[ssiguy2]

mdrejhon....................I was being sarcastic and in no way meant it to be an insult to you. Quite the contrary I very much appreciate your updates and info that you have provided about the fast developing battery train technology systems and their applications.

I was just preparing you for the onslaught of people who seem to think that catenary is the only viable option. I have been raked over the coals for years about my lack of support for catenary. I have often brought up the dizzying rate of hydrogen train advancements in the last few years and have paid the price for it. I was also one of the first to begin to provide information on the new battery trains and their potential years ago and they were written off as farcical fantasy systems. I have been accused of only wanting hydrogen when I have said, on numerous occasions, that battery would indeed be my first choice and hydrogen my second.

Battery trains have fantastic potential and one of it's primary advantages, is that there is nothing new about them. Battery trains, like battery cars, have been around for a 100 years. Battery trains are catenary trains 101. The difference today is that now, due to huge battery technology advancements, they are finally also, practical. Battery trains offer all the benefits and reliable technology that has made catenary a worldwide application but without it's much higher initial infrastructure costs, it's limitation of only being able to run on currently wired track, it higher maintenance costs, it's visual pollution, and it's vulnerability during inclement weather.

Battery trains also benefit from being exactly that.............batteries. This means that the batteries themselves {and the recharging stations} can be "fueled" overnight when hydro rates are at their lowest giving them a real operational cost advantage.

 

[mdrejhon]

mdrejhon....................I was being sarcastic and in no way meant it to be an insult to you. Quite the contrary I very much appreciate your updates and info that you have provided about the fast developing battery train technology systems and their applications.

Fair enough -- it's hard to tell sarcasm on modern forums without a "/s" tag -- given the era (alas).

Certainly batteries in trains not new. What's new is the unexpectedly big changes in economics of lithium batteries, propelled by the emerging automotive electrification. That has dramatically changed the playing field in unexpected ways. Even 3-year-old textbooks are being rewritten. Canada even was the first country in the world to test an electric passenger airplane -- And the current rapid boom of electric train trials portends quick maturity by Metrolinx 2041 use cases.

 

[ssiguy2]

Thank you for accepting my apology as again, I was not at all trying to offend you.

Battery trains can now be recharged much like battery buses can be..................contactless. Yet another example of how far and how fast battery technology is changing. Such systems allow for the battery trains to actually be powered without catenary as they no longer have to touch the wires. This means that sturdy, solid recharging infrastructure can be built right at the stations themselves and due to incredibly fast charging times, the trains can practically run all day without a full charge all depending upon the service frequency, number of station stops, and length of route. Essentially they can be just regular lampposts with an overhang so that when the trains arrive they are just a couple centimeters above the train and while the train and can be recharged during the station dwell time.

This not only allows for constant recharging at each station and when the power is needed most, during acceleration, but also due to being permanent structures they are not effected by inclement weather like wires would be. Of course putting in such infrastructure will be vastly cheaper and much easier as upgrades to a station can be done relatively easily with the station still functioning as opposed to stringing hundreds of km of new overhead catenary wires while the service remains which is going to be a logistical nightmare. It also allows for the stations and service to be phased into battery propulsion as opposed to catenary which requires the entire route to be electrified before service can begin.

 

[superelevation]

mdrejhon....................I was being sarcastic and in no way meant it to be an insult to you. Quite the contrary I very much appreciate your updates and info that you have provided about the fast developing battery train technology systems and their applications.

I was just preparing you for the onslaught of people who seem to think that catenary is the only viable option. I have been raked over the coals for years about my lack of support for catenary. I have often brought up the dizzying rate of hydrogen train advancements in the last few years and have paid the price for it. I was also one of the first to begin to provide information on the new battery trains and their potential years ago and they were written off as farcical fantasy systems. I have been accused of only wanting hydrogen when I have said, on numerous occasions, that battery would indeed be my first choice and hydrogen my second.

Battery trains have fantastic potential and one of it's primary advantages, is that there is nothing new about them. Battery trains, like battery cars, have been around for a 100 years. Battery trains are catenary trains 101. The difference today is that now, due to huge battery technology advancements, they are finally also, practical. Battery trains offer all the benefits and reliable technology that has made catenary a worldwide application but without it's much higher initial infrastructure costs, it's limitation of only being able to run on currently wired track, it higher maintenance costs, it's visual pollution, and it's vulnerability during inclement weather.

