The Electrification discussion

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Princeton to Princton Junction in New Jersey on the NEC. Done long in the past by the PRR. About 3 miles if I recall correctly. Used by EMU's, and probably occasional freight.
The Dinky Line actually had or envisaged to have hourly or better service so it could be justified on its own. So it is not an example of what I was talking about. The branch would have to have almost no traffic to be a good case of what I was talking about.
 
RM (Reece), who I think does a good job on his videos, published a new one. It's about California HSR, but it addresses larger issues in electrification. Notable:
  • 13:52 - Amtrak's electrification of the northern NEC in 1990s was "done incredibly cost-effectively."
  • 19:24 - Saying electrification is too expensive leads to people who instead want batteries, or worse, hydrogen. Or they at least want to slow down the project to study alternatives to wires. (NIMBY's, or cost-cutters, or just solo blowhards?) To be fair, I should add some context: RM says we shouldn't be afraid to criticize projects we like.

Frankly, this guy lost all credibility with me with that single statement about cost effectiveness. He is talking of only the first tranche of funding. It required two more tranches to actually complete the project, the last one coming a decade after the original project started. It was way over budget and way behind schedule when all was said and done. It was more akin to what has happened in the electrification upgrade of the NEC in the NJ HSR project. Ran out of money and had to wait for additional funding scrounged together somehow to actually complete the originally planned work, many years behind schedule.

Electrification does cost inordinately more in the US when compared to other major rail systems, except perhaps UK. There is no hiding from that and we should figure out why that is the case and fix it instead of prevaricating or obfuscating. I would not use any project on the NEC since the 1980s as an example of good governance, planning, and execution. Just continuing to do things as has been done believing incorrectly that they actually worked well will just keep producing poor results.

I am actually more curious to see how Brightline West makes out with its electrification. They have been quite cost effective with the basic track construction and upgrade so far.

This guy may be too young to know enough about what he is talking about regarding the NEC though. But the enthusiasm is something worth having. Adding more historical research would help credibility though. I would in defense of the video maker, hasten to add that Amtrak tries hard to hide such details (for obvious reasons) so they may be hard to come by unless you lived through it in the advocacy community.
 
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The Dinky Line actually had or envisaged to have hourly or better service so it could be justified on its own. So it is not an example of what I was talking about. The branch would have to have almost no traffic to be a good case of what I was talking about.
Some of the more esoteric connecting chords around Clapham Junction have zero passenger trains and only very sporadic freights (maybe a few dozen a year, mostly internal trains involving positioning moves for ROW maintenance equipment - and such moves are virtually all diesel powered) yet these lines have the third rail and it is powered and always on, on the odd chance that the chord is needed for some very peculiar diversion moves. Ditto for the respective signals etc.
 
  • 19:24 - Saying electrification is too expensive leads to people who instead want batteries, or worse, hydrogen. Or they at least want to slow down the project to study alternatives to wires. (NIMBY's, or cost-cutters, or just solo blowhards?) To be fair, I should add some context: RM says we shouldn't be afraid to criticize projects we like.
I agree with the overall principle here. I don't think its malice but more just incompetence and people parroting one another's views. And we all know that passenger railroads (both commuter and Amtrak) are political animals and high-level decisions often get based on public sentiment rather than solid engineering considerations - which is precisely why it is dangerous to have an ill-informed populace.

In my view, hydrogen and batteries, outside of a small number of special cases, are precisely that, misguided suboptimal solutions that can be sold to the public as sensible and rational alternatives to electrification, but are in the long run more expensive and less efficient.

That said, I recall an argument from a few years ago when the advantages of streetcars vs buses was considered. Streetcars, so it was argued, are a more visible sign of investment in the location as there is a lot of investment in fixed equipment that cannot be moved whereas a bus, even a high quality fancy zero emission bionic-duckweed-fusion powered bus with all the doo-dah bells and whistles, can be discontinued at a whim of local politicians or transit directors and moved to some other route. Technically that can happen to a streetcar or trolleybus too, but it is less likely on account of the investment that would have to be written off. As a result, people recognize the long-termism of the investment and are more likely to build on that, renovating buildings along the corridor and locating businesses, residential uses etc there, thus creating a virtuous cycle that leads to growth in ridership on the corridor. To some extent I think a similar argument can be made for the electrification of branch lines serving economically weaker areas and seeing this investment as a key to regeneration.
 
