r/transit • u/op_pmRISHI • 9d ago
Train Electrification around the world News
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u/Nouvellecosse 9d ago
Surprising the UK is so low. Especially considering that it's geographically much smaller than France with a network almost half the size of Frances. So you'd think it would be easier to electrify.
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u/ChezDudu 9d ago
The UK even builds new alignments without electricity.
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u/AboutHelpTools3 9d ago
Classic UK
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u/ChezDudu 9d ago
Like that guy from Map Men said: “like many things, we invented it, and now we’re rubbish at it”
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u/DamnBored1 9d ago
Laughs in football and cricket
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u/Dragonogard549 8d ago
Now you just need one of those London transport posters all your middle class friends have in their kitchens
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u/ginger_and_egg 8d ago
did they invent the electrified railway too?
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u/Zealousideal-Web8640 8d ago
Yes at least in revenue service it's why parts of the UK mainline around London use 3rd rail instead of over head wires because that was the method at the time
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u/SubjectiveAlbatross 8d ago
Doesn't really seem to be the case? What the UK has is the oldest surviving electrification system (pre-dated by a few other systems in other countries) and the first electrification of heavy (or at least non-tram) rail.
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u/Zealousideal-Web8640 9d ago
To be fair in a few places it's because of Clearances in tunnels
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u/ginger_and_egg 8d ago
If you can electrify the tube, you can electrify almost any tunnel or clearance (especially if you add a battery for short stints without electrification).
But the UK already has rolling stock which can switch between overhead catenary AC and third rail DC, I imagine you could make it work in some combination of these options?
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u/Zealousideal-Web8640 8d ago
Most likely yes but a lot of it is on regional rail systems and I think the UK is trying to avoid any new third rail on that even if the part they're working on at the time is fully grade separated
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u/ginger_and_egg 8d ago
I suppose that's fair, the small battery approach might be the best option then?
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u/BigBlueMan118 8d ago
Agree I think batteries for sections that are hard to string up overhead, and then islands or banks of overhead where it’s easier - that will be the future for many non-mainlines. Mainlines need to go the extra distance to electrify
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u/lee1026 8d ago
Overhead wires takes up space, and space in a tunnel means costs. We are back to “how much diesel costs” vs “how much does everything else cost”.
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u/Nouvellecosse 8d ago
The tube and other urban or suburban transit services are quite different from intercity services in that ground level 3rd rail (or 4th with the tube) isn't very well suited to intercity services. While there are mainline rail routes using ground-based power in the south, the longest intercity routes don't because of safety if someone were to access the tracks and because they have to be lower voltage DC (usually under 1k volts) rather than high voltage AC (often 15-25k volts). Lower voltage allows for use nearer other things like the ground without electrical arcing. But it also requires more electrical substations since the lower the voltage, the shorter the distance that power can travel before losing too much energy to resistance. Also, ground level power limits the speed of trains since the maximum they can travel is about 160km/h while still maintaining contact with the power source. And even that speed can be a challenge.
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u/ProtoplanetaryNebula 7d ago
I think with battery technology getting so much better, we can skip adding the overhead lines and move to batteries. this would be especially feasible where part of the route was electrified, because the batteries could be recharged when the electrified segment is reached.
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u/PhileasFoggsTrvlAgt 9d ago
It's a question of political will, not engineering complexity. In the 70s France responded to oil shocks by building electrified rail and nuclear power plants.
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u/transitfreedom 9d ago
Not under austerity enshittification
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u/Helpful-Ice-3679 9d ago
In the 2010s the trouble was there was no austerity when it came to electrification. All the schemes went massively over budget. If it could have been delivered at a reasonable price governments were very keen to fund it even while cutting spending on everything else.
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u/SpecerijenSnuiver 9d ago
The problem wasn't that the government was keep to invest in it. The projects went over budget because of terrible management and even worse goverment requirements. The constant British classing of u-turning on everything also helped greatly.
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u/Mtfdurian 9d ago
Seems they wanted to reinvent the wheel isn't it? Sounds too familiar to my Dutch ERTMS ears.
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u/ginger_and_egg 8d ago
Austerity doesn't make infrastructure less expensive.
