Wondering what the battery locomotive sounds like? Significantly lower decibel level?
You’ll lose that low pitched rumble, of course.
Oftimes I’ve heard locomotives at speed that aren’t “working.” You can hear the whine of the gear train quite plainly. I suspect that will be a major component, along with blowers and air pumps.
I recall seeing an electric loco in New Jersey on which the primary noise was the blowers to cool the electrical apparatus. They were loud.
Wouldn’t have been an E44 by any chance? Those would put a vacuum cleaner to shame when working… [:O]
A practical battery pack will have very good distributed cooling of the strings, probably liquid-to-air for flexibility in operation. So expect “radiator cooling” noise as well as traction-motor blowers.
(Note that some of the straight-electric noise is related to high-current operation at instantaneous/hourly rating not limited by prime-mover efficiency, which involves much more heat dissipation per unit)
Couldn’t say - wasn’t really in a position to get details. It was around Long Branch, NJ, if that helps any, say, ca 2006…
Don’t know about battery locomotives. GG-1’s were not all that quiet with the various cooling fans - both for the transformers in the carbody as well as the motors powering the quill drives which I recall as having gear whine.