locomotive on a passenger train, or five or six for freight trains through mountain passes, just in case, seems a bit counterproductive. Regardless, I enjoyed your information.