Caltrain's electric fleet more efficient than expected

https://www.caltrain.com/news/caltrains-electric-fleet-more-efficient-expected

by ssuds • 1 year ago

340 275 1 year ago

jeffbee4• 1 year ago

It's hilarious but sad to watch Americans learn things that agencies abroad already know. The other example of this I saw today was that in NYC the congestion pricing has "surprisingly" slashed the number of car crashes and injuries in Manhattan. Like, duh.

readdit2• 1 year ago

I feel this is positive news moving in a positive direction. Do you suggest not doing anything to improve the situation? We can’t go back in time. But we can help ourselves in the future.

ninetyninenine17• 1 year ago

I feel this improvement is negligible. I doubt you'll see any meaningful change in your lifetime.

At best you'll see an electric car renaissance. But the infra for trains and public transit? Doubtful.

dhosek• 1 year ago

I think it’s more that Americans seem to be surprised by things that people in other countries have known for decades.

Meanwhile, the current administration is trying to send us back to the 19th century in civil rights, healthcare and energy policy.

tifik• 1 year ago

Of course its positive news. Of fourse we cant go back in time. Its still good fun to poke at US for being so late on these discoveries.

lmm• 1 year ago

One way to help yourselves in the future would be to learn the meta-lesson that actually things that work in other countries mostly work the same way in the US too.

londons_explore3• 1 year ago

I dunno...

Many trains in London still don't do regenerative braking despite the technology to generate electricity from motion being around for... checks notes... 194 years!

benmanns• 1 year ago

You probably know more about this than me, but it looks like some lines do: https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transparency/freedom-of-informa...

Regenerative braking in cars also keeps a lot of brake dust out of the air. A pair of brake pads lasts about as long as the life of an EV.

xnx• 1 year ago

Do trains need batteries for regenerative braking, or is it sent right back on the same power lines?

IncreasePosts2• 1 year ago

The deepest metro lines are also boiling, because the heat from braking just gets constantly absorbed into the ground, and the ground's ability to disperse the heat is maxed out.

IncreasePosts2• 1 year ago

I don't see why it couldn't be surprising - if there are fewer cars in Manhattan, it could mean the cars will have a higher average speed, meaning they might be more likely to get into an accident.

cameldrv• 1 year ago

My experience in Manhattan is that when it gets really congested, it turns into a giant game of chicken with everyone jockeying for position. This has got to lead to a lot of accidents (although probably mostly fairly minor)

astrange4• 1 year ago

"Surprisingly" is an opinion on the part of whoever wrote that, but it's not a surprise to any of the advocates.

It has been working better than expected, possibly because the bad drivers were breaking a lot of other traffic laws and this one's easier to enforce so is actually keeping them away.

MattGaiser• 1 year ago

The other example of this I saw today was that in NYC the congestion pricing has "surprisingly" slashed the number of car crashes and injuries in Manhattan. Like, duh.

You didn't see the online crowds screaming up and down that it wouldn't do anything but pick the pockets of people? Many genuinely did not believe things would change.

dylan6042• 1 year ago

How do you get the choir to sing? You preach to the choir.

When the needle is moving in the right direction, publicize that so everyone knows about it. That public info makes it harder if someone then comes around and suggests undoing/defunding or any other type of thing that stop the needle or make the needle move in the opposite direction. Keeping the info quiet makes yanking the plug very easy

blintz4• 1 year ago

The electric Caltrain is so wonderful. It’s way quieter, the cars have nicer interiors, and it is running faster and more frequently than before.

Between this, the new BART cars (also much quieter!), and Muni hitting a reliability & satisfaction records, there’s really a transit renaissance going on in the Bay Area. I really hope we can keep this going!

ninetyninenine17• 1 year ago

Haha. Doubtful. In your lifetime you won't see any transit system in the bay area that approaches anything remotely close to what you see in places like Tokyo or NYC.

