this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2024
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California’s new electric train makes for a shockingly better trip—we tried it (www.fastcompany.com)
submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 63 points 2 months ago (2 children)

What amuses me is this reads like is written by an amazed american getting wowed by some things the rest of the world already has had for decades. Whats sad is Americans have this exceptionalism mentality where if an old tech like steam and diesel caused them to rule out rail... they never reconsider even if the tech advances.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago

I guess he’s one of today’s lucky 10,000

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago

See also Americans dismissing molten salt reactors because traditional nuclear blew up

Molten salt reactors cannot explode. When the fluid heats up, it expands. When it expands, the particles are further apart and react less. It's self correcting. And even if by a miracle the fluid didn't expand, there's a plug that melts and drains all the molten salt into a safety system where it's channeled far away from the rest of the mass and cannot react. And in fact, even if you look at the safety data on traditional nuclear, it's actually less dangerous per watt generated than solar energy. Because solar technicians sometimes fall off roofs and get injured. Nuclear causes less injury and death than people falling off roofs.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Americans discover what the rest of the world has known for a hundred years: that electric trains are just plain better

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I mean, diesel electric weren't that terrible either, I don't think I've ever actually heard the generator running while on one of those. Obviously full electric is better, but they must've been a really terrible implementation to begin with if they had all the downsides mentioned in the article.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I sometimes ride diesel-electric trains. It's definitely noisier but it's not super loud inside the carriages.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

My country has some cheap CAF diesel stock that's as noisy as a bus.

Then on the flip side we have the diesel electrics which are MUCH quieter, but you definitely feel the vibration when moving off

And finally the more uncommon full electrics which are better in every way... acceleration, noise, vibration, speed

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Diesel-electric trains have the disadvantage of needing to carry their own fuel, making them heavier and increasing wear on the track. The engines need more maintenance as well, as they are more complicated.

Aren’t most diesel trains diesel-electric, except perhaps for bus-like “sprinter” units?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I'm not denying there's downsides, but compared to cars the step from Diesel-electric to full electric isn't that huge from an environment and experience perspective.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If you have frequent traffic on a line, it pays for itself in lower running and maintenance costs and improved speed and acceleration.

That, of course, assumes you have the right of way, which does not apply in large parts of the US, where freight operators for whom electrification doesn’t work own the lines.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

@AllNewTypeFace @jonne Why wouldn't freight go electric? I know some of the coal trains lines in Australia are electric, which I understand is a bit of a different beast to freight, but it is similar in most ways.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The US freight companies are largely run by private equity, who squeeze everything they can out of existing infrastructure with minimal investment, which is shown by the handling of the East Palestine derailment (not just the derailment itself, but also the intentional blowing up of cars in order to free up the line faster).

They wouldn't do an investment they only pays off long term like that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

@jonne Yeah, many things need fixing ;)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Because going electric is very expensive, probably requires some legislation depending on where the railway is.

For example there are many very short railways inside cities to access docks or industrial zones, those tracks have usually one or two trains a day, which is very low traffic, and can be located extremely close to housing. In that case it's really complicated to electrify it.

The issue is, if you want to go electric, you need 100% electric, not 95. So it makes way more sense for freight to go diesel-electric like today

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

The rest of the SF Bay Area has fast electric trains, just this section doesn’t because a bunch of racists in the 60’s pulled out during the planning phase to maintain separation from the “urban” folks.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Bay_Area_Rapid_Transit

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

In my city they built a new shiny east-west electric line that fails every week, and they took out the old north-south diesel line for upgrades (but not electrification), which was way more reliable.

Granted, I'm sure the reliability and power source are not correlated here, just my city transit commission (of late) is corrupt as fuck, so anything new sucks.

The north-south upgrades were supposed to be done two years ago... I yearn for the day...

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The new express route between San Jose and San Francisco will stop at 11 stations instead of seven, and take 59 minutes instead of an hour and five minutes.

But going electric is so woke. There can't possibly be real-world benefits! /s

Because the trains are now quieter both onboard and in adjacent neighborhoods, it also might mean that more people are willing to live near the tracks. “I think they’re going to enable more development around the stations,” Steve Heminger, who represents San Francisco on the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board that operates Caltrain, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

A feel-good story all around.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I love how somehow a rail line is too noisy for developments yet we see tons of developments next to highways and 6+lane roads

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I was in SF this past week and took Caltrain down to Redwood City and back. I rode one of the express Baby Bullets, which is as fast as the diesel-electrics go. (The electric trains were sitting there at 4th and King, mocking me.) Let me tell you, I do not know how they think they can run HSR on this track in the state that it's in. This is far and away the bumpiest ride I've ever had on Caltrain, and I used to commute on it twice a day for two years. I'm actually concerned about the state of the track. It's great that they've run the wire, but I anticipate strict speed limits if they ever get the high speed rolling stock up from LA.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Dealing with bump and sway is mostly a matter of running a ballast cleaner/tamper/regulator along the track more regularly. Maybe replacing some rail. Unless the actual sub-foundation is bad; that gets really disruptive.

Much cheaper than trying to ease curves, gradients, structure clearance, or provide grade separation.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Right. But Caltrain has had multiple full shutdowns over the last couple of years during the catenary installation. If they aren't able to maintain the tracks with that much shutdown time it's worrying.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

To the posters commenting on how amazing it is Americans are wowed by the obvious: there’s an entire electric train network called BART throughout the land surrounding this small peninsula run of Caltrain. And it’s been running since the 60s so it’s not really new to us. It’s also noisy as shit because the wheels are dumb. But it’s still fast.