You're viewing a single thread.
What exactly are you taking issue with here? The train runs on batteries, and it's the first one in the world deployed, though the manufacturer, I'm sure, is hoping to sell to more operators than Tesla Germany.
The headline says worlds first all-electric train rather than worlds first all-battery-powered train. There have been many all-electric trains before. So the headline as written is incorrect.
Electric trains actually predate diesel, noted as far back as the 30s. Subways kind of needed something that didn't emit smoke and fumes
Volk's electric railway, 1883. Only a narrow gague tourist type thing but still technically a passenger railway.
That's a good point, fair enough.
Because the headline literally says "world's first all electric train", which it very much is not.
Nor is it the first battery powered train in the world or even first in Germany where this giga-train operates.
Besides the first all electric train bit, which is nonsense, it also touts the capacity of the train. It has 120 seats, which may be mind blowing to car heads, but for a train is rather on the low side. Regular passenger trains often have over 200 seats and many have more seats for the same length. For busy pieces of track 600 seats per train aren't unusual.
It really is like the author has never heard of trains before and has his mind blown by the concept.
Personally I think putting in batteries is kinda dumb, trains need so much infrastructure already and it's fixed in location. Adding a power delivery system (like overhead power lines like most electric trains have) is really easy. That way a lot of weight is saved, thus making the whole thing more efficient. You also don't need any special materials to make it, compared with huge batteries. And the wear components are a lot less expensive to replace.
Trains are quite good at carrying weight though, why do you think so much bulk material goes by rail?
There's room for batteries in the rail industry.
Diesel electrics rely primarily on dynamic braking. To save wear and tear on friction brakes, they convert kinetic energy to electrical, and then to heat in a giant resistor bank.
Add a couple battery cars, and dynamic braking becomes regenerative braking.
Theoretically, you could back feed the grid with that electrical energy, but if you do that, the train's primary braking system is now dependent on a connection to the grid, and that doesn't seem like a particularly good idea to me. All of the "stop" systems need to be far more reliable than the "go" systems.
The article states 500 passengers...
So I'd say still hardly "MiNDbLoWINg"
That is probably in reference to the tech used, it is exceptional for a battery powered train. This just seems like negativity directed at tesla/musk (they do such for myriad reasons), even though they aren't the manufacturer, just the operator.
Nope. UK already has battery powered trains in operation. Trust me, I'm a full blown train nerd. The only remotely interesting things is that it happened in the US, and even then the better option was electrification.
This is in Germany.
So then it's even less interesting.