I get that there's improvement but like it's still rather pathetic compared to almost everywhere else across the pond.

lswainemoore2• 1 year ago

Why so negative? Given that the served population is conservatively a quarter of either of those areas, doesn't seem like a fair comparison.

More to the point, I've been favorably impressed with the transit options since moving here, and in terms of reliability it's been better than NYC, though obviously there are fewer trains/branches.

I'd love to see BART open later, like NYC, but even Tokyo trains stop at midnight.

astrange4• 1 year ago

If you copy Japan policies you can get something much closer to Japan, it's not magic.

(Transit oriented upzoning, no parking minimums, and businesses in the station building.)

spike021• 1 year ago

Tokyo metropolitan area is nothing like the SF Bay Area. It's extremely different and so is ridership.

Also, if you check out smaller cities in Japan they don't always have as good public transit.

Heck, even in Tokyo you can find neighborhoods where you still need to walk or maybe take a bus because train lines don't quite reach them.

infotainment• 1 year ago

Agreed largely, though IMO BART is holding the bay area back. Unlike Caltrain and Muni, BART management is completely incompetent and more focused on spending their money on random things than actually running their transit system.

Fun fact: BART police has a large fleet of SUVs, with the highest vehicle-to-officer ratio in the bay area (if only there were some other way for them to get around!)

Fun exercise: compare the cleanliness of a Muni Bus/LRV to a BART car (even a new one at the start of the day). There is a huge difference.

insane_dreamer• 1 year ago

BART police

why does a transit system need its own police force? Aren't municipal and county police enough?

johnzim• 1 year ago

Yep, BART is pretty reviled by all the other transit authorities, and for good reason, based on what my friends who work some of the other authorities have said.

ssuds• 1 year ago

Speaking of BART, this story is priceless: https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/bart-seat-slasher-hur...

The firm that reupholstered damaged BART seats in the ‘80s paid people to slash them so they’d get more business.

blintz4• 1 year ago

I think BART struggles with who it's meant to serve now, since it was clearly designed for ultra-peak weekday commute traffic. Recovery for weekend ridership is way better than weekday.

I also agree that the governance structure for BART is weird and overly complex. Why do I elect a BART director? Why are they in their own special BART districts completely discontinuous from the 10 other ways we have sliced up the Bay Area?

All that being said, BART has done some good stuff too. The new cars really are way better, and they were not easy to procure since BART has its own weird, non-standard rail gauge. They have increased frequency and shortened trains on weekends to respond to the ridership changes.

Most of all, BART remains the only form of Bay Area transit genuinely faster than driving in real-world circumstances: it averages above 60mph in parts of the east bay, and goes from downtown Oakland to downtown SF in 11min, which is often 2-3x faster than driving. It's the primary transit system that can compete head-to-head with driving. For that reason, I do hope they keep increasing frequency (shortening trains if necessary).

Spooky233• 1 year ago

My son and I visited San Francisco carless last year. Awesome trip!

BART and Muni were great. My only complaint was that BART from downtown to SFO was almost painfully loud.

timewizard6• 1 year ago

with the highest vehicle-to-officer ratio in the bay area

There are 30% more violent assaults on BART vs Muni.

if only there were some other way for them to get around!

Do you want them to respond rapidly or eventually?

pm905• 1 year ago

To unlock the true value of these systems the BA needs to be forced to increase density of their cities though. We need SF proper to look more like Manhattan.

jmward01• 1 year ago

It also needs a much bigger emphasis on transit oriented development. In Japan the best place to eat in town is often in the train station or within a few feet of it. In the US the stops are often some of the worst places like parking lots or run down parts of town. Rarely have I seen good shopping/dining/living integrated into BA, or even US in general, transit systems.

blintz4• 1 year ago

Totally agree, though SF is closer to overall NYC density than you'd expect (NYC 29k, SF 18k ppl/sq mi; Manhattan is 73k).

