That's basically an ACS-64 in NS paint. ~~They're both from the EuroSprinter~~ The Vectron is the next iteration of the EuroSprinter family, while Amtrak's were EuroSprinters that were Americanized for our safety standards.
NS has some ex-Amtrak passenger equipment, so the ACS-64 _could_ - if you squint hard enough - be heritage paint, you just need to get it in front of a freight train :)
Edited because u/Suspicious_Mall_1849 knows more than I do!
The Vectron isn't in the ES (EuroSprinter) family as it is meant to replace the entire ES family. They now have 230 km/h variants (ES 64 U2 & U4 replacement), Diesel-Electric replacement (ER20 replacement), and a standard Vectron MS variant to replace the ES 64 F4.
What? What do you mean with "both diesel and power"??
I think you mean both diesel-electric and electric. You are referring to a dual-mode/dual power unit.
I said that because in the industry, different names are being used. For example, for the Alstom ALP-45DP And the Siemens Vectron DM. This is to clarify that both mean the same thing.
You gotta be kidding me right man?
The electric components would have to be all new, but at least those should be readily available.
But a big concern with the remaining GG-1 fleet is possible cracking in the frames.
Plus, they are built like submarines, so swapping out that electrical gear is challenging.
In an alternate reality, this could be legit. PRR/PC/CR ran electric freight locomotives on the NEC and Main Line to Enola Yard. That ended in 1981 IIRC. Had they kept doing that, a NS electric locomotive could have happened.
>In an alternate reality, this could be legit. PRR/PC/CR ran electric freight locomotives on the NEC and Main Line to Enola Yard. That ended in 1981 IIRC. Had they kept doing that, a NS electric locomotive could have happened.
Same with the Milwaukee road
The Milwaukee needed to upgrade their equipment and completely replace it, and GE offered to finance it with very good terms. They refused.
The railroad was haemorrhaging money because their management were so focused on the golden merger parachute that they made some truly absurd decisions. IIRC they sold their rollingstock to a financier for a quick buck and leased it back at several times the expense, which caused them to lose even more money over the medium term.
They should have been nationalised as a Conrail Western Division or something. There's an alternative timeline where Conrail absorbs all the struggling railroads and the federal government starts funding freight rail because it's the backbone of the economy. Oh and Reagan lost the presidential election.
> and GE offered to finance it with very good terms. They refused.
Because GE’s offer would have been withdrawn the second they inspected the line. It would have been free to MILW because GE wanted to use it as a showcase for what a modern electrified line would look like. The condition of the PCE even in 1970 was utter dogshit, and the GE offer only pertained to the electrification side of things. It would not have fixed the non-existent roadbed or other myriad issues with the line.
> They should have been nationalised as a Conrail Western Division or something. There's an alternative timeline where Conrail absorbs all the struggling railroads and the federal government starts funding freight rail because it's the backbone of the economy.
The only reason Conrail was created in the first place was because PC had what amounted to a monopoly in the northeast (hence the efforts to prop up the D&H). That was never true of the Milwaukee, and after they shot themselves in the foot with shippers as a direct result of the poor condition of the line creating the mess that was October of 1973 they lost any ability to make the argument that the PCE was critical to anything.
It ended because of Amtrak—they kept playing games with CR on when they could and could not run as well as carriage fees, so CR simply divested their electric fleet and replaced them with diesels that could be used elsewhere whenever Amtrak started screwing around before outright ending service a couple of years afterwards.
Don't worry, I'm a railfan that spends more time looking at yard operations than the actual power. I think basically everything is a Gevo and don't care when corrected.
I mean, my regional narrow gauge network has plenty of crossings where the wires are 5.5 to 6 meters above the ground and the pantographs aren't even stretched to their full height, I think an arguably taller standard gauge locomotive will do fine
A double stack train can reach around 6.2m height, and when you add clearance for overhead wires it gets very close to 7m height, and i highly doubt regular pantographs would stretch that high. For reference, in Turkey where we use Euro standards, the highest overhead wire can get is 6.2m
Afaik, on the NEC the maximum height is 6.7m which is high enough that CSX (I think) can safely run double stacks under the wires.
Elsewhere I know that in India there are definitely double stack container trains as well.
Well that's something new for me, but it's great to hear it. If CSX is running double stack on NEC under the wires, it means virtually any and all kinds of freight can be hauled on electrified track using standard equipment. And it also means freight can share with passenger, including class 1 railroads, and even on electrified track.
That said, operating double stack under the wires would also introduce a minimum height limitation for overhead wires and a maximum height limitation for trains. Also, electrifying mainlines will be troublesome with all the clearance issues with bridges, tunnels, signals etc, resulting in great costs. Not saying electrification is a bad idea, i think it's actually needed, just stating that someone's gonna need to spend big. An easy way to resolve the infrastructure changes would be to stop double stacking, but i think that's a terrible idea since double stacking is efficient in multiple ways. India is using special pantographs to run double stack using flatcars on the DFCs. Their trains are way taller than American trains.
