this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
475 points (95.2% liked)
Technology
59151 readers
2270 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It’s worth the time and effort in a city, and even between two large cities that are relatively close to each other. Sadly, building and maintaining the system isn’t cheap, so we don’t do it in more remote locations.
It’s true. Electrified rail lines do exist in a many places, but not quite everywhere. Since there are also non-electric lines, there’s also a time and a place for non-electric locomotives.
A line crossing the Rockys can hardly be considered remote, (at least in an integrated system) it should get tons and tons of through-traffic. It's not about where the line is but what it connects.
A line can be way less remote, say just ten kilometres from a million inhabitant metropolis, but still see very limited traffic as the area is rural, and only have hourly passenger service and nothing else, maybe a couple of grain wagons in harvesting season and electrifying it would not amortise in a century or ever (because increased maintenance costs). Completely different situation to having through-traffic 24/7 bumper to bumper somewhere at the arse of the world.
If the government has full monopoly on everything rail related, then connecting two places becomes a political question. It may not make economic sense, but in the big picture of an entire country and its internal politics it might be a sensible thing to do regardless.
Hydrogen technology is still in its infancy, so economies of scale aren’t helping very muc at this point. On top of that, the storage options are far from ideal, and not all hydrogen is green. Currently there are many obstacels, but hopefully hydrogen will find its place in the future.
Caucasus was electrified first in Soviet Union
Distance doesn’t matter as long as the line connects two places that are important in the big picture.