I think the Bay Area suburbs are also egregious - e.g. North Berkeley BART station is surrounded by single family homes, even though it's 25min from downtown SF by train.

sofixa5• 1 year ago

It doesn't have to look like Manhattan. Even medium density (5-10 stories) will be enough in terms of housing provided, and is cheaper to build, and doesn't risk making the street level inhospitable (if nothing is human scale and there's no sunlight on the street, there will be less people there, making it feel or become dangerous).

zer0zzz2• 1 year ago

The new sfo terminal too

potato37328423• 1 year ago

It’s way quieter, the cars have nicer interiors, and it is running faster and more frequently than before.

Not that electric isn't a huge step up for all the usual reasons but most of that is just because it's new and hasn't been worn out yet.

markerz• 1 year ago

Electric does help with getting cars to run quieter and faster though. With the old diesel engines, they needed more headway because of slower cold start times so there's more frequency and can hit the speed limit faster. Electric engines have high torque and are naturally much quieter.

blintz4• 1 year ago

Honestly, I think even the old Caltrain cars were pretty clean. The only dirty parts were the bathrooms (and honestly, train bathrooms are sort of gross most places). Caltrain has always been sort of luxury, though; the median Caltrain rider has a >100k household income, which come to think of it, might be one of the highest median rider incomes for a public transit system in the world.

blackeyeblitzar• 1 year ago

How is safety these days? The last time I was in a BART station, I had to intervene in an uncomfortable situation where a (possibly high) man was bothering a young woman. It felt surreal because everyone around hadn’t helped her at all and was just ignoring what was happening.

tfehring2• 1 year ago

BART is better than it was but still bad. Caltrain is totally fine though.

ChuckMcM• 1 year ago

It has been great hasn't it?!? The difference between running every 30 minutes on weekends vs ever 2 hours is the difference between hopping on the train up to Redwood City for lunch with a friend and then back again. Versus one of us driving one way or the other.

If they can electrify the San Jose to Gilroy segment that will be even better.

saagarjha9• 1 year ago

I think they are running into issues with that because they don't own the rail lines, so they will probably go with batteries rather than overhead lines.

enos_feedler• 1 year ago

Im reading this from a train going from SFO to Milbrae! Y’all can thank me for the electricity later!!

ummonk• 1 year ago

Huh? The new BART cars sound as screechy as ever to me, much louder than the old diesel Caltrain, never mind the new electric Caltrain.

bagels3• 1 year ago

Still loud as ever until they get rid of the horns.

okdood64• 1 year ago

People don't understand and respect public transportation (train in this context) in this country. There's a lot of dumbasses who will be on the tracks when and where they should not be. Hence we need those loud horns.

dcrazy5• 1 year ago

I was so excited for the EMUs, but unfortunately the near-vertical seat backs are extremely uncomfortable. I ride a coach bus to work and rely on working during my commute. I simply cannot work on Caltrain.

dheera• 1 year ago

Transit renaissance? Until I can get across both the 84 and 92 bridges by train, to Half Moon Bay, and to Santa Cruz by train, I wouldn't call it a renaissance.

Even Cupertino doesn't have a station ffs

presentation2• 1 year ago

The train itself was quiet when I rode it from SF to Palo Alto but they were honking the horn almost nonstop… so much for peace and quiet.

usr11063• 1 year ago

I grew up in a 600,000 inhabitants city in Germany. They got EMUs in the 1930s. When they got the next generation in the 1970s all level crossings were replaced.

So California, one of the forerunners in the US, seems to be roughly 90 years behind. Depends on your age whether you'll be able to enjoy a quiet train trip during your lifetime. </sarcasm>

DiogenesKynikos• 1 year ago

That's because they still haven't eliminated the crossing points.