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Again we see in India for example, all the catenary that was installed in the 1960s and 70s are now being rebuilt which keeps the crews busy and in practice, when they are not occupied in installing new catenary.

Furthermore, I assume that
1) India considers total electrification of the entire network as a medium to long term objective (with the possible exception of the Darjeeling railway and a few other special cases)
2) India clearly favors real electrification over hydrogen, batteries and other such distractions.

It's only when you have a clear vision that you can get clear results.
 
A US story from last week about people taking selfies on the 3rd rail that did not go well:
https://nypost.com/2023/08/14/lolla...ird-rail-while-taking-selfie-on-train-tracks/
Lots of really stupid and uninformed comments. For example, one person says third rail systems need to be fenced in or underground (I think they mean in tunnels) and second person replies that he takes Amtrak all the time and doesn't see any fences. What??? 1) Amtrak doesn't use third rail. 2) Lots of the NEC IS fenced and they are putting up new fences all the time. For example, the section near the house I grew up on in SE Mass never had fences until about 8 years ago, now has fences on both sides for many miles through the town I lived in.

I thought about replying to some of the comments with misinformation, but ... Someone was wrong on the Internet...
 
Lots of really stupid and uninformed comments.
Yeah it's the old age anti-rail reflex.

An inebraited pedestrian walks onto the freeway and gets killed. Everybody agrees what a stupid individual that was.

An inebriated pedestrian walks onto the railroad track and gets killed. Everybody agrees that the railroad is at fault.
 
Frankly, this guy lost all credibility with me with that single statement about cost effectiveness. He is talking of only the first tranche of funding. It required two more tranches to actually complete the project, the last one coming a decade after the original project started. It was way over budget and way behind schedule when all was said and done. It was more akin to what has happened in the electrification upgrade of the NEC in the NJ HSR project. Ran out of money and had to wait for additional funding scrounged together somehow to actually complete the originally planned work, many years behind schedule.

Electrification does cost inordinately more in the US when compared to other major rail systems, except perhaps UK. There is no hiding from that and we should figure out why that is the case and fix it instead of prevaricating or obfuscating. I would not use any project on the NEC since the 1980s as an example of good governance, planning, and execution. Just continuing to do things as has been done believing incorrectly that they actually worked well will just keep producing poor results.

I am actually more curious to see how Brightline West makes out with its electrification. They have been quite cost effective with the basic track construction and upgrade so far.

This guy may be too young to know enough about what he is talking about regarding the NEC though. But the enthusiasm is something worth having. Adding more historical research would help credibility though. I would in defense of the video maker, hasten to add that Amtrak tries hard to hide such details (for obvious reasons) so they may be hard to come by unless you lived through it in the advocacy community.
Thanks for clearing up the costs of the northern NEC electrification. The central recommendation of the Transit Costs Project is that we need more public information.

Maybe of note, RM cites Alan Fisher as a big authority. Others would know more than me. I'm heartened that young people are so interested in public planning and transit. Pretty much any college town can fill up new train service. But when young or old commenters get too caught up in a Roblox-like (or what is the transit game software people really like?) design for an ideal system, I get a bit wizened. It's all for the good, but sometimes there's a confusion of what's on the other side of the dialog. One point RM makes is true for sure, lower costs helps everyone. Or is it true? He dismisses a pundit who argued that we can afford higher CAHSR costs, and benefit from the social and environmental standards in the U.S. and California.

As an extreme point, we could just send sub-sub-contracted non-union labor out from Texas construction firms to dig holes for catenary, and see what happens. Or on the other extreme, we could insist that computer models match exactly field results from seismic testing of railbed on the NEC before digging any holes, and have lawyers write lengthy contracts on liability for future results. The reality is we don't know much about what is happening at the business and engineering level. Or at least I don't.

