165
California’s new electric train makes for a shockingly better trip—we tried it
(www.fastcompany.com)
this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2024
165 points (98.8% liked)
Fuck Cars
9789 readers
7 users here now
This community exists as a sister community/copycat community to the r/fuckcars subreddit.
This community exists for the following reasons:
- to raise awareness around the dangers, inefficiencies and injustice that can come from car dependence.
- to allow a place to discuss and promote more healthy transport methods and ways of living.
You can find the Matrix chat room for this community here.
Rules
-
Be nice to each other. Being aggressive or inflammatory towards other users will get you banned. Name calling or obvious trolling falls under that. Hate cars, hate the system, but not people. While some drivers definitely deserve some hate, most of them didn't choose car-centric life out of free will.
-
No bigotry or hate. Racism, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, homophobia, chauvinism, fat-shaming, body-shaming, stigmatization of people experiencing homeless or substance users, etc. are not tolerated. Don't use slurs. You can laugh at someone's fragile masculinity without associating it with their body. The correlation between car-culture and body weight is not an excuse for fat-shaming.
-
Stay on-topic. Submissions should be on-topic to the externalities of car culture in urban development and communities globally. Posting about alternatives to cars and car culture is fine. Don't post literal car fucking.
-
No traffic violence. Do not post depictions of traffic violence. NSFW or NSFL posts are not allowed. Gawking at crashes is not allowed. Be respectful to people who are a victim of traffic violence or otherwise traumatized by it. News articles about crashes and statistics about traffic violence are allowed. Glorifying traffic violence will get you banned.
-
No reposts. Before sharing, check if your post isn't a repost. Reposts that add something new are fine. Reposts that are sharing content from somewhere else are fine too.
-
No misinformation. Masks and vaccines save lives during a pandemic, climate change is real and anthropogenic - and denial of these and other established facts will get you banned. False or highly speculative titles will get your post deleted.
-
No harassment. Posts that (may) cause harassment, dogpiling or brigading, intentionally or not, will be removed. Please do not post screenshots containing uncensored usernames. Actual harassment, dogpiling or brigading is a bannable offence.
Please report posts and comments that violate our rules.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
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.
I sometimes ride diesel-electric trains. It's definitely noisier but it's not super loud inside the carriages.
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
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?
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.
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.
@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.
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.
@jonne Yeah, many things need fixing ;)
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