They need to turn every road or pedestrian crossing into an underpass or overpass, or eliminate it. They've started on this process, but it will take many years.

iancmceachern• 1 year ago

Don't forget the Sea Change Hydrogen Ferry!

skrap2• 1 year ago

I mean, this is good news, but why was the efficiency of the system so misunderstood at the design phase? I hope someone's interested enough to find out!

crocal2• 1 year ago

Ahoi! Participated to the development of a simulation tool for that purpose. Many factors need to be taken into account:

- The gradients of the track

- How agressively you want to drive at different time of the day

- How many trains

- The timing of the trains. When one train brakes, it can power another one that accelerates at the same moment

- The efficiency of the power chain

- The resistance model of the train

With so many parameters the results can be quite volatile. However, rule of the thumb in the business is that 30% saving can be achieved with good energy management. Hope this clarifies a little.

Update: bullet points

skrap2• 1 year ago

Interesting! Thanks for the great info. Do you know if anyone will have the opportunity to integrate observations into the model so it can continue to improve?

djaychela2• 1 year ago

Maybe they didn't factor in ridership on certain part of the track gradient, which would lead to more regen braking than expected?

zer0zzz2• 1 year ago

Finally some good news

two_handfuls• 1 year ago

Another cool thing in the article that I didn't know personally: Caltrain runs on 100% renewable power!

benatkin• 1 year ago

That shouldn't be put forth as a goal. It's how Germany got rid of all its nuclear plants and has to keep burning coal and buying fuel from Russia.

blamazon• 1 year ago

It's also how Scotland ended up harnessing their wind power, much to the consternation of one American capitalist...

whyenot• 1 year ago

It's great, but it took more than 20 years to get here due to environmental reviews and shaky funding. ...and this was just re-fitting an existing, relatively short stretch of track!

We (as Californians) have GOT to do better than this! There are huge infrastructure projects that we need to undertake in the coming years. We have got to cut the red tape and properly fund projects.

sunday_serif• 1 year ago

Completely agree!

The hard parts seems to be figuring out (1) how to cut red tape for only certain projects and (2) figuring out what red tape to keep.

Chesterton's fence and all that.

thereisnospork• 1 year ago

If you have to cut red tape for certain projects, the tape probably shouldn't exist in the first place.

edit: for instance, if you have e.g. an environmental regulation that is so onerous that exemptions must be doled out for something as sensible as train electrification, then you don't have an environmental review regulation, you have a 'build nothing except what the exemptor decrees' regulation. Which is rather antithetical to the rule of law and good governance.

huijzer3• 1 year ago

I’m getting more and more convinced that this is a main problem all over the West. In Germany, a business owner called Marco Scheel is becoming more and more popular by being very outspoken about how bureaucracy is hindering him. His company is called Nordwolle by the way. They make clothing out of sheep wool. They spend a lot of effort finding the right type of wool so they don’t need chemicals to paint it.

One major example which Marco first became popular with was that he owned a barn but wasn’t allowed to use it for the factory since it was a farm on paper. The government told him to move to a designated factory area. He argued that it made no sense since he was living in a very remote area, and the barn was of high quality. What else should he do with the barn? Why would he need to build something new somewhere else? The barn was there already and stood already for hundreds of years.

His most popular quote is something along the lines of “we can’t all sit with a Chai latte and a MacBook in a coworking space in Berlin and make the 5th dating app. We need some people who do that but not everyone. Some people need to make things with their hands! And for that I need space! I don’t need glass fibre. I need space!”

timewizard6• 1 year ago

more than 20 years to get here due to environmental reviews

How thorough were they being?

We (as Californians) have GOT to do better than this!

We pay more taxes than anyone else in the country. /We/ are doing our part. The administration needs to be held accountable.

We have got to cut the red tape and properly fund projects.

We need to light a fire under the administration and someone needs to take a wrecking ball through the state assembly.

tbrownaw• 1 year ago

/We/ are doing our part. The administration needs to be held accountable.

... By the electorate, who clearly aren't doing their part if things like this keep happening.

jacobjjacob2• 1 year ago

People want infrastructure and then when it gets built, they say it’s too expensive and takes too long. Valid criticisms but many throw the baby out with the bathwater.

jajko• 1 year ago

Rail for people is hard to get profitable without pretty high cost (or permanent subsidies).