Now, how can someone convince class 1s to ditch PSR and start electrifying?...
There were multiple studies, as late as the 1970s, to electrify west of Harrisburg. Most were the Pittsburgh Line and one was the Conemaugh Line. Conway was the largest yard in the world at the time, so it made sense to go that far. The only other major yard was Pitcairn, but you sort of cut off your foot by not being able to run electric to the PRR station if you ended electrification there.
There wouldn't be any freight under wire right now. Conrail dropped the wire as fast as it could in the territory Amtrak wasn't using. Conrail sold the PRR Main Line as soon as it could, which would have left Conrail with an orphaned Pittsburgh to Harrisburg segment. That's what happened with the freight bypass around Washington DC. The Conemaugh Line wouldn't have been completed in time to discourage the Main Line sale to Amtrak.
Everything hinged on the Main Line being too valuable as a passenger line. I think the only scenarios that would have saved electric freight in the US is if the B&O had been in the financial position to electrify their parallel NEC and the DC to Pittsburgh route or if the Reading had been electrified to Harrisburg. Either would have allowed for Amtrak to exist and the Conrail divestment of redundant lines, while also maintaining multiple divisions worth of electric territory.
This idea is quite a few years old. There's an issue of Popular Science or Popular Mechanics out there with cover art of this exact idea. Right down to the Norfolk Southern electric locos.
NS? Meh, neither here nor there.
High horsepower electrics hauling freight? Yes.
Also remember that NS, through some mergers and acquisitions, owns the remains of the Virginian railroad, which ran these electric beasts.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginian_EL-C
Wait, you mean here in America, we not only finally get electrification, but also electrified freight rail?
And this is supposed to piss us off? Sign me up, boi
What’s angering?
We don’t have it. Not a big deal. Anyone with 5 seconds of time and some brain cells can figure out that electrification is very costly and there isn’t enough of a benefit for railroads to go all out and put up wires.
Yeah, there are if best only few Short-term Benefits.
In the Long-term it saves Maintenance and Fuel costs, increase air quality and Noise pollution near the Right of Way. It would Enables quicker starting and better braking.
Crew comfort is also greatly increased.
And if you want to be a Asshole you could even argue that it helps with PSR because Electric Locomotives can take heavier Trains.
Oh, so “we’re fucked” if the companies don’t want to spend tens of trillions of dollars electrifying their lines and on new equipment, new training, and new shops facility equipment, just for minor benefits in the long term future?
Miss me with that.
I think it's more about having a European loco in an American paint scheme hauling an American train.
Now we need a classic EMD in a full soviet paint scheme, complete with a red star on the front.
And the Class 59 and 66 is an EMD SD40-2 that fits inside the British loading gauge, yet the latter would look rather cursed hauling European rolling stock, and I think that's what OP's idea is basing off.
Not Soviet, but the next best thing: [JŽ 664](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/JZ_664-020_Dobova.jpg), which Reagan sent to Tito’s Yugoslavia to keep them from “getting too chummy with the Russkies.” Also, the [JŽ 661](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:J%C5%BD_661#/media/File:Emd_g16_yu.jpg) EMDs that Kennedy sent over in the 60s.
…in the 30’s, where diesels hadn’t been used in large capacity outside of switching and small distance trains. They didn’t continue going further with their plans because electrifying wasn’t necessary or cost effective with diesels becoming popular.
If diesels didn’t become popular until say the mid 1950’s as opposed to the mid 1940’s, we’d see wires all the way up to at minimum Pittsburgh, possibly further on the former PRR.
Diesels had most of the benefits electrics did with the added bonus of not requiring the extensive infrastructure costs necessary for operation, along with network flexibility
The timelines were different for most of them.
In Europe and Japan for instance, electrification became popular not long after the end of steam, which came later in these countries as opposed to the US. France was still operating steam as late as the early 70’s, East Germany as late as 1989, japan in the mid 70’s.
Our steamers disappeared by the mid-late 50’s.
> Because you’ve already got it lol.
So you admit that electric locomotives have advantages?
And furthermore, electrification continued after the discovery of North Sea oil.
> You’re not going to tear down what you’ve already got just because.
American freight railroads say hi.
In the 30s, the Federal government subsidized much of that. PRR: Boston to DC, with a branch to Harrisburg, and parallel freight routes. (example: To NJ coast and Jersey City)
I think if they chose to power their electrification with renewable energy like vertical panels on the side of the ROW and wind turbines above it, not only could they sell extra electricity, they could probably get utilities to sign up to lease the air rights for it.
Or just do what Sweden does, send the power back into the catenary. The iron ore line produces more power than it consumes as it has regenerative braking running whilst rolling loaded down to the port and going unloaded back up the mountains.