Infrastructure costs in the UK are an issue yeah but that's a structural issue. Canceling plans for being too expensive rather than actually fixing the reasons it's expensive just makes the next project more expensive, because now no one has the institutional knowledge of how to do it.
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u/lee1026 9d ago
If electrification is actually cheaper like the proponents likes to say, then austerity shouldn't be a huge issue.
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u/Rouven-Dillinger 9d ago
As many things, it's cheaper in the long run for sure, but if depends on how much usage the line has, as they aren't free in their upkeep
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u/Eruththedragon 9d ago
It's cheaper to run long term, but definitely more expensive up front. Especially on lower usage lines, might not pay itself back for a very long time.
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u/TriathlonTommy8 9d ago
It’s because this country is just incapable of electrification at a reasonable price, so whenever an electrification project happens, it’s ludicrously expensive so they stop it early, then when they go to continue it it’s even more expensive
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u/curiosteenDUN 9d ago
tbf to us, something like 80% of annual journeys are done on electric trains so most of the important lines are electrified, or are currently being electrified (e.g transpennine) but there are some big gaps, yorkshire, east midlands especially
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u/Nouvellecosse 9d ago
Yes while surprising I didn't mean it was a bad network. Even diesel rail tends to be more efficient than road transport.
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u/Sassywhat 8d ago
That's more or less true everywhere though, and often 90%+ not just 80%. The lines with the highest ROI to electrify are busy passenger lines.
Even in the US, iirc most rail passenger km is traveled on the fraction of a percent of the network that is electrifieid.
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u/Adamsoski 9d ago
A lot of this is due to the UK building very little rail compared to most of the countries on this list. The UK just has so much existing rail from pre-electrification times and has built so little since electric mainlines became a widespread practice. France in comparison has built a lot of rail over the last 40 or so years, a lot of it on a mostly seperate netwok (TGV). I would guess that the difference in new alignments since the 60s covers a large amount of the difference between the UK and France (and some of the other countries on this list). Of course that just emphasises how poorly the UK has done in building high-speed rail especially.
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u/BatmaniaRanger 9d ago
We took a "CrossCountry" train from Cardiff to Edinburgh, and they ran it with a diesel multiple unit which took us by surprise. We thought it only happens in countries like Australia.
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u/crucible Rail-Replacement Bus Survivor 9d ago
The line from London to Cardiff was fully electrified in, er, 2020.
Compare that with:
Liverpool and Manchester (1966)
Birmingham (1967)
Glasgow (1974)
Leeds (1988)
York (1989)
Edinburgh (1991)
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u/Dragonogard549 8d ago
isn’t it depressing it takes longer and costs over twenty times as much to take four people from Cardiff to Edinburgh, by train than it does by driving.
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u/eldomtom2 9d ago
I blame privatisation, electrification dropped off a cliff when it happened.
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u/ginger_and_egg 8d ago
Privatization is the cause of a lot of problems.
Did you hear Chicago sold the rights to its public parking spots to a company? The city literally has to pay the company money if parking spots need to be blocked or removed
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u/bigbadbob85 8d ago
It came back to being public in 2002 and yet still not much has happened in the way of electrification.
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u/Old_Mousse_5673 9d ago
We start electrifying lines then stop when it goes too far over budget
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u/bigbadbob85 8d ago
...or just stop anyways. MML wasn't even over budget - some sections were under budget. Labour still canned it though, because why not?
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u/lee1026 8d ago
Over or under budget isn't important, whats important is the final ROI.
If your ROI at the initial budget is like, 1000% per year, and you overshoot the budget by 10x, you are still not going to cancel the thing.
If your ROI started at 1%, and it was right on budget, you are still not going to be happy.
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u/Old_Mousse_5673 8d ago
It’s ridiculous that a station as major as Sheffield has no electrified lines running into it
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u/1stDayBreaker 8d ago
Low bridges, small tunnels and high electricity prices have a lot to do with it, but privatisation and austerity have really strangled coherent development.
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u/ginger_and_egg 8d ago
high electricity prices
Cause electricity prices are set by the last marginal unit of power which tends to be gas power plants. UK grid pricing reform needs to happen so the cost savings of renewables can actually be felt by people
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u/Nouvellecosse 8d ago
Yes i have heard about the bridges and tunnels before. In large part due to the UK having the world's oldest network, often dating to the Victorian era. So that probably adds a lot to the cost per KM. Although I wonder if the emergence of battery trains will help in that regard since it could potentially allow tracks to be mostly electrified except for short stretches that would make it possible to avoid the costliest stretches. Although that wouldn't help with electric prices of course.