Look at Switzerland - this is the land of trains, all reachable cities and villages have main train station at their heart, use is frequent, and its part of national pride (precision, coverage, cleanliness etc.). Yet prices are brutal, sure if you live here you can often afford it but it still hurts. The price keeps rising.

And I still use our family car for anything else but commuting to work (and even for that sometimes). Morning trains packed like sardines, in reality there are frequent (usually small though) delays which cascade. Car for 4 is significantly cheaper - I'd say 4x for full tickets, less with half/card but then thats 200 bucks a year on its own per head.

Whatever problems you are facing, I doubt that in US rail will solve all of them. Happy to be wrong here of course. I see rather some AI vans/minibuses ondemand hailing and sharing as way more effective and cheap solution. Small bus full of people has minimal env impact and can provide door-to-door transport.

joenot443• 1 year ago

How do Californians in 2025 feel about the California High-Speed Rail?

A similar project [1] is underway in Canada, but I worry sometimes it'll fall prey to the same administrative bog that the CHSR did. It'll be managed by a new Crown corp, VIA HFR, and from my understanding they're still taking engineering bids. I expect it'll be a while before shovels hit the ground.

A cheap, fast, and reliable rail from Toronto to Montreal would be a dream come true for a lot of Canadians. Any ideas on how best to make it a reality?

[1] https://tc.canada.ca/en/rail-transportation/railway-lines/hi...

dcrazy5• 1 year ago

I think high-speed rail between SF and LA is a great idea, and it’s difficult to understand how much of its cost is avoidable excess when the only solution proposed by critics is to shut down the project entirely.

TrapLord_Rhodo• 1 year ago

This got 8.9B allocated in 2008... The government should be banned from mega projects sucking up my tax payer dollars.

tim333• 1 year ago

I'm not sure it'll work but we have one of the loudest critics of over regulation making it hard to build things setting up the Department of Government Efficiency when he's not doing iffy salutes on stage. Their proposed approach as written in a WSJ opinion piece is quite interesting -

Most legal edicts aren’t laws enacted by Congress but “rules and regulations” promulgated by unelected bureaucrats—tens of thousands of them each year
...President Trump, [] can, by executive action, immediately pause the enforcement of those regulations and initiate the process for review and rescission.
When the president nullifies thousands of such regulations, critics will allege executive overreach. In fact, it will be correcting the executive overreach of thousands of regulations promulgated by administrative fiat that were never authorized by Congress...

(wsj thing https://archive.is/nFNp4)

92834092322• 1 year ago

iffy

You can just call it what it is and say Nazi salute.

aetherspawn3• 1 year ago

Train technology is so behind compared to road electric vehicles.

Companies that build train batteries have been trying to sell to us (car OEMs) lately, and we look at the battery specs and battery management system capabilities and go uhhhh…

On the motor and control fronts as well.

s0rce• 1 year ago

Why? Just build more trains any train infrastructure is so much better than cars, they barely need improvement, they just need to be built

aetherspawn3• 1 year ago

But for example if they used PMM squirrel cage motors etc, they would be nice and smooth, cheaper to build, more energy efficient.

On the battery front, using car-style or truck-style EV battery modules would be more robust and would reduce cost by somewhere in the order of 50%.

Instead, most trains still use induction motors (this is the high pitch whine you hear) and many train battery designs use industrial style rack mount batteries, with screw terminals, controlled by a massive PLC cabinet. In eMobility the controls are handled by a small safety-rated microcontroller.

inglor_cz• 1 year ago

The fundamental problem with any infrastructure today is that

a) it works better in a densely populated territory,

b) but the more people around, the more NIMBY cliques to throw sand into the permiting process, usually abusing environmental protections to do so.

