151–160 of 305 posts
The electric Caltrain is so wonderful. It’s way quieter, the cars have nicer interiors, and it is running faster and more frequently than before. Between this, the new BART cars (also much quieter!), and Muni hitting a reliability & satisfaction records, there’s really a transit renaissance going on in the Bay Area. I really hope we can keep this going!
The electric Caltrain is so wonderful. It’s way quieter, the cars have nicer interiors, and it is running faster and more frequently than before. Between this, the new BART cars (also much quieter!), and Muni hitting a reliability & satisfaction records, there’s really a transit renaissance going on in the Bay Area. I really hope we can keep this going!
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.
The electric Caltrain is so wonderful. It’s way quieter, the cars have nicer interiors, and it is running faster and more frequently than before. Between this, the new BART cars (also much quieter!), and Muni hitting a reliability & satisfaction records, there’s really a transit renaissance going on in the Bay Area. I really hope we can keep this going!
Even Cupertino doesn't have a station ffs
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But for example if they used PMM squirrel cage motors etc, they would be nice and smooth, cheaper to build, more energy efficient. On the battery front, using car-style or truck-style EV battery modules would be more robust and would reduce cost by somewhere in the order of 50%. Instead, most trains still use induction motors (this is the high pitch whine you hear) and many train battery designs use industrial style…
What are you talking about? The noise you hear from trains is the wheels. Battery trains basically don't exist because of this cool invention called a wire and pantograph.
19 million annually. I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze here. They should focus on making Caltrain run reliably timely, and safely for the passengers. Once we get the ridership numbers up we can easily make up for the electricity efficiency.
Caltrain runs reliably and safely for me, can you elaborate?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But for example if they used PMM squirrel cage motors etc, they would be nice and smooth, cheaper to build, more energy efficient. On the battery front, using car-style or truck-style EV battery modules would be more robust and would reduce cost by somewhere in the order of 50%. Instead, most trains still use induction motors (this is the high pitch whine you hear) and many train battery designs use industrial style…
What are you talking about? The noise you hear from trains is the wheels. Battery trains basically don't exist because of this cool invention called a wire and pantograph.
The power system after the battery is similar to older model electric vehicles.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> BART police why does a transit system need its own police force? Aren't municipal and county police enough?
That's a good question, any I have no idea of the answer, but the port authority of NY and NJ has it's own police. I always figured it was because it spanned jurisdictions, but perhaps there are other reasons
19 million annually. I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze here. They should focus on making Caltrain run reliably timely, and safely for the passengers. Once we get the ridership numbers up we can easily make up for the electricity efficiency.
It doesn't really seem like an either or type of situation. My understanding is the electricity efficiency is really just a nice bonus (or perhaps justification) for making improvements that would also increase ridership. I'm only loosely aware of the Electric Fleet, but my understanding is they add capacity that was desperately needed.
Get the rider numbers up and extend the lines. Thats the only thing we need right now.
> regenerative braking on the new trains is generating and sending back to the electric grid approximately 23% of the energy consumed by the system does this make sense? let's round that 23 up to 25%, and say brake energy regeneration is 100% efficient (it's not): one quarter of the energy put into the system comes back out? city driving in a car, you might have your foot on the brake 25% of the time (yes, that's not…
If the moving friction is very low, it makes sense that not that much energy is used to move the train once it's at speed. Slowing it down would return some of the energy back (with the rest dissipated as heat).