(I worked on a shopping mall job in New Jersey where unions were getting replaced by Texas-type firms, and the comment around the site - NJ people like to comment - was they'd hire five people who said they were electricians, and count on two actually being qualified. Nevertheless, I must say everything was by the book, wanding every connection, etc. The union that was really on its heels was the one that represented unskilled labor. Very nice guy, told me it was the last big job they'd have in NJ. This was almost twenty years ago.)
 
The original S-Bahn in Berlin also uses third-rail and some locations were pretty accessible. Berlin was built with 800V and Hamburg with 1200V.
View attachment 33673
As this photo shows, the Berlin 3rd rail at the time was encased in wooden boards (I think mostly plastic these days), with only the inside surface being exposed, thus greatly reducing the risk of undesired contact. Hamburg has a similar arrangement.

The British solution left the third rail exposed on all sides.
 
Electrification does cost inordinately more in the US when compared to other major rail systems, except perhaps UK. There is no hiding from that and we should figure out why that is the case and fix it instead of prevaricating or obfuscating. I would not use any project on the NEC since the 1980s as an example of good governance, planning, and execution. Just continuing to do things as has been done believing incorrectly that they actually worked well will just keep producing poor results.

I am actually more curious to see how Brightline West makes out with its electrification. They have been quite cost effective with the basic track construction and upgrade so far.
The UK cost are a bit all over the place because they keep starting and stopping rolling programs. Recent projects end up being around 3m a STM if I remember right. The goal for the US should be under 1.5M a STM mile putting us right in line with most countries worldwide. The only way we will hit that is with a long term rolling program
 
Thanks for clearing up the costs of the northern NEC electrification. The central recommendation of the Transit Costs Project is that we need more public information.

Maybe of note, RM cites Alan Fisher as a big authority. Others would know more than me. I'm heartened that young people are so interested in public planning and transit. Pretty much any college town can fill up new train service. But when young or old commenters get too caught up in a Roblox-like (or what is the transit game software people really like?) design for an ideal system, I get a bit wizened. It's all for the good, but sometimes there's a confusion of what's on the other side of the dialog. One point RM makes is true for sure, lower costs helps everyone. Or is it true? He dismisses a pundit who argued that we can afford higher CAHSR costs, and benefit from the social and environmental standards in the U.S. and California.

As an extreme point, we could just send sub-sub-contracted non-union labor out from Texas construction firms to dig holes for catenary, and see what happens. Or on the other extreme, we could insist that computer models match exactly field results from seismic testing of railbed on the NEC before digging any holes, and have lawyers write lengthy contracts on liability for future results. The reality is we don't know much about what is happening at the business and engineering level. Or at least I don't.

(I worked on a shopping mall job in New Jersey where unions were getting replaced by Texas-type firms, and the comment around the site - NJ people like to comment - was they'd hire five people who said they were electricians, and count on two actually being qualified. Nevertheless, I must say everything was by the book, wanding every connection, etc. The union that was really on its heels was the one that represented unskilled labor. Very nice guy, told me it was the last big job they'd have in NJ. This was almost twenty years ago.)
I'm no expert, and I've often referred to many of these YouTubers for insight only to find that many of the more knowledgeable people here think their views are largely incorrect at times. That said, I wouldn't ever really cite Alan Fisher as a big authority.

Its sometimes frustrating that in the railway world, it doesn't seem like there is a consensus on a fairly large number of things. For those of us like me who want to learn more, it makes things quite difficult.

That being said, I generally trust people here more than elsewhere.

For what its worth, I do think the New Haven - Boston electrification was done more cheaply than it could have been, and certainly is worth looking into what went right and applying some of those things for future use.
 
The UK cost are a bit all over the place because they keep starting and stopping rolling programs. Recent projects end up being around 3m a STM if I remember right. The goal for the US should be under 1.5M a STM mile putting us right in line with most countries worldwide. The only way we will hit that is with a long term rolling program
Start and stop is the worst you can do in any area. It's not just electrification, also rolling stock manufacturing etc etc. If you only place a major order once a generation as Amtrak does, the manufacturers have to re-learn skills from scratch and this is reflected in both price and design errors.

The solution to most things that are wrong with trains is more trains.
 
