Quote:
Originally Posted by Jolly Amaranto
Electric locomotives that pull power from a third rail or from overhead wires often do. They just feed the current back into the grid. However, a standard diesel electric road locomotive can not do that. They do not have a large battery capacity.
|
There is a lot of unused space under that long hood. One would think if there is room on a car to add meaningful battery capacity for regenerative power storage, there would certainly be plenty on a locomotive. There is just no incentive to do so.
In the same vein, most folks would be surprised to learn that there are absolutely no emissions standards for locomotives. My God do these things ever belch pollutants. Granted, their emissions per ton-mile are a fraction that of over the road trucks, but it is rather surprising that they are completely unregulated. Ocean going vessels are even worse, by the way. I wonder how something like a Big Boy would measure up by today's standards.