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Hydrogen locomotive
(www.money.pl)
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this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
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Trains don't run on diesel directly. They use diesel generators to drive electric motors that actually move the train. How those motors are powered is relatively irrelevant. This just replaces the diesel generators with hydrogen fuel cells...I think. I don't read Polish well. Or at all.
But how about replacing the diesel with fucking electrified rail network?
It’s worth the time and effort in a city, and even between two large cities that are relatively close to each other. Sadly, building and maintaining the system isn’t cheap, so we don’t do it in more remote locations.
It’s true. Electrified rail lines do exist in a many places, but not quite everywhere. Since there are also non-electric lines, there’s also a time and a place for non-electric locomotives.
A line crossing the Rockys can hardly be considered remote, (at least in an integrated system) it should get tons and tons of through-traffic. It's not about where the line is but what it connects.
A line can be way less remote, say just ten kilometres from a million inhabitant metropolis, but still see very limited traffic as the area is rural, and only have hourly passenger service and nothing else, maybe a couple of grain wagons in harvesting season and electrifying it would not amortise in a century or ever (because increased maintenance costs). Completely different situation to having through-traffic 24/7 bumper to bumper somewhere at the arse of the world.
If the government has full monopoly on everything rail related, then connecting two places becomes a political question. It may not make economic sense, but in the big picture of an entire country and its internal politics it might be a sensible thing to do regardless.