Battery trains also benefit from being exactly that.............batteries. This means that the batteries themselves {and the recharging stations} can be "fueled" overnight when hydro rates are at their lowest giving them a real operational cost advantage.

I have not seen a single person claim that battery tech wasn't advancing or that there will not be battery trains in the future. There are not battery trains that meet the spec GO needs for the vast majority of its services available right now and no trains comparable to what GO needs are running on batteries at scale anywhere. We do not need to be the first.

 

[ssiguy2]

What in heavens name makes you think that Toronto would be the first?

Battery trains have been around for 100 years and cars even longer. They have proven themselves to be reliable and functional but the problem was that they were not practical. Battery technology simply wasn't advanced enough to make them a practical alternative to catenary. The batteries were simply too heavy, didn't have enough range, took too long to recharge, and were too expensive but that is no longer the case.

In just the last 3 years, manufacturers have been introducing battery trains and we are talking the big boys on the block.........Siemens, Alstom, Bombardier, and Hitachi. These "new" trains are not, in anyway, unique but rather the standard commuter/suburban trains they currently sell but now are offered with a battery train alternative. As for Toronto being the first to use them that is bunk as they are already plying the rails on busy commuter routes in Europe and especially France and Germany and God knows Toronto can't teach those countries absolutely anything about rail transportation.

 

[MrGoose]

What in heavens name makes you think that Toronto would be the first?

Battery trains have been around for 100 years and cars even longer. They have proven themselves to be reliable and functional but the problem was that they were not practical. Battery technology simply wasn't advanced enough to make them a practical alternative to catenary. The batteries were simply too heavy, didn't have enough range, took too long to recharge, and were too expensive but that is no longer the case.

In just the last 3 years, manufacturers have been introducing battery trains and we are talking the big boys on the block.........Siemens, Alstom, Bombardier, and Hitachi. These "new" trains are not, in anyway, unique but rather the standard commuter/suburban trains they currently sell but now are offered with a battery train alternative. As for Toronto being the first to use them that is bunk as they are already plying the rails on busy commuter routes in Europe and especially France and Germany and God knows Toronto can't teach those countries absolutely anything about rail transportation.

S C A L E

A trial of 20 trains on a low capacity line is not the same as replacing ALL or MOST of the trains across the GO network, a network that carries hundreds of thousands of riders currently and would be expected to grow in capacity and ridership.

Yes technically Toronto wouldn't be the first to use battery trains on our tracks. We would however be the first to use them on all of our tracks.

And if you really want to "learn" from Europe and China and Japan on how they construct heavy rail networks, then you'd obviously be in favor of overhead lines. Here are multiple examples of commuter trains with equal or greater ridership as the GO network running over head lines. You will not be able to find a line with comparable scale that uses batteries.

Paris (these are their new trains, notice the lack of batteries)

Tokyo

London Overground and Cross Rail (same trains)

Zurich S-Bahn

Seoul

and on and on it goes.

If you reallllly wanted to learn from Europe and China, you wouldn't be deploying new technology across your entire network in one fell swoop. You'd be copying the technology that allows them to carry sometimes an order of magnitude more people per day than GO does, in the case of JR East two orders of magnitude more.

If you really wanted to learn from Europe then'd you be fully in support of overhead lines and trials for battery trains. Catenary lines are the preferred mode of electrification around the world and the standard that GO will be building up to.

 

[afransen]

Even with batteries, you'd likely want to core part of the network to have catenary. Batteries just lets you extend beyond the car network without needing a hybrid power source (diesel, etc.).

 

[mdrejhon]

Yes, core as catenary.

Also, Metrolinx won’t be first. Batteries are not really yet needed until Metrolinx 2041 with 15 minute service over freight lines planned. That means lithium battery trains will have 25 years of maturity before being Used as extension routes. A kind of a future Phase 2 of GO electrification of sorts.

 

[ssiguy2]

S C A L E

A trial of 20 trains on a low capacity line is not the same as replacing ALL or MOST of the trains across the GO network, a network that carries hundreds of thousands of riders currently and would be expected to grow in capacity and ridership.

Yes technically Toronto wouldn't be the first to use battery trains on our tracks. We would however be the first to use them on all of our tracks.

And if you really want to "learn" from Europe and China and Japan on how they construct heavy rail networks, then you'd obviously be in favor of overhead lines. Here are multiple examples of commuter trains with equal or greater ridership as the GO network running over head lines. You will not be able to find a line with comparable scale that uses batteries.