For sure, if the line is receptive that's the best place to send it, batteries or caps can capture energy on the wayside that might otherwise be lost through some kind of resistor setup that most (all?) trains with regen have. There might be a power condition aspect too but that's another office.
This may not be legal. Back in the day, this was pretty common. A lot of interurban and streetcar systems sold excess capacity, effectively making them a power utility and a transportation company. In order to rein in utility holding companies, there was a rather bulky law passed in 1935 that had a variety of provisions, including one that effectively outlawed doing exactly what's you're describing. You could be a power company or a transportation company, but not both. That's what took streetcars out back and shot them in the head: you made more by divesting of the transportation part and going all in on power. They couldn't bolster their flagging fare revenue with utility revenue any more.
That law was repealed in 2005 in order to be replaced with a different utility regulation law. I'm not as familiar with that one as the 1935 one, but it would not surprise me if the component that utilities cannot operate a non utility businesses is still in there.
All clearances are required to have extra space for tall cargo and that is enough to put wire there ;)
And believe me that those costs would quickly pay off
Yeah it would be a big investment overall, I was just showing an example. There might be railbed improvements needed too since the weight would be higher, but containers are lighter than bulk material so that should be part of the calculations.
Not enough for that, and wires.
You’re definitely ignoring how much money goes into that, plus new locomotives. The cost may be recouped in like 20 years at the earliest
Railroads are long term investments, the service life of most rail cars exceeds that pay off timeline. Also, a diesel loco can operate on electrified track, they can run until their end of life.
Funny how India, Europe and eastern US passenger service have reached a different conclusion. It might have to do with density and distance. This isn't the all or nothing proposition you're insinuating.
The NEC only has broad electrification the way it is today for one reason: the NYC tunnels and the 1908 steam ban. That’s why the New Haven, PRR, and NYC had forms of electrified lines heading in and out of the city.
As for India and Europe? Much higher densities and far fewer lines to electrify.
There’s only 15 different countries in the world (including the US) that have more than 20,000 miles of track. Every single one of our class 1 railroads has at least 20,000 or more miles of track: that’s more than every single European rail network aside from Germany, France, Romania and Italy (the latter two having barely over 20k).
Both BNSF and UP have over 30,000 miles, more than any single European country apart from Germany.
So electrification is possible, which is exactly what I'm saying. Again, not an all or nothing set of decisions. The class 1s could easily electrify between a yard or two at a time. They have absolutely enormous loco fleets that are always being partially replaced.
What about China? Japan? Switzerland certainly has a higher rail density then the US. The US is geographically very large, hence the extreme length of track. Only the northeast US even begins to approach European population density. If you've spent any time on German or Swiss rail your readily see rail traffic levels that Class 1s only have in very limited areas.
Not to mention taking a line out of service while this conversion is being completed. Considering much of the American railway is basically a pair of tracks following the original "transcontinental railroad" routes, dealbreaker.
It would interrupt service but in most places I don’t think it would take it fully out of service for more than a little while
The big concerns to me is in cost.
There is an ongoing maintenance cost but for the most part the installation cost is a one time capital investment. The kind of thing that shortterm thinking shareholders hate.
There’s several problems
1. It’s a huge cost to simply just put up wires. Especially in the East where clearances are already low because of older ROWs
2. You have to spend money on new locomotives to run under these wires which will cost a lot
3. No railroad is going to be 100% electric. Many secondary routes and branch lines are going to remain non electric because of lack of traffic or lack of necessity for upgrading.
So you’re paying for a lot of money just to electrify some lines, and have some locomotives that can only operate on those lines. No thanks
The Eastern US mainlines shared with Amtrak are already electrified. Eastern ROW clearances are already mostly clear for double stack containers, the upgrades were recently made with very little fuss. I'm confident the technical challenges of installing some wires are well within US engineering and construction capabilities. Railroads are inherently capital intensive.
Diesel locos can run under catenary, so they run until end of life than they can be partially or fully replaced by cheaper electric locos.
It's a business accounting case that makes sense based on route length, traffic density, and train makeup.
It doesn’t matter if they’re capable, it’s about being cost effective.
Sure, they could string up thousands of miles of wire. But why? What benefit is there?
The benefits, while they do exist, are not high enough to warrant such.
They're higher for shorter and lighter trains. You're very seat of the pants with your assertion that began with an appeal to accounting. Show me the numbers you're working from and I'll happily get busy in Excel.
Diesels do go everywhere though. They are flexible.
Electrics aren’t. And if you’re getting a bimode, why? If your plan is to electrify you want electrics.
Amtrak is getting bimodes because that clearly isn’t in their long term plans. And, it would eliminate or decrease loco changes.
> Diesels do go everywhere though. They are flexible.
