Electrification Harrisburg-Pittsburgh: could it happen?

[Paulus]

It is interesting when you look back at the history of the PRR electrification.....they extended their wires over many freight only locations back then...such as the Trenton Cut-Off, the line to Potomac Yard, and IIRC even the Port Road?

The economics are very different when electrifying steam routes.

 

[henryj]

The other point that I did not make is, we already have electrified railroads and have had since the Diesel Electric locomotive was invented. These engines are powered by electric motors and they do it without wires and all the other paraphenalia that straight electrics require and they have the flexibility to go anywhere, not just where the wires are. They just carry their electricity power plant on board with them and only generate their electricity as needed. Basically, at this point, the only advantage to straight electric power is it can be generated by using fuels other than diesel fuel, such as coal or nuclear. The economics then for converting would only come into play when the costs of liquid fuels reaches the breaking point, and I don't see that happening for many years.

There are significantly greater levels of acceleration possible with electric trains compared to diesel, especially at high speed, and electric trains use about 1/3rd the energy of diesel trains, which can be a significant source of savings (mainly for passengers and high speed freight). As well, you can save a significant amount of money by using fewer locomotives (there are 13,000hp electric locomotives in common revenue service, diesel maxes out at 6,300hp so far), both in terms of initial capital outlay and in terms of locomotive maintenance costs (~100-200K per year). That's over and above the reduced maintenance costs and higher reliability of an electric locomotive in the first place.

That said, I do not think that freight will electrify, though I think it increasingly likely on the part of commuter and high frequency intercity passenger lines.

All this may be true, but it favors frequent passenger service much more than the occasional freight train. Like we said, freight railroads will electrify when it makes economic sense. What stops them in their tracks is the high initial costs and the lack of flexibility. The closest candidates would be the BNSF transcon and the UP;s Chicago to Ogden route, both of which have been studied before. Even then they are not going to string wires over yards, inter-modal facilities, branch and secondary lines and so on, so you will see lots of locomotive switch outs and diesels employed everywhere except the main.

It is interesting when you look back at the history of the PRR electrification.....they extended their wires over many freight only locations back then...such as the Trenton Cut-Off, the line to Potomac Yard, and IIRC even the Port Road?

The PRR electrification was done during the 'great depression' at depression era costs. It would cost billions and billions to duplicate it today(what did it cost to extend it to Boston?). Inter-modal did not exist then. It's kinda hard to lift containers onto double stack cars with an overhead wire in the way. Today, many plants or industrial area's would not want high tension overhead in their plant for safety reasons.

 

[TVRM610]

The Keystone Corridor is not "a couple of trains a day" - the idea of extending the electrification is extending the corridor itself all the way to Pittsburgh.

 

[Eric S]

Seems that first service needs to be increased to considerably more than "a couple of trains a day" then, at some indeterminate time in the future, electrification could be considered. Not sure why electrification needs to occur prior to increasing frequencies.

 

[northnorthwest]

A very old discussion, but came across this, and it gave me a chuckle...

http://digitalcollections.library.cmu.edu/awweb/awarchive?type=file&item=608838