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Originally Posted by Big Dave
Electrifying the mainlines is a simple but expensive proposition. It is old tech, well proven and available readily if not exactly off-the-shelf.
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Should be off-the-shelf, since a lot of European railroads are electric. I don't know about cost, but $5 million/mile seems way steep. It's basically just running an overhead power line along the track, and a quick search finds costs in the neighborhood of $50K/mile.
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Figure that reduces the railroads quarter million barrel per day fuel appetite by 98%, but where do you get all that electricity?
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If the conversion calculator -
Fuel Oil Equivalent @Barrel (US) Conversion - I found is correct, you could run the entire system with 18 1-GWatt nuclear plants. Maybe with less than half that number, since I think the calculator is using total energy in a barrel, and not considering the less than 50% efficient diesel engine. On top of that, you could recover some energy through regenerative braking.