Caltrain's electric fleet more efficient than expected • Hacker News Board

Re: Caltrain's electric fleet more efficient than expected

#201

Post by arcticbull » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 9:44 AM UTC

numpad0 wrote: post #54

insane_dreamer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

They're not actually "assigned branches" of the police, they're private police. The US/Canadian railway police are not government employees, they're employees of the Class I railways and deputized with general law enforcement powers. They're spiritual successors to the old timey Pinkertons.

Two of the biggest are Canadian National Police and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Police -- and those two are deputized, in both Canada and the US, with Federal, State and Provincial police powers. Despite being railway employees they can cite you for, e.g. speeding if they catch you doing so. Either on or off railway property.

Re: Caltrain's electric fleet more efficient than expected

#202

Post by crocal » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 9:50 AM UTC

skrap wrote: post #10

I mean, this is good news, but why was the efficiency of the system so misunderstood at the design phase? I hope someone's interested enough to find out!

Ahoi! Participated to the development of a simulation tool for that purpose. Many factors need to be taken into account:

- The gradients of the track

- How agressively you want to drive at different time of the day

- How many trains

- The timing of the trains. When one train brakes, it can power another one that accelerates at the same moment

- The efficiency of the power chain

- The resistance model of the train

With so many parameters the results can be quite volatile. However, rule of the thumb in the business is that 30% saving can be achieved with good energy management. Hope this clarifies a little.

Update: bullet points

Re: Caltrain's electric fleet more efficient than expected

#203

Post by krona » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 9:54 AM UTC

sofixa wrote: post #200

krona wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy's not building a gigafactory in his garden, is he? > If anyone can just build a factory there, they will have a negative ecological impact (interrupt animal flows, pollute in areas that are supposed to be cleaner, etc). All true of farming. FWIW as a fellow NIMBY myself, I use the excuse of 'animal flow' (in particular the flow of bats) to prevent anyone from putting anything more than a fence up within 150m…

> The guy's not building a gigafactory in his garden, is he? How could this possibly be known without a review in your opinion? > fellow NIMBY myself Unless you're American, things don't have to be so binary. The choice isn't between nothing gets built or anyone can just do whatever. We need a balance. > All true of farming I'm pretty sure birds and bees and what not prefer having plants than factories.

> How could this possibly be known without a review in your opinion?

By all means, have planning applications and a system to process them. Things don't have to be so binary.

Re: Caltrain's electric fleet more efficient than expected

#204

Post by arcticbull » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 9:54 AM UTC

TylerE wrote: post #158

hydrogen7800 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_police are actually a thing! It's not just transit either. Most of the big US railroads have their own private police forces. The officers are deputized by the state, and then by federal law their powers are valid in any state that railroad has track. They even have arrest powers.

CN and CPKC police are deputized in both the US and Canada, at the Federal, Provincial and State levels. Transnational private police.

Re: Caltrain's electric fleet more efficient than expected

#205

Post by arcticbull » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 9:57 AM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #109

stevenwoo wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also makes waiting at either end, San Jose or San Francisco more pleasant with cleaner air to breathe instead of fumes if you are a little early.

San Jose unfortunately has the Gilroy commuter trains idling in the station :(

For now. They're replacing them with battery-electric trains that can go past Tamien. Yeah, it should just have caternaries the whole way down but you know how rail is around here -- owned by Union Pacific, and the federal government prevents municipalities from exercising eminent domain to take control of railways.

Re: Caltrain's electric fleet more efficient than expected

#206

Post by arcticbull » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 10:01 AM UTC

Johnny555 wrote: post #175

hamandcheese wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but do enough people want it to make it worth building? The reason we don't build more density isn't lack of demand (see: the price of rent), it is entirely political.

I'd like to see some evidence for that -- sure, there are a lot of people in big cities that are happy with high density (but even many of them move out to the suburbs when they decide to settle down and have kids), but there are many people in the USA that won't give up their 2000 sq ft house with 3 car garage that fits their F150 pickup. Much of my midwest family is that way - they couldn't believe how tiny my "cit…

> I'd like to see some evidence for that

Zoning rules are the evidence. Eliminate the zoning rules and let the market sort it out. No? Why not, are you afraid the "character" will change immediately?

Re: Caltrain's electric fleet more efficient than expected

#207

Post by usr1106 » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 10:07 AM UTC

thirtyseven wrote: post #195

bombcar wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s kind of sad that BART’s first mover advantage means it’ll forever be a second-class railway. They’ll never do the “correct” thing and shut it down long enough to replace everything with standard equipment and gauge.

Being a first mover didn't prevent them from adopting standard gauge which already had existed for 100 years.

It has been said the broader gauge was chosen at the time to make trains able to run safely over Golden Gate Bridge with strong side winds. My physics is not good enough to calculate whether that argument makes sense. And I have no idea how realistic that route ever was.

I don't think the gauge is a major problem. Train orders are always a custom project, few urban networks use exactly the same standards. Railroad manufacturers are used to different gauges.

Re: Caltrain's electric fleet more efficient than expected

#208

Post by RWSen » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 10:10 AM UTC

Groxx wrote: post #150

fsckboy wrote: post #131

> 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…

"rolling very far unpowered" is like the entire point of rail systems

Exactly. There's a train route here in The Netherlands, from Den Bosch to Utrecht, where the train can coast the last 20 km. That's out of a 48 km trip, so almost half!

Re: Caltrain's electric fleet more efficient than expected

#209

Post by nasmorn » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 10:13 AM UTC

gdudeman wrote: post #141

defrost wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Under $50 per cushion repair in today’s money seems super cheap!

Genius Business Plan. Make repairs too cheap for competitors to be interested and drive up volume with criminal conspiracy

Re: Caltrain's electric fleet more efficient than expected

#210

Post by usr1106 » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 10:20 AM UTC

presentation wrote: post #185

blintz wrote: post #3

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 train itself was quiet when I rode it from SF to Palo Alto but they were honking the horn almost nonstop… so much for peace and quiet.

I grew up in a 600,000 inhabitants city in Germany. They got EMUs in the 1930s. When they got the next generation in the 1970s all level crossings were replaced.

So California, one of the forerunners in the US, seems to be roughly 90 years behind. Depends on your age whether you'll be able to enjoy a quiet train trip during your lifetime.