Quote:
Originally Posted by RH77
...many of these locomotives have the ability to switch their motors into generators for "Dynamic Braking". When activated, the system forces the motors to become generators themselves, in-turn creating their own electricity and producing a braking effect. The spent electricity is dissipated as heat in large, air-cooled, resistor grids.
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If instead of wasting that electricity in producing heat, it was stored in batteries, high-speed flywheels, or even sent back into the grid via overhead electric wires, the locomotive would be a hybrid. But it isn't, so it's not, no more than dissapating the energy as heat in brake linings would make them friction hybrids. The energy's not reused, it's gone. Simple, really: all you have to do is think about it :-)