View attachment 277323
Paris (these are their new trains, notice the lack of batteries)

View attachment 277325
Tokyo

View attachment 277328View attachment 277334
London Overground and Cross Rail (same trains)

View attachment 277329
Zurich S-Bahn

View attachment 277330
Seoul

and on and on it goes.

If you reallllly wanted to learn from Europe and China, you wouldn't be deploying new technology across your entire network in one fell swoop. You'd be copying the technology that allows them to carry sometimes an order of magnitude more people per day than GO does, in the case of JR East two orders of magnitude more.

If you really wanted to learn from Europe then'd you be fully in support of overhead lines and trials for battery trains. Catenary lines are the preferred mode of electrification around the world and the standard that GO will be building up to.

You cannot use those systems as an analogy to battery and you know it.

Those systems were built ages ago when catenary was the best technology which, of course, was backed up by the fact that it was also the only technology. It was the best solution because it was the only solution. Just because something worked in the 20th century doesn't mean you have to keep using it in the 21st. If that was the case then we would be stuck with the ICE powering all our cars indefinatly.

Battery trains are catenary trains 101 but just don't need the wires to bring the electricity because they can carry it with them.

 

[MrGoose]

You cannot use those systems as an analogy to battery and you know it.

Those systems were built ages ago when catenary was the best technology which, of course, was backed up by the fact that it was also the only technology. It was the best solution because it was the only solution. Just because something worked in the 20th century doesn't mean you have to keep using it in the 21st. If that was the case then we would be stuck with the ICE powering all our cars indefinatly.

Battery trains are catenary trains 101 but just don't need the wires to bring the electricity because they can carry it with them.

Well another thing to consider and one that factors heavily into large organizational decision making is risk and long term planning. As much as you think this is an engineering debate between two potential technologies, there was never an engineering debate. All the studies and planning they've done are preparing for catenary construction.

Catenary was always the preferred option, the government decided that it needed to electrify the rails and catenary was the only real way to electrify rail lines at scale. Battery might be as good, but reversing course and changing the planning is politically infeasible. The government doesn't care about the construction costs as long as they don't exceed the potential benefits (upwards of $42B). Anything else surrounding rolling stock technology is the government doing their due diligence and creating justification for their decision making.

Go read the electrification EA and see the amount of work the government has put into designing this and the coordination that they've done with HydroOne, OPG, local municipalities etc. I am tired of litigating the choice of technology for this project. That was decided years ago with hundreds of pages of public reports, thousands of hours of design, thousands more hours of consultation with relevant stakeholders have passed since then. It is way too far progressed to consider other technologies. Barring a catastrophe that would make the basis of this project completely irrelevant, the government is not going back and selecting a different technology.

Spoiler: I wrote all this and decided that it wasn't relevant

The technology was always going to be catenary trains. All the planning from day one assumed this (day one being back in 2006/7 when the Big move report was being written). If you read the GO expansion report and the GO electrification report they all contain the assumption that catenary locomotives would be used.

Catenary is an established technology. Just because it's old doesn't mean its not as good as battery trains. If we always went with the latest and greatest the government would be going all in on vacuum trains. How come you aren't in support of 5min travel time from Barrie to Union? Why are we using 20th century technology of trains when we could be using 23rd century vacuum trains? The answer is that it's risky. Theres alot of unknowns both in construction, procurement and operations that the government doesn't want to deal with.

In the GO electrification project, Metrolinx has partnered with various international rail providers to assist in construction and operations. This kind of partnership greatly reduces risk because there is a large wealth of institutional knowledge to draw from and Metrolinx doesn't have to invent the operational methodology large scale battery trains. These partners will be able to help with construction and procurement and the fact that catenary is an established technology, reduces risk. You know you can rely on catenary trains and the government knows other governments that know how to implement this technology. The government doesn't want this blowing up in their faces and thus has chosen the most reliable technology out there.

In terms of long term planning, this process has been going on at least 2008, and probably before that too. If you read the Big move Report from 2008 they were talking about electrification back then. And back then the only form of electrification would have been catenary lines. So they've been planning around this assumption for the better part of 12 years now. And have begun procurement. Even if battery were the better technology now, the difference is not enough for the government to go back, change their plans and set the process back by 2-3 years at least.