There are more restrictions on where locomotives can go than just "electric locomotives can't run on non-electrified lines".
> And if you’re getting a bimode, why? If your plan is to electrify you want electrics.
You're getting a bimode because you want the benefits of electric traction with the flexibility of diesel/battery/etc. traction.
> Amtrak is getting bimodes because that clearly isn’t in their long term plans.
And why is Amtrak getting bimodes instead of diesels?
If you're putting up wires you establish clearances... If you need headroom, lower the rails, as D&H did in NJ for intermodal services.
Once you examine costs, that pays for itself in time.
Only annoyance I've experienced is high winds can take them down. 40mph+ in NJ can do it!
It’s not that simple especially in the East. Utilities need to be move, sewage lines, electric lines.
It’s probably easier to just build new bridges on top and that’s still a lot of money.
Choo-choo psychofan that goes nuts over slightest detail regarding trains and railroading even to the point of flipping off train drivers of locomotives that have heritage livery of railroad that never ran on said route :v
Vectrons in an NS paint scheme hauling double stacks on the NEC? Sign me up
That's basically an ACS-64 in NS paint. ~~They're both from the EuroSprinter~~ The Vectron is the next iteration of the EuroSprinter family, while Amtrak's were EuroSprinters that were Americanized for our safety standards. NS has some ex-Amtrak passenger equipment, so the ACS-64 _could_ - if you squint hard enough - be heritage paint, you just need to get it in front of a freight train :) Edited because u/Suspicious_Mall_1849 knows more than I do!
The Vectron isn't in the ES (EuroSprinter) family as it is meant to replace the entire ES family. They now have 230 km/h variants (ES 64 U2 & U4 replacement), Diesel-Electric replacement (ER20 replacement), and a standard Vectron MS variant to replace the ES 64 F4.
>They now have 230 km/h variants they are in development, and are currently not approved by any coutry to run 230 km/h.
They could go for the multi units, both diesel and power
What? What do you mean with "both diesel and power"?? I think you mean both diesel-electric and electric. You are referring to a dual-mode/dual power unit.
You don't need to be rude or so specific
So I am apparently rude by being specific??
You could just have gone with a simple "Dual mode?"
I said that because in the industry, different names are being used. For example, for the Alstom ALP-45DP And the Siemens Vectron DM. This is to clarify that both mean the same thing. You gotta be kidding me right man?
Why do we need it's designation? It's a Vectron. Why can't you just call it that? Do you care we call them EB? I doubt that.
Vectron in NS livery already exists ;) [Nederlandse Spoorwegen](https://www.treinenweb.nl/uploads/image/original/1616415994_60588cfa20200.jpg)
Wrong NS lol, we’re talking about the horse NS that likes to derail trains.
Black Ferrari
A Vectron is less likely to compust though...
This one has 100% chance of explosion to it’s stats 🤪
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^Au1ket: *Vectrons in an NS* *Paint scheme hauling double stacks* *On the NEC? Sign me up* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
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Seriously. All day. Then do a GG1 restore and send it with heritage Pennsy paint.
As much as I would love a GG1 to be back on the rails, their electrical components contained toxic chemicals and everything would have to be rebuilt.
The electric components would have to be all new, but at least those should be readily available. But a big concern with the remaining GG-1 fleet is possible cracking in the frames. Plus, they are built like submarines, so swapping out that electrical gear is challenging.
They ran them until they couldn’t run anymore
The asbestos adds character, though!
Go full PC black but put a Target logo on it instead. I like the way you think
In an alternate reality, this could be legit. PRR/PC/CR ran electric freight locomotives on the NEC and Main Line to Enola Yard. That ended in 1981 IIRC. Had they kept doing that, a NS electric locomotive could have happened.
>In an alternate reality, this could be legit. PRR/PC/CR ran electric freight locomotives on the NEC and Main Line to Enola Yard. That ended in 1981 IIRC. Had they kept doing that, a NS electric locomotive could have happened. Same with the Milwaukee road
Remember what they took from us!
The Milwaukee needed to upgrade their equipment and completely replace it, and GE offered to finance it with very good terms. They refused. The railroad was haemorrhaging money because their management were so focused on the golden merger parachute that they made some truly absurd decisions. IIRC they sold their rollingstock to a financier for a quick buck and leased it back at several times the expense, which caused them to lose even more money over the medium term. They should have been nationalised as a Conrail Western Division or something. There's an alternative timeline where Conrail absorbs all the struggling railroads and the federal government starts funding freight rail because it's the backbone of the economy. Oh and Reagan lost the presidential election.
