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Originally Posted by ardecila
This is a sick joke and the worst kind of greenwashing. Batteries are many times less energy dense than diesel fuel (i.e. much more mass for the same energy output) so it will actually take more energy to move the train due to the mass of batteries. And it locks Metra into the push/pull locomotive model which is also more inefficient than multiple-unit.
Metra keeps asking "the industry" to build things that don't make sense. Hopefully this turns out like the gallery car RFP and they get no responses because this is so boneheaded.
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I don't know the details. Obviously at some point battery powered everything is going to beat liquid fuel on fixed, limited range routes. Not today, but if you also consider maintenance costs and the benefits of regenerative braking, that could be significant on a route with numerous stops.
In 10 years, it's going to be cheaper to own and operate any electric car than an ICE car even if gas was free. That is going to happen much faster if it's a car that only does stop-and-go driving on a limited route. Regional rail is probably somewhere on that path too. For example, if we could charge batteries with less voltage than was required to operate them in real time during acceleration, it's possible that electrifying old diesel lines would be simpler and cheaper than going full electric.
I have to imagine that if you replaced a diesel engine with a battery, it's a pretty short hop to have drive systems in every car rather than one big turbine up front.
However, the fact that this doesn't exist already in some other forward-thinking regional rail system leads me to believe that you're right and that it won't pencil out in the near term.