Interesting update on Battery-powered trains

Sounds like things are moving ahead. I am curious to see how far they go. And there are comments enough to read all day.
Battery-powered trains are picking up speed | Ars Technica

Battery powered locomotives, to me, are in the same position as battery cars. They are a good stopgap/ transitional stage but they are not the future. They are more feasible for locomotives that cars due to weight being a good and needed thing for tractive effort so you don't need lithium-ion's (correct me if I'm wrong but i don't think the article even says what type is used in these) but there is still the charge time of a LOCOMOTIVE sized battery, and a better solution, wires.

Now for branch lines sure, battery loco's would be great. when your only running 1-2 trains a day out of a yard, have the loco's that run the line changing when not in use. No need to wire up something like that. However I cant see a class 1 saying "yes! we shall use battery loco's but every 500 miles (guess) we will have to change the motive power due to the battery's being flat! and the loco's have battery tenders! And, wait, isn't that what we had to do with steam and hated it so we went to diesel?" Over simplification of course but the point stands. there are unit trains crossing the country every day where the entire consist is the same for weeks, rolling stock and all. I can only imagine the nightmare of a big terminal trying to swap power on a 15,000 ft consists with DPU's 20 times a day

The same "its easy to put battery's into diesel electric's!" attitude can be said for electrification for the most part, and it would at least be future proof until we invent antigravity hover ships. :hehe:

Honestly, hydrogen is the way to go for long-haul transport like trucks, planes and trains. Other than being flammable, it's a pretty good fuel source.

It sounded like for the time being, these are being tested for yard switching, so they will stay around where the chargers are, and I was interested to note that some of the charging will be done via "ping!" pantographs!

What about the use of regenerative braking? When the engine stops, the traction motor goes into reverse and recharges the batteries. They do this now with some electric locomotives that put the power back out on the overhead wires and back send it back to the power station. With batteries, this will save the recharging time since the locomotive is charging its own batteries as it stops and starts. With a yard switcher this is even more advantageous.

Yes, I believe the article did mention regenerative braking as something that would help extend battery life

Very interesting article! I've always thought that battery-electric locomotives were the way forward (maybe with graphene batteries instead of lithium-ion; yeah, it's expensive, but so are locomotives in general), though I'll have to do some more research on hydrogen-powered automotive technology. A very interesting read, though!