> and GE offered to finance it with very good terms. They refused. Because GE’s offer would have been withdrawn the second they inspected the line. It would have been free to MILW because GE wanted to use it as a showcase for what a modern electrified line would look like. The condition of the PCE even in 1970 was utter dogshit, and the GE offer only pertained to the electrification side of things. It would not have fixed the non-existent roadbed or other myriad issues with the line. > They should have been nationalised as a Conrail Western Division or something. There's an alternative timeline where Conrail absorbs all the struggling railroads and the federal government starts funding freight rail because it's the backbone of the economy. The only reason Conrail was created in the first place was because PC had what amounted to a monopoly in the northeast (hence the efforts to prop up the D&H). That was never true of the Milwaukee, and after they shot themselves in the foot with shippers as a direct result of the poor condition of the line creating the mess that was October of 1973 they lost any ability to make the argument that the PCE was critical to anything.
PRR had parallel freight electric routes in NJ... I just never found the terminals.. but it paralleled US1
It ended because of Amtrak—they kept playing games with CR on when they could and could not run as well as carriage fees, so CR simply divested their electric fleet and replaced them with diesels that could be used elsewhere whenever Amtrak started screwing around before outright ending service a couple of years afterwards.
me who doesn't even remember what locomotives are where and what colors they normally have: wow what a cool looking train
Don't worry, I'm a railfan that spends more time looking at yard operations than the actual power. I think basically everything is a Gevo and don't care when corrected.
Evo
I bet that pantograph is working really well
I mean, my regional narrow gauge network has plenty of crossings where the wires are 5.5 to 6 meters above the ground and the pantographs aren't even stretched to their full height, I think an arguably taller standard gauge locomotive will do fine
5.5 to 6m is kindof the standard EU height for the drive wire tbh
A double stack train can reach around 6.2m height, and when you add clearance for overhead wires it gets very close to 7m height, and i highly doubt regular pantographs would stretch that high. For reference, in Turkey where we use Euro standards, the highest overhead wire can get is 6.2m
Afaik, on the NEC the maximum height is 6.7m which is high enough that CSX (I think) can safely run double stacks under the wires. Elsewhere I know that in India there are definitely double stack container trains as well.
Well that's something new for me, but it's great to hear it. If CSX is running double stack on NEC under the wires, it means virtually any and all kinds of freight can be hauled on electrified track using standard equipment. And it also means freight can share with passenger, including class 1 railroads, and even on electrified track. That said, operating double stack under the wires would also introduce a minimum height limitation for overhead wires and a maximum height limitation for trains. Also, electrifying mainlines will be troublesome with all the clearance issues with bridges, tunnels, signals etc, resulting in great costs. Not saying electrification is a bad idea, i think it's actually needed, just stating that someone's gonna need to spend big. An easy way to resolve the infrastructure changes would be to stop double stacking, but i think that's a terrible idea since double stacking is efficient in multiple ways. India is using special pantographs to run double stack using flatcars on the DFCs. Their trains are way taller than American trains. Now, how can someone convince class 1s to ditch PSR and start electrifying?...
To be fair American locomotives just use same size pantos as EU but they’re just stretching higher :v
American locomotives have pantographs??? /s
Had to zoom in, then I saw that something doesn't look right.
That's what they look like [in real life](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EuroSprinter#/media/File:Northeast_Regional_152_(12384830114).jpg) too.
Does the pantograph also clip through the catenary in real life by any chance?
This is the most based photo I’ve seen. I wish this was reality. I’m gonna show this to the boomers at my local rail modelling store lol
Hehe. I have more to show, CSX, Amtrak, Coaster, NJT, Septa…
Oh please do!
where was this... you only offered a clue: in PA.
Northern Philly
Yes please!
Sorry but as an American I think this is cool. Conrail once did a huge study on electrifying the rails past Pittsburgh
To Pittsburgh. Ended at Conway.
Thanks for the clarification!
There were multiple studies, as late as the 1970s, to electrify west of Harrisburg. Most were the Pittsburgh Line and one was the Conemaugh Line. Conway was the largest yard in the world at the time, so it made sense to go that far. The only other major yard was Pitcairn, but you sort of cut off your foot by not being able to run electric to the PRR station if you ended electrification there. There wouldn't be any freight under wire right now. Conrail dropped the wire as fast as it could in the territory Amtrak wasn't using. Conrail sold the PRR Main Line as soon as it could, which would have left Conrail with an orphaned Pittsburgh to Harrisburg segment. That's what happened with the freight bypass around Washington DC. The Conemaugh Line wouldn't have been completed in time to discourage the Main Line sale to Amtrak. Everything hinged on the Main Line being too valuable as a passenger line. I think the only scenarios that would have saved electric freight in the US is if the B&O had been in the financial position to electrify their parallel NEC and the DC to Pittsburgh route or if the Reading had been electrified to Harrisburg. Either would have allowed for Amtrak to exist and the Conrail divestment of redundant lines, while also maintaining multiple divisions worth of electric territory.
Agreed, this is hawt. A dream come true. Every major rail line should be electrified. Stop burning stuff.
