Diesel-Electric Train Conversion -is an EV Freight Train a Possibility?
An interesting thought experiment is to ask whether it would be possible or practical to convert one of the largest locomotives in the world to battery power.
A typical very large train is GE Evolution ES44DC.
It has 5,000 US gallons tanks (18,900 litres) and at ~ 10Kwh per litre it is carrying around 189 MWh of energy in those tanks.
A diesel electric train of this type has a conversion efficiency of ~ 45%. So that fuel tank is carrying the equivalent of 85MWh.
If we use the Tesla 85KWh battery pack (weighing in at 540kg) then how many Kg of batteries do we need? 6.353 kg/kwh … ~ 540,332 Kg of batteries!
Lets consider an apples for apples comparison of the train between the diesel electric version and the battery version.
For this we need to have a typical locomotive energy hauling efficiency.
Typical large scale locomotive rail efficiency is 183,345 kg-km/l fuel (see ref).
So our ES44DC can do 3,465,220,500 kg-km.
To determine how far that is we need to know the weight of the train.
Lets assume it is a 50 car train with each car 100 tonnes. If we add the weight of the locomotive at ~ 188.7…
