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Caltrain's electric fleet more efficient than expected

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Re: Caltrain's electric fleet more efficient than expected

#51

Post by defrost »

ssuds wrote: post #45
infotainment wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed largely, though IMO BART is holding the bay area back. Unlike Caltrain and Muni, BART management is completely incompetent and more focused on spending their money on random things than actually running their transit system. Fun fact: BART police has a large fleet of SUVs, with the highest vehicle-to-officer ratio in the bay area (if only there were some other way for them to get around!) Fun exercise: compare…

Speaking of BART, this story is priceless: https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/bart-seat-slasher-hur... The firm that reupholstered damaged BART seats in the ‘80s paid people to slash them so they’d get more business.

I love these kinds of true snippets of general security history:

  It was estimated that "possibly 85 percent of the more than 7,000 BART train cushions damaged since August 1979" was the work of this company, the Examiner reported at the time.

  All said and done, BART had paid the company $115,000 for the repairs, a total of about $339,128 in today's money.
Always follow the money.

Re: Caltrain's electric fleet more efficient than expected

#52

Post by astrange »

jeffbee wrote: post #2

It's hilarious but sad to watch Americans learn things that agencies abroad already know. The other example of this I saw today was that in NYC the congestion pricing has "surprisingly" slashed the number of car crashes and injuries in Manhattan. Like, duh.

"Surprisingly" is an opinion on the part of whoever wrote that, but it's not a surprise to any of the advocates.

It has been working better than expected, possibly because the bad drivers were breaking a lot of other traffic laws and this one's easier to enforce so is actually keeping them away.

Re: Caltrain's electric fleet more efficient than expected

#53

Post by lacker »

They claim that "Caltrain is running its service on 100% renewable energy", but they are connected to the same grid as everyone else. It doesn't really make sense to say, half of our electricity is green, so customer X is renewable, but customer Y is not renewable.

Re: Caltrain's electric fleet more efficient than expected

#54

Post by numpad0 »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #12
infotainment wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed largely, though IMO BART is holding the bay area back. Unlike Caltrain and Muni, BART management is completely incompetent and more focused on spending their money on random things than actually running their transit system. Fun fact: BART police has a large fleet of SUVs, with the highest vehicle-to-officer ratio in the bay area (if only there were some other way for them to get around!) Fun exercise: compare…

> BART police why does a transit system need its own police force? Aren't municipal and county police enough?

Actually, train systems having its own assigned branches of police is common enough that there's a Wikipedia article[1]. Unique part is that the US doesn't have an umbrella national or state agency that such branches would be part of.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_police

Re: Caltrain's electric fleet more efficient than expected

#55

Post by AskTheJQ »

jeffbee wrote: post #2

It's hilarious but sad to watch Americans learn things that agencies abroad already know. The other example of this I saw today was that in NYC the congestion pricing has "surprisingly" slashed the number of car crashes and injuries in Manhattan. Like, duh.

[dead]

Re: Caltrain's electric fleet more efficient than expected

#56

Post by MattGaiser »

jeffbee wrote: post #2

It's hilarious but sad to watch Americans learn things that agencies abroad already know. The other example of this I saw today was that in NYC the congestion pricing has "surprisingly" slashed the number of car crashes and injuries in Manhattan. Like, duh.

> The other example of this I saw today was that in NYC the congestion pricing has "surprisingly" slashed the number of car crashes and injuries in Manhattan. Like, duh.

You didn't see the online crowds screaming up and down that it wouldn't do anything but pick the pockets of people? Many genuinely did not believe things would change.

Re: Caltrain's electric fleet more efficient than expected

#57

Post by AskTheJQ »

dhosek wrote: post #9
readdit wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel this is positive news moving in a positive direction. Do you suggest not doing anything to improve the situation? We can’t go back in time. But we can help ourselves in the future.

I think it’s more that Americans seem to be surprised by things that people in other countries have known for decades. Meanwhile, the current administration is trying to send us back to the 19th century in civil rights, healthcare and energy policy.

[dead]

Re: Caltrain's electric fleet more efficient than expected

#58

Post by benced »

This literally doesn’t matter. The energy consumption of a train is trivial compared to displacing cars. If there was a way to trade this savings for higher speed, ridership, or frequency, it would be worth it.

(If there’s not, this is a free win and yay - but it’s the wrong focus)

Re: Caltrain's electric fleet more efficient than expected

#59

Post by skykooler »

lacker wrote: post #53

They claim that "Caltrain is running its service on 100% renewable energy", but they are connected to the same grid as everyone else. It doesn't really make sense to say, half of our electricity is green, so customer X is renewable, but customer Y is not renewable.

It doesn't physically, but it does financially. Power generation is not free after all, so any power station, be it renewable or non-renewable, will only be producing as long as people are buying electricity from it.

Re: Caltrain's electric fleet more efficient than expected

#60

Post by s0rce »

aetherspawn wrote: post #40

Train technology is so behind compared to road electric vehicles. Companies that build train batteries have been trying to sell to us (car OEMs) lately, and we look at the battery specs and battery management system capabilities and go uhhhh… On the motor and control fronts as well.

Why? Just build more trains any train infrastructure is so much better than cars, they barely need improvement, they just need to be built
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