Or I should say a newer one. A Union Pacific windmill train pulls up alongside Salina Union Station, eastbound. After it comes to a stop, the camera pans to the right and south for a glimpse of FEF-3 no. 844 with Union Pacific’s 150th Anniversary train.
Wind turbine is the current term. If UP or BNSF embraced electrification, they could probably get most of their power from wind, water and solar, given their locations. After all, in a climate with much less and weaker sun, in the summer DB uses renewables (wind and solar) to provide almost all the energy for their mostly electified lines.
I wonder why the major railroads don’t go to hydrogen power. They would certainly have the means to set up a hydrogen refueling infrastructure and could proceed to blow the socks off competing transport modes for some time to come.
Railroads gravitate toward proven, reliable technology. At present, hydrogen is neither.
Problem with electrification is that, regardless of the energy source (coal internal combustion, or hydro-electric, or nuclear) the costs of maintaining the infrastructure is quite high. Electrification is very hardware intense and, frustratingly enough, the catenary network, it’s support structures, and substations, would instantly become taxable railroad assets…unless the taxing agency would be willing to give the rail company a break for “going green”. But it’s doubtful that would happen to our U.S freight rail carriers since some municipalities prefer to increase taxes on industries during rough economic periods.
Hydrogen isn’t an energy source. It’s an energy storage media. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to make elemental hydrogen, either indirect like reforming natural gas or direct like electrolsys or corroding energy intensive metals.
There are still many places where the “refueling infrastructure” for the railroad is nothing more than a local contractor’s fuel oil truck. So that is one hurdle that will have to be worked out.
My carrier has minimized designated fuel terminals because to the environmental safeguards and the costs of implementing them retroactively to existing ‘low volume’ locations. Service trucks have been implemented to fuel, sand and empty the toilets at many terminals; most locomotives are serviced while still attached to the trains they are handling.