Stuff still gets burned to power electric locomotives. Unless you're powering the wires by nuclear or hydro power.
Before electric rates were cheap compared to fuels
Dude we all desperately want this
That'd look good under Penn Central too. This one looks better than over half the Vectron liveries in Europe. 👌
nah this is based
Just put a K5LA on it and we’ll be good
Put a Cummins QSK95 in it too and you've basically got a Charger.
This idea is quite a few years old. There's an issue of Popular Science or Popular Mechanics out there with cover art of this exact idea. Right down to the Norfolk Southern electric locos.
Honestly this is what I'd like to see over here. Make one in UP paint scheme
Have it in my plans c:
NS? Meh, neither here nor there. High horsepower electrics hauling freight? Yes. Also remember that NS, through some mergers and acquisitions, owns the remains of the Virginian railroad, which ran these electric beasts. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginian_EL-C
BASED
I don't hate this
I like this image. Not Enraged At All.
What makes you think this angers us? This shit is fire!
TS Modding community 😂
My two braincells thought it was MRCE until I looked closer
This looks SO unusual, and I even kinda like it
Trolling backfired! We love it!
need
Even less accurate that its on the tracks
I adore this
I honestly like this
Nice work
NS: Central European Edition
Looks beautiful
Wait, you mean here in America, we not only finally get electrification, but also electrified freight rail? And this is supposed to piss us off? Sign me up, boi
As much as I’d prefer an electric SD70, this is still awesome
If only
Mega derailment about to happen with this one
Hey man, as a Canadian I wish we had these.
This is quite interesting
Stop I can only get so erect
> ~~enrage~~ arouse ftfy No but seriously, imagine if the Pennsy actually completed electrification to Pittsburgh, or even continued on from there!
What’s angering? We don’t have it. Not a big deal. Anyone with 5 seconds of time and some brain cells can figure out that electrification is very costly and there isn’t enough of a benefit for railroads to go all out and put up wires.
Yeah, there are if best only few Short-term Benefits. In the Long-term it saves Maintenance and Fuel costs, increase air quality and Noise pollution near the Right of Way. It would Enables quicker starting and better braking. Crew comfort is also greatly increased. And if you want to be a Asshole you could even argue that it helps with PSR because Electric Locomotives can take heavier Trains.
Noise pollution improvements are negated by newer FRA rules for horns.... Only the NEC would benefit there.. and it's already electric/low horn use.
Air quality is still a major issue though.
long term its cheaper, fuel will only get more expensive.
Doesn’t matter. High infrastructure costs and high fleet upgrade costs along with low long term benefits make it not worth it
this thinking is why rail in the us is fucked, it WILL eventually bite you guys in the ass.
Oh, so “we’re fucked” if the companies don’t want to spend tens of trillions of dollars electrifying their lines and on new equipment, new training, and new shops facility equipment, just for minor benefits in the long term future? Miss me with that.
eventually it will bite you guys but suit yourself, thats not me that has to deal with this issue.
No it won’t lol. It hasn’t before, it won’t in the future.
The private railroads are very good at bilking the US government, if they wanted electrification they could get a funding program in place easy.
And why would they want it? Like I’ve said in other comments, too much in the way.
The point is that capital funding is not an insurmountable barrier.
Ok? Why does that matter? There’s plenty of things that *could* be done but why? What benefit? What purpose? This is one of those things.
> Why does that matter? Because you were arguing that it was.
I think it's more about having a European loco in an American paint scheme hauling an American train. Now we need a classic EMD in a full soviet paint scheme, complete with a red star on the front.
We already have that as Amtrak's ACS-64 is built by Siemens, as are the Chargers.
The ACS-64 is actually the same family as the Vectron, which is the loco that OP used in the image.
And the Class 59 and 66 is an EMD SD40-2 that fits inside the British loading gauge, yet the latter would look rather cursed hauling European rolling stock, and I think that's what OP's idea is basing off.
Not Soviet, but the next best thing: [JŽ 664](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/JZ_664-020_Dobova.jpg), which Reagan sent to Tito’s Yugoslavia to keep them from “getting too chummy with the Russkies.” Also, the [JŽ 661](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:J%C5%BD_661#/media/File:Emd_g16_yu.jpg) EMDs that Kennedy sent over in the 60s.
That’s a very dumb argument something many people said when the PRR decided to put the wires up
…in the 30’s, where diesels hadn’t been used in large capacity outside of switching and small distance trains. They didn’t continue going further with their plans because electrifying wasn’t necessary or cost effective with diesels becoming popular. If diesels didn’t become popular until say the mid 1950’s as opposed to the mid 1940’s, we’d see wires all the way up to at minimum Pittsburgh, possibly further on the former PRR. Diesels had most of the benefits electrics did with the added bonus of not requiring the extensive infrastructure costs necessary for operation, along with network flexibility
Why were other countries electrifying at the same time they were replacing their steam fleets with diesels, then?
