Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Downtown
Are you joking? These new lines are hard to justify as it is. Adding catenary and substations and electric locos or MU cars to run four trains a day would make it unbelievably expensive.
The justification for the South Shore electrification 100 years ago was that it was an interurban line being built through city streets, so it needed to run more like a streetcar than a steam train. The IC was electrified in 1926 because the city demanded it in an era of coal-burning steam locomotives, 10 tracks along the lakeshore, and hundreds of trains a day.
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So why do they maintain the catenary all the way out to South Bend? Why not switch to a system more like the Metro North or LIRR, switching to electric in the city but using diesel-electric in the outer reaches?