[Big Dave]

A loaded 100 ton car (gross weight up to 140 tons) at 1 MPH will coast for five miles on flat track.

BTW, railroad rolling stock is usually loaded 70,000 lb/axle. A four-axle car could weigh as much as 140 tons gross. All US freight locomotives have a traction motor for every axle.

Flat yards at night are often deadly for the unaware. That car is coasting along nearly silently. Switch yards work 24/7. This is why railroad detectives ("special agents") are very vigorous about trespassers.

Electrifying the mainlines is a simple but expensive proposition. It is old tech, well proven and available readily if not exactly off-the-shelf. Figure about $5 million per mile. Another $2 million per mile for the retrofit of electrical power transmission. About 32,000 miles of electrified mainline track would allow access to non-oil energy for 98% of railroads' energy needs. Figure that reduces the railroads quarter million barrel per day fuel appetite by 98%, but where do you get all that electricity?