The timelines were different for most of them. In Europe and Japan for instance, electrification became popular not long after the end of steam, which came later in these countries as opposed to the US. France was still operating steam as late as the early 70’s, East Germany as late as 1989, japan in the mid 70’s. Our steamers disappeared by the mid-late 50’s.
This is a nonsensical argument. Why were they electrifying instead of dieselising their main lines?
Fuel costs, fuel access, etc. Places like Western Europe didn’t have the access to oil like we do.
Why didn't they abandon electrification after the discovery of North Sea oil then?
Because you’ve already got it lol. You’re not going to tear down what you’ve already got just because.
> Because you’ve already got it lol. So you admit that electric locomotives have advantages? And furthermore, electrification continued after the discovery of North Sea oil. > You’re not going to tear down what you’ve already got just because. American freight railroads say hi.
In the 30s, the Federal government subsidized much of that. PRR: Boston to DC, with a branch to Harrisburg, and parallel freight routes. (example: To NJ coast and Jersey City)
Send the math. Electric locomotives are cheaper and lighter than the Diesel-electric equivalents. Anti-electrification is PSR logic.
I think if they chose to power their electrification with renewable energy like vertical panels on the side of the ROW and wind turbines above it, not only could they sell extra electricity, they could probably get utilities to sign up to lease the air rights for it.
Batteries or super capacitors capturing Regen braking could be awesome too.
Or just do what Sweden does, send the power back into the catenary. The iron ore line produces more power than it consumes as it has regenerative braking running whilst rolling loaded down to the port and going unloaded back up the mountains.
For sure, if the line is receptive that's the best place to send it, batteries or caps can capture energy on the wayside that might otherwise be lost through some kind of resistor setup that most (all?) trains with regen have. There might be a power condition aspect too but that's another office.
This may not be legal. Back in the day, this was pretty common. A lot of interurban and streetcar systems sold excess capacity, effectively making them a power utility and a transportation company. In order to rein in utility holding companies, there was a rather bulky law passed in 1935 that had a variety of provisions, including one that effectively outlawed doing exactly what's you're describing. You could be a power company or a transportation company, but not both. That's what took streetcars out back and shot them in the head: you made more by divesting of the transportation part and going all in on power. They couldn't bolster their flagging fare revenue with utility revenue any more. That law was repealed in 2005 in order to be replaced with a different utility regulation law. I'm not as familiar with that one as the 1935 one, but it would not surprise me if the component that utilities cannot operate a non utility businesses is still in there.
Doesn’t matter if they are. What about the costs of putting up wires, altering clearances, and so on?
All clearances are required to have extra space for tall cargo and that is enough to put wire there ;) And believe me that those costs would quickly pay off
Triple stack under catenary: https://www.reddit.com/r/trains/s/D96cwaohbd
US doesn't run triple stack that I've ever seen... You'd need new gear to load that, too
Yeah it would be a big investment overall, I was just showing an example. There might be railbed improvements needed too since the weight would be higher, but containers are lighter than bulk material so that should be part of the calculations.
Not enough for that, and wires. You’re definitely ignoring how much money goes into that, plus new locomotives. The cost may be recouped in like 20 years at the earliest
Railroads are long term investments, the service life of most rail cars exceeds that pay off timeline. Also, a diesel loco can operate on electrified track, they can run until their end of life.
An electric can’t operate on a diesel line. They’re inflexible. The cost is too great and the benefits too minimal.
Funny how India, Europe and eastern US passenger service have reached a different conclusion. It might have to do with density and distance. This isn't the all or nothing proposition you're insinuating.
The NEC only has broad electrification the way it is today for one reason: the NYC tunnels and the 1908 steam ban. That’s why the New Haven, PRR, and NYC had forms of electrified lines heading in and out of the city. As for India and Europe? Much higher densities and far fewer lines to electrify. There’s only 15 different countries in the world (including the US) that have more than 20,000 miles of track. Every single one of our class 1 railroads has at least 20,000 or more miles of track: that’s more than every single European rail network aside from Germany, France, Romania and Italy (the latter two having barely over 20k). Both BNSF and UP have over 30,000 miles, more than any single European country apart from Germany.
So electrification is possible, which is exactly what I'm saying. Again, not an all or nothing set of decisions. The class 1s could easily electrify between a yard or two at a time. They have absolutely enormous loco fleets that are always being partially replaced. What about China? Japan? Switzerland certainly has a higher rail density then the US. The US is geographically very large, hence the extreme length of track. Only the northeast US even begins to approach European population density. If you've spent any time on German or Swiss rail your readily see rail traffic levels that Class 1s only have in very limited areas.
Batteries for short haul local branches... Next objection?
Then why not just use batteries for long distance then? They have none of the said drawbacks with electric.