As this photo shows, the Berlin 3rd rail at the time was encased in wooden boards (I think mostly plastic these days), with only the inside surface being exposed, thus greatly reducing the risk of undesired contact. Hamburg has a similar arrangement.

The British solution left the third rail exposed on all sides.
I should have captioned the first photo. I took it in 1969. The firemen were fighting a brush fire on the Reichsbahn ROW.
 
Apparently at the inauguration of electric service there will be cross platform connection from the Peninsula electric service to the South of San Jose diesel service...

https://www.caltrain.com/media/31624/download
I'm really not a fan of the service plan, given the minor time difference, 2 local and 2 express A would be better. Ideally though we'd see the 6TPH as planned
They'll have 1 battery set coming later. It and the diesels going to Salinas at some point in the future
 
Interesting article in the Virginia Mercury on the future electrification of railroads through Virginia and North Carolina...

https://www.virginiamercury.com/2023/01/09/electrified-rail-is-the-future-is-virginia-all-aboard/
Interestingly while many countries have been mentioned about current electrification, no mention of India which is now 90% electrified and well on its way to the goal of 100% by 2025.

Interestingly, I just learned that India is in the process of re-electrifying the main lines targeted for 160-200kph service. Apparently the span lengths (distance between two support poles) in the original electrification were too long for stable operation at speeds above 130-140kph. So they are installing new set of poles with shorter spans and transferring the existing catenary from the original set of poles to the new ones and then dismantling the original set of poles. That is why on many main lines you see a separate set of poles with no wires attached to them as they start the transition. This is happening together with the installation of trackside equipment for Kavach (India's implementation of the equivalent of ERTMS Level 2). Lord knows India needs it what with the unfortunately frequency of SPADs.
 
The article didn't mention that in the late 1940's there was an effort to expand electrification and that an alternative approach was discussed -- federal agencies like the BPA and TVA financing the long-term investments that frightened Wall Street.
There were discussions later than that involving TVA, in the 1960's I think it was. They discussed with both Southern and L&N electrifying Cincinatti to Atlanta. This would have been the CNO&TP through Chattanooga on the Southern and the L&N Cincinatti Atlanta line through Knoxville. Details I don't fully recall, but it was in essence that TVA would own everything from the contact wire to the power plant and sell the power to the railroad much the same as through the meter to your house. Apparently both railroads looked at it fairly seriously but there was the issue of change of power at the ends instead of the long distance run through of diesels as commonly done at the time. Also, neither wanted to be first. I suspect not precluding ultimately doing this was part of the Southern's setting 30 feet overhead clearance in the CNO&TP tunnel rebuilds.
 
The real cost is labor not materials. the UK cost are like 92% labor.

I know this is an old comment (and I even liked it way back) but this really is the issue, labor is the bulk of construction costs in North America. I have friends in India who can do all kinds of crazy things architecturally, just with lower cost materials (i.e. brick, wood, metalwork, etc) because labor there has been cheap while materials are expensive, though I suspect that is changing there (and of course, construction costs are crazy here with large increases over the past three years).
 
Interestingly, I just learned that India is in the process of re-electrifying the main lines targeted for 160-200kph service. Apparently the span lengths (distance between two support poles) in the original electrification were too long for stable operation at speeds above 130-140kph.
I think this is pretty much analogous what happened in France as speeds increased.

On the high speed lines they also use a different tension, I mean not tension in terms of voltage but the mechanical tension on the line.
 
Seems strange to me to electrify from Richmond to Raleigh yet leave DC - Richmond as diesel because someone can't figure out how to hang catenary high enough to clear double stack trains. :rolleyes:
PRR standard catenary is already high enough to clear double stack and triple auto rack trains. NS triple auto racks run often enough on the NEC between Newark DE and Bayview MD.

I find it astounding as to how many well meaning rail advocates in the US firmly believe that double stack clearance is impossible under catenary, and of course the freight railroad managers have no qualms letting them stew under their own ignorance. The boss of Virginia Rail Agency (ex-Amtrak Mr. Stadler) is on record saying that electrification is impossible between Washington DC and Richmond because there needs to be clearance for double stack! With such friends, who needs enemies?
 
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