salsa
Senior Member
hydrogen...
Here we go again
hydrogen...
The risk is that the experimental technology will prove impractical like turbine trains did and the Scarborough RT. That would be OK if we were just a smaller city just trying to be progressive. But we need something that is guaranteed to succeed to ensure the region's quality of life doesn't deteriorate significantly.
VIVA Rail in the UK has successively completed trials on it's new Class 230 single-level suburban trains. The trains are part of the UK's ambitious project to get rid of all diesel routes. The trains can run completely on battery power for 95 km and most importantly have a new and much faster recharging system that allows the trains to be COMPLETELY recharged in just 7 minutes with no intermediate recharging needed anywhere along the route.
Can we please stop using the weather as an all purpose excuse for not building modern infrastructure? If they can do catenary powered trains across Siberia of all places, we can do it here. Basically other every northern country with a rail network to speak of has widespread electrification. Even Canada has some in the Montreal area. There's no concern about snow and ice; it's a non-issue.It was also noted that the batteries would not be effected by wire/catenary problems in the event of earthquakes much like Toronto's concern of catenary due to wind/ice/snow storms.
Can we please stop using the weather as an all purpose excuse for not building modern infrastructure? If they can do catenary powered trains across Siberia of all places, we can do it here. Basically other every northern country with a rail network to speak of has widespread electrification. Even Canada has some in the Montreal area. There's no concern about snow and ice; it's a non-issue.
GO electrification will use 25,000 volt catenary, while TTC uses 300 volt catenary.I would agree if it related to snow, ice (general ice), cold, etc. See too much of that in discussion re: open-air subways to the point it becomes annoying. But freezing rain on catenary is actually something I haven't heard answered in any discussion about electrification. It is a fairly unique phenomenon, and can cripple things. Was neat watching streetcars twitching on/off as they slowly cracked ice off their wires during the last ice storm. Now wonder how an electric GO train would fare.
GO electrification will use 25,000 volt catenary, while TTC uses 300 volt catenary.
Almost 100x more voltage. There will be no flicker -- the electricity would arc like a razor blade through ice, turning the ice straight into steam/plasma. You'll see an arc-spark at pantograph contact on the first train of the day (and no flickering lights inside). Then no sparks for the subsequent 15-minute trains right after that, as the catenary will have quickly hottened up already, unable to attract anymore ice rain until after the last train of the night.
At these much higher voltages, ice in switches tends to be a far bigger problem than ice on catenary.
You can also use catenary scrapers, albiet more common in Russia -- called "vibropantographs" / "vibropantografs" (вибропантограф ) ahead of the pantograph to clear ice off the wire, so even the first train can remain full speed and stop the sparking/arcing. But our winters along our major rail routes aren't quite as bitter and icestorm-prone as Siberia.