If the new Trump administration defangs NEPA reviews just a bit - and I see no evidence that the original intent behind NEPA was to delay everything everywhere by decades - it might help, but a powerful YIMBY movement would be even better.

justinzollars• 1 year ago

With the agency expecting approximately $6 million annually in energy credits from the California Air Resources Board’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard Program the first year of electric service will have lower fuel costs than the previous diesel service

Thats the key. Without the subsidy its more expensive and less efficient than carbon based fuel. In the long run we are worse off, because the subsidy can't last forever.

kibwen• 1 year ago

Without the subsidy its more expensive and less efficient than carbon based fuel.

If markets actually worked for long-term decisionmaking and were therefore capable of pricing in negative externalities, then factoring in the cost of causing Earth to asymptotically approach Venus would change this calculus.

renhanxue5• 1 year ago

They've significantly increased the timetable frequency though, so they're running more trains, and those trains are accelerating and running much faster than the old diesel-electrics. I don't think you're comparing like for like.

hamandcheese2• 1 year ago

Currently, Caltrain is providing that power to the grid free of charge as there is no legal requirement for the agency to be reimbursed for the energy generated.

With further investment in energy storage it sounds like they could nearly cover a lost subsidy.

Moreover, the improved service from electric (faster acceleration and better air quality) seem very worthwhile.

ghouse2• 1 year ago

This is because PG&E retail is about 2.5x the national average.

Also, worth noting in the event the conclusions are extrapolated to diesel over the road transportation: train diesel is much less expensive as it's exempt from fuel (state and federal) taxes.

djaychela2• 1 year ago

In the long run we are worse off, because the subsidy can't last forever.

You're making the classic error here of not factoring the externalities involved - the pollution and other issues from fossil fuels. If they were actually being paid for then electricity would be much cheaper. Fossil fuels get a defacto subsidy by being able to pollute the environment without any cost.

HolySE• 1 year ago

Without the subsidy its more expensive and less efficient than carbon based fuel. In the long run we are worse off, because the subsidy can't last forever.

That doesn't seem to be the full picture.

1) The most recent FY 2025 budget (https://www.caltrain.com/media/30699/) has fuel and lubricant expenditures expected to be $5 million. With electricity expenditure estimates dropping to $16.5 million, that puts total expenditures at $21.5 million. The diesel expenditures remain because the long San Jose <> Gilroy corridor isn't electrified and requires diesel locomotive service. Contrast this against FY 2023 expenditures of $17.5 million. That's almost a 25% increase in movement power expenditures.

2) There is increased service now. About ~120 trains run on the latest weekday service timetable (https://www.caltrain.com/media/34716), and 8 of them are diesel service between San Jose and Gilroy. Compare this to ~90 trains for weekday service in 2023 (https://www.caltrain.com/media/30027/download?inline), of which 6 are diesel service between San Jose and Gilroy. Conservatively, we have a 25% increase in service.

3) The new trains are faster. Hitting every stop between San Jose and San Francisco is 101 minutes on diesel and 83 minutes on electric.

So we get an increase in movement power costs proportional to the increase in service, all while having faster trains. I think it's a fair trade.

The subsidies are just gravy on top for a job well done.

EDIT: fixed 2023 weekday service link

lacker• 1 year ago

They claim that "Caltrain is running its service on 100% renewable energy", but they are connected to the same grid as everyone else. It doesn't really make sense to say, half of our electricity is green, so customer X is renewable, but customer Y is not renewable.

skykooler• 1 year ago

It doesn't physically, but it does financially. Power generation is not free after all, so any power station, be it renewable or non-renewable, will only be producing as long as people are buying electricity from it.

pm905• 1 year ago

You can generally choose what kind of power generation mix you want from a utility. eg I am on a 100% renewable plan.

timewizard6• 1 year ago

Out of the 25GW being generated right now only 3GW are renewable. There is a corner where there is more demand from "100% renewable" customers than there actually is available renewable energy. There is no point at which this gets made up.

saagarjha9• 1 year ago

https://www.peninsulacleanenergy.com/news-releases/quick-cle...

dpierce92• 1 year ago

Power is pooled. If I buy from a supplier or group of suppliers that (1) procures only from renewable resources (2) isn’t reselling power from non renewable sources, (3) hasn’t sold the power more than once, and (4) is capable of providing my energy demands at any given time, then I am buying green power from the pool. It doesn’t matter if the actual electrons come from Ng or coal because I bought enough for the pool (the electrons I added to the pool will be used by someone else if I am using ng electrons).