If you really want to do some reading, read Metrolinx's GO electrification EA. All 5 volumes of it and all the appendices containing the proposed substation layouts etc. See how much work they've put into the coordination here with Hydro One etc. The substations that need to be built, the bridge modifications etc. This is years worth of work, and the government will not risk changing technology halfway through because of the potential benefits of going wireless.

The point being, catenary is the preferred option because
1. There's alot of other people who use catenary trains and who are actively assisting Metrolinx in this.
2. This was planned beginning many years ago when battery technology was much worse than it was today. Looking from that point in time, battery storage was way worse. The government basing their planning on the assumption that batteries would be as cheap as they are today or will be in 5 years time is malfeasance.

 

[crs1026]

If you really want to do some reading, read Metrolinx's GO electrification EA. All 5 volumes of it and all the appendices containing the proposed substation layouts etc. See how much work they've put into the coordination here with Hydro One etc. The substations that need to be built, the bridge modifications etc. This is years worth of work, and the government will not risk changing technology halfway through because of the potential benefits of going wireless.

I agree that we need to get on with wiring the core system. The central zone will have to be wires, even if batteries some day can be used to extend the "reach" towards the end of the line. Just do it.

However - I have to disagree that this thing is a moving train that can't be stopped. It's more like a standing train that has yet to leave the station.

Hydrogen was thrown on the table by the Wynne government (in 2016, four yeas ago now) at the point where they realised that the RER money had run out, and there was none left for electrification. It was not only a technical Hail Mary, it was a blatantly contrived excuse for failing to move electrification on to procurement: they had reached a point where the EA had been completed, the Hydro One coordination was nailed down.... all they needed to do was issue a RFQ and get on with the job. They balked at the price tag.

Metrolinx and the Province have since proceeded to bobble the entire RER file with their grandiose P3 procurement process, which has largely fallen apart and had to be reconstituted, with many bits taken back to be executed by ML as "enabling works". That has delayed stringing the wires for more than five years now. There's no clear evidence that the P3 bidders will embrace electrification - bundling it into their bid could inflate the price - and it's almost certain that they won't propose either battery or hydrogen - that's just too much risk for a startup bid.

Battery technology has been plodding forward, as a bit of a tortoise alongside the electrification hare. But, despite all the positive prognostication, there are only a few pilot prototypes in production. The point where GO can make a battery decision is only when there are hundreds of battery trainsets in operation, with at least two vendors, each able to point to two years' in-production service to evaluate and compare. Anything sooner would be reckless.

GO must not be a test bed - let some other agency figure out the bugs (has anyone noticed how GO's Tier IV diesels have been faring lately?)

In the meanwhile - we need to get wires started. Soon.

- Paul

 

[north-of-anything]

Also catenary electric trains are prettier than people give them credit for. You can't actually see those "unsightly wires" from more than ~300 meters away (or maybe I'm just that near-sighted), and it's a better deal than the smell of diesel.

 

[ssiguy2]

The choice of technology has not been chosen or we wouldn't be having this conversation. If they knew it was catenary then that would have been announced when they brought in the finalists for the procurement but they didn't. The only qualification that Metrolinx gave for the entire project is that it had to be electrified and there are several different ways to bring that about. Now they realise that the entire procurement process has been botched and basically this is just going to be a decision by Queen's Park with an obligatory rubber stamp from Metrolinx. Metrolinx screwing up of the entire process has relegated them to be being nothing more than a mouthpiece having to explain the decision the province has made for them.

The longer this process is dragged out { God knows there is no end in sight } and the more hydrogen and battery systems that are deployed worldwide and with the ever increasing number of manufacturers, the less likely this will be a catenary system. I will be extremely surprised if Queen's Park decides on battery at this point.

 

[ssiguy2]

In regards to my last point of me being surprised if Queen's Park picks catenary, I am curious..................what do you guys think QP will choose in terms of both technology and train type? I am not asking you what you want or think would be the best solution but rather if you were a betting man and had to put real money on it. In untold years when they finally get around to making a decision we can find out who has bragging rights and which of us get to eat crow.

Myself, I'll put my money on single level, commuter type battery trains. I can see them having wires at some core places like near Union and at terminus stations but that doesn't change the fact that it's 100% battery train system.

 

[mdu]

That's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is that if Metrolinx announced catenaries, they'd have to deal with years of backlash about "ugly wires", while not getting any work done anyway because they don't have enough budget. Wouldn't put it past the ML leadership to pull something like that.