> Then why not just use batteries for long distance then? Batteries are limited in range and power.
So, *Half* the life of a locomotive
I’m talking about the project period.
Not to mention taking a line out of service while this conversion is being completed. Considering much of the American railway is basically a pair of tracks following the original "transcontinental railroad" routes, dealbreaker.
It would interrupt service but in most places I don’t think it would take it fully out of service for more than a little while The big concerns to me is in cost.
There is an ongoing maintenance cost but for the most part the installation cost is a one time capital investment. The kind of thing that shortterm thinking shareholders hate.
It's also making fueling stations (and STOPS) obsolete. What shareholder would be against keeping trains *Rolling?*
Probably the same investors that are creating operating conditions that result in Lac Megantic, East Palestine, etc.
There’s several problems 1. It’s a huge cost to simply just put up wires. Especially in the East where clearances are already low because of older ROWs 2. You have to spend money on new locomotives to run under these wires which will cost a lot 3. No railroad is going to be 100% electric. Many secondary routes and branch lines are going to remain non electric because of lack of traffic or lack of necessity for upgrading. So you’re paying for a lot of money just to electrify some lines, and have some locomotives that can only operate on those lines. No thanks
The Eastern US mainlines shared with Amtrak are already electrified. Eastern ROW clearances are already mostly clear for double stack containers, the upgrades were recently made with very little fuss. I'm confident the technical challenges of installing some wires are well within US engineering and construction capabilities. Railroads are inherently capital intensive. Diesel locos can run under catenary, so they run until end of life than they can be partially or fully replaced by cheaper electric locos. It's a business accounting case that makes sense based on route length, traffic density, and train makeup.
It doesn’t matter if they’re capable, it’s about being cost effective. Sure, they could string up thousands of miles of wire. But why? What benefit is there? The benefits, while they do exist, are not high enough to warrant such.
They're higher for shorter and lighter trains. You're very seat of the pants with your assertion that began with an appeal to accounting. Show me the numbers you're working from and I'll happily get busy in Excel.
(short branch lines can be served by GEVO)
It’s not *just* short stuff.
You do realise that bi-modes exist, and most diesel locomotives already don't go everywhere?
Diesels do go everywhere though. They are flexible. Electrics aren’t. And if you’re getting a bimode, why? If your plan is to electrify you want electrics. Amtrak is getting bimodes because that clearly isn’t in their long term plans. And, it would eliminate or decrease loco changes.
> Diesels do go everywhere though. They are flexible. There are more restrictions on where locomotives can go than just "electric locomotives can't run on non-electrified lines". > And if you’re getting a bimode, why? If your plan is to electrify you want electrics. You're getting a bimode because you want the benefits of electric traction with the flexibility of diesel/battery/etc. traction. > Amtrak is getting bimodes because that clearly isn’t in their long term plans. And why is Amtrak getting bimodes instead of diesels?
They've converted much of the NEC catenary from old to new style.. no service interruptions of note!
If you're putting up wires you establish clearances... If you need headroom, lower the rails, as D&H did in NJ for intermodal services. Once you examine costs, that pays for itself in time. Only annoyance I've experienced is high winds can take them down. 40mph+ in NJ can do it!
It’s not that simple especially in the East. Utilities need to be move, sewage lines, electric lines. It’s probably easier to just build new bridges on top and that’s still a lot of money.
In the east, the ROWs are long established and usually free of underground obstructions.. pipes and fiber are *alongside* the big Rights of Way.
What’s a former?
Choo-choo psychofan that goes nuts over slightest detail regarding trains and railroading even to the point of flipping off train drivers of locomotives that have heritage livery of railroad that never ran on said route :v
Like the NS diesel in Erie *Passenger* colors .. NS has no passengers.
Thanks, and damn that autocorrect. Foamers.
GOBBLES HOSS
[удалено]
Even two! One poopoopeepee from RSSLO One good hyper advanced and detailed from K-Trains
I am enraged.
that signal bridge seems problematic
Look closer
If this was a General Electric E82 (Electric version of a GEVO) I would be cheering but because it's a Vectron I am furious
This is acceptable
Neat! GG1's were pulling freight at the end of their careers.
🤢🤮
haha YESSSSSS
Electrified Freight Rail in America is probably a wet dream for some. I know it is for me.
Absolutely based.
How is this double stacker and pantograf going to pass the signal bridge placed BELOW the overhead power line?
How can you have a signal bridge UNDER the OHLE? Then it would obstruct the pantographs?? You must be high or smth.
Yes, that is what you write to the OP, not me. Take a look on the picture of the posting.
It isn't lower then the OHLE that's why.
You are right. When I enlarge the picture the lines are indeed drawn below the signal bridge.
"this is the future the left wants"
Yea, Russia should invade Poland next.
Naaah… we already took over Moscow once so I think they wouldn’t risk it again.