on Sat, Aug 30, 2003 at 02:19:39AM -0700, Paul Johnson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
On Sat, Aug 30, 2003 at 01:44:43AM +0200, Arnt Karlsen wrote:
..2 reason diesel-electric locomotives are popular; they are about as clean as your average power utility, and they dont put heavy loads on the power grids.
Nope, and nope. Diesel electrics are popular because they give the most bang for the buck. Vastly more efficient than gasoline engines and mechanical transmissions (it's 2003, why can't I get a diesel electric car?, with fewer moving parts than the steam engines it replaced. This makes them dirt cheap and bloody reliable. The railroads really couldn't give a damn about how much electric they're using since they're not having to string thousands apon thousands of miles of overhead lines (another costly expense railroads don't bother with unless they can get economic benefit from the typically heavier and faster trains that electrified lines run).
Electric traction offers a few benefits:
- Quieter. - Less (near zero) right-of-way (RoW) pollution. - Better high-speed performance. - Fewer ventilation issues for tunnels or enclosed operations (e.g.: RR terminals). - Ability to power all axels.
The track maintenance is less with electrics because there's no pulsing action like with steam that pounds the tracks.
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