Not 100% sure this is how Caltrain works but the fact that everyone is physically using the same pool does not imply that you cannot be 100% renewable if you buy from suppliers to the pool with the above properties.

bagels3• 1 year ago

I'm using the solar. You're using the natural gas. Easy. You just say it.

jer0me• 1 year ago

Yes, electrons are electrons are electrons. But customer X is paying for the renewable sources and customer Y is paying for the non-renewable sources, so customer X can say that they are renewable.

benced• 1 year ago

This literally doesn’t matter. The energy consumption of a train is trivial compared to displacing cars. If there was a way to trade this savings for higher speed, ridership, or frequency, it would be worth it.

(If there’s not, this is a free win and yay - but it’s the wrong focus)

winrid2• 1 year ago

At least it's a win for air quality for the people that live near the tracks. You could smell and taste the old diesels, was pretty annoying.

rsanek• 1 year ago

really? how close were you living? i lived for years just 3 houses over from the tracks and never even smelled the trains. definitely heard them tho

archagon• 1 year ago

Both speed and frequency are significantly up, and I’ve heard ridership is as well. Also, noise and pollution are substantially down. A huge win all around.

declan_roberts3• 1 year ago

19 million annually. I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze here. They should focus on making Caltrain run reliably timely, and safely for the passengers.

Once we get the ridership numbers up we can easily make up for the electricity efficiency.

Prosammer• 1 year ago

Caltrain runs reliably and safely for me, can you elaborate?

declan_roberts3• 1 year ago

The $19 million for regenerative breaking can be used to extend lines or add new stations. We can make up for energy efficiency later.

pm905• 1 year ago

Considering the anti transit attitude of most suburban dwelling Americans I am personally glad they are touting this.

bluGill2• 1 year ago

Considering the bad transit options they get anti transit is the rational choice. Suburbs are dense enough for great transit but it is expensive and so nobody can afford to give it to them. Thus continuing the cycle of bad transit worth opposing as the waste of money it is.

SkyPuncher• 1 year ago

It doesn't really seem like an either or type of situation.

My understanding is the electricity efficiency is really just a nice bonus (or perhaps justification) for making improvements that would also increase ridership.

I'm only loosely aware of the Electric Fleet, but my understanding is they add capacity that was desperately needed.

declan_roberts3• 1 year ago

In what world is $19 million just a "nice bonus"?

Get the rider numbers up and extend the lines. Thats the only thing we need right now.

tfehring2• 1 year ago

Electrification wasn't just an efficiency thing, it also made the service much better because of the faster acceleration - IIRC my travel time to SF on weekends went from 75 to 50 minutes, which opens up a lot of use cases.

erikgaas2• 1 year ago

The other important implication is how Caltrain could be routed through underground tunnels to Salesforce transit center. 4th and king isn't super nice and, correct me if I'm wrong, but it isn't well connected to other modes of transport. Maybe some muni buses.

acyou• 1 year ago

They are using less electricity than expected. The article neglects to specify whether this is due to higher than expected efficiency, or higher than expected downtime. Not that there is necessarily a problem with the technology, but energy efficiency estimates should be expected to already be quite accurate, all the technology is super old. If the efficiency is not in fact higher, I think the article is written a little disingenuously, they should really be more specific.

