I cannot believe the number of silver or grey cars that you see (eventually) with no lights on under a grey sky on a shiny wet road. Modern cars have them by default, so these idiots must have deliberately turned them off! Probably appeasing their consciences and saving fuel rather than abandoning their 2-minute drive to the shop...
I am grateful for the summary too, I am too close to it and get distracted by current real-world constraints that most people don't think are relevant. While regen braking is used nowadays, the problem with batteries will always be energy density. The current driver for procurement is seats per unit length... some suburban units being introduced now look poor on this score, but that is because they are expected to take a much higher proportion than we are used to standing!Paul_F wrote: ↑Fri Feb 23, 2024 9:03 am That's a good rundown of the issues, after reading a little more, It is a shame we still don't just have a fully electrified (overhead) rail network,but we don't, and maybe it is a distraction to look at battery electric trains, but I can still see a stop gap case for them on shorter branch lines, surely regen braking could make a big efficiency gain too and maybe even third rail in stations for powering up to speed and charging whilst stationary.
The thing about battery pods, or compartments, is that they take up space that would otherwise have seats in. And the self-propelled ones would either have to have traction current-rated automatic couplings (not going to happen, ever) or be effectively another fleet of locos, which implies space lost to cabs at both ends, plus more complex layouts at the end of the lines using them - when we can't afford to do much-needed obvious simple tweaks even on non-electrified lines because the signalling is too expensive or difficult to alter!