fsckboy3• 1 year ago

regenerative braking on the new trains is generating and sending back to the electric grid approximately 23% of the energy consumed by the system

does this make sense? let's round that 23 up to 25%, and say brake energy regeneration is 100% efficient (it's not): one quarter of the energy put into the system comes back out? city driving in a car, you might have your foot on the brake 25% of the time (yes, that's not how it works, just think conceptually) but a train spends a lot of time running, and comparatively a small amount of time braking, and if you were to detach the engine from the train, one doesn't get a sense the train would roll very far unpowered, so while there's momentum to scavenge, it doesn't seem like 25% of the total

I'm just thinking, how do these numbers make sense?

mikepurvis• 1 year ago

Firstly, I believe the trains are EMUs, so every bogey is powered rather than having the whole thing hailed by an engine; this is actually a huge benefit of electric as the trains can accelerate to speed much faster when they’re all wheel drive.

But to address your main point, the rolling resistance of a train in motion is tiny; basically all the energy cost is at acceleration time— it probably cruises at like 5-10% power.

Groxx• 1 year ago

"rolling very far unpowered" is like the entire point of rail systems

RWSen• 1 year ago

Exactly. There's a train route here in The Netherlands, from Den Bosch to Utrecht, where the train can coast the last 20 km. That's out of a 48 km trip, so almost half!

fsckboy3• 1 year ago

I would say that's not precisely true. the point of rail systems started out as "big power plant pulls lots of load". Once that was in place, yes, rolling very far unpowered becomes a compelling improvement.

a good comparison would be the invention of the travois https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travois which benefitted from the addition of wheels.

justinc8687• 1 year ago

Trains have little friction on the tracks. That's one of the ways they are much more efficient than a car (with rubber tires).

If the moving friction is very low, it makes sense that not that much energy is used to move the train once it's at speed. Slowing it down would return some of the energy back (with the rest dissipated as heat).

lutorm• 1 year ago

Even with a car's higher rolling resistance, most of the drag at cruising speed is aerodynamic, though.

But a commuter train, by definition, starts and stops a lot so it makes sense that a large fraction of the energy used would be for acceleration.

renhanxue5• 1 year ago

Try out the video game Derail Valley and you'll get a decently realistic idea of just how much trains tend to just coast along without any power input. On flat ground you just need a little nudge every once in a while to keep going.

Symbiote4• 1 year ago

one doesn't get a sense the train would roll very far unpowered

Even a model/toy train wagon can easily coast the length of a large room when given a push.

See how little metal is in contact, about 1cm²: https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/17ysd...

There's very little friction.

Animats• 1 year ago

That's good to hear. Especially since the electric trains accelerate so much faster than the Diesel ones did. Have you been next to one at takeoff? They're going about 40MPH before the train has traveled its own length. Probably limited more by standing passengers than power. Most of the energy used accelerating is recovered at the next stop, so the fast acceleration does not consume much energy.

ghouse2• 1 year ago

Most of the energy used accelerating is recovered at the next stop, so the fast acceleration does not consume much energy.

Not "most," but a lot. From the article: > regenerative braking on the new trains is generating and sending back to the electric grid approximately 23% of the energy consumed by the system

basiccalendar74• 1 year ago

it is 23% of total energy. if you consider only acceleration energy, it will be much larger percentage, probably 80% (as in electric cars).

acchow• 1 year ago

so the fast acceleration does not consume much energy

Also, acceleration has no effect on the energy if you’re trying to hit the same target speed (unless there is friction, in which case you’d use less energy with higher acceleration)

apexalpha• 1 year ago

While this sounds like good news it's very odd to me that a project the size of Caltrain would completely forget about regenerative breaking when calculating the electricity usage.

savrajsingh• 1 year ago

I can’t believe the New York City subway does not have this technology. We are currently breathing brake dust in the subway.

gc9• 1 year ago

If the renewably sourced power is purchased from big hydroelectric dams, the institutional price might depend on how full the reservoirs are. Power costs might be higher in drier years.

Caltrain's electric fleet more efficient than expected

Related Stories