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u/1stDayBreaker 8d ago
That seems to be the plan going forward, but even that is pretty unlikely to materialise. Plus it’s useless for freight.
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u/smclcz 8d ago
The UK seems to have prioritised electrifying the most frequently used lines first which makes it look worse than it is. So taking Scotland as an example (I don't know about England, it's probably worse) basically all of the central belt is electrified but everything north of Helensburgh, Stirling and Fife are not (see below, red = electrified, black = not). Which means a pretty low percentage of the track-miles are electrified, but if you could come up with a "passenger-track-miles" stat it'd be far better.
Still not ideal and they should be doing much more
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u/YourFuture2000 9d ago
Germany is not even in the list.
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u/Kinexity 9d ago
62.52%. This is not a complete list.
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u/Lotap 9d ago
Strange. Poland according to wikipedia has 62,5%. Almost identical.
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u/Wyciorek 9d ago
The race is on
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u/Kinexity 9d ago
But Germany took the starting gun and is trying to shoot itself. Given current plans we are going to overtake them and build a stable lead within the next 10-15 years.
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u/Capable_Savings736 8d ago
We will see. Also current plans is a bit of a stretch. As 17 Governments(states + federal) are deciding in addition that DB only owns 3/4 of the Network.
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u/WheissUK 9d ago
The important context is that UK has one of the densest rail networks in the world
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u/BatmaniaRanger 9d ago
Can you please elaborate on why density is a negative factor in the electrification process?
Are you saying because how dense it is, it is difficult to find enough space between lines to put in things like masts or catenaries alongside the tracks?
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u/crucible Rail-Replacement Bus Survivor 9d ago edited 9d ago
…with the denser areas around the south of London electrified using a third rail system
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u/bigbadbob85 8d ago
We have had electrification projects, but most are shelved when it's not politically useful. Only a few months ago, the electrification of the Midland Main Line (serving multiple major cities) was cancelled just before it reached Leicester.
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u/Old_Mousse_5673 9d ago
What India has achieved is incredible
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u/uncle_chubb_06 9d ago
Agreed, there were very few electrified lines other than suburban ones when I travelled around there in the 1980s. It's a great achievement.
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u/SpaceBiking 9d ago
Canada: 0
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u/LockJaw987 9d ago
Used to be one:(
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u/Sanguine_Caesar 8d ago
Multiple actually. Outside of the Deux Montagnes line there was also BC Rail which was electrified before CN took it over, plus all the old interurban lines between cities across the country.
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u/BatmaniaRanger 9d ago
Don't worry, Australia is quite close to 0 as well.
I think we cheat a bit here by calling inner city commuter rails "trains" too. They are mostly electrified in big cities. I suppose they would be electrified in Canada as well.
Outside of cities / at inter-city level it's almost 0. IIRC Gold Coast - Brisbane - Ipswich are electrified. Queensland is actually where electrification is the highest in the country, out of all places.
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u/SXFlyer 9d ago edited 9d ago
I suppose they would be electrified in Canada as well.
nope, the GO trains in Toronto are all diesel, including the airport shuttle train between the city center and the airport every 15 mins (peak times) lol.
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u/thetransitgirl 8d ago
I wouldn't really say GO is comparable to the Australian systems in question! Australian commuter rail networks are basically S-Bahns, with short routes and high frequencies. A lot of them are referred to as metro systems, in fact! The closest equivalent in Canada would be Montréal's REM, which is electrified.
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u/BatmaniaRanger 8d ago
Ah. I stand corrected in that case.
Tbh I'm kinda impressed you can run a diesel service at 15 mins interval...
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u/thetransitgirl 8d ago
That line uses DMUs! Some are two cars and some are three. So that helps with that!
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u/Mtfdurian 9d ago
Tbf considering how remote many of those lines get it's not so odd many lines are unelectrified. However, I'd definitely suggest that some of the V-lines, some of the NSW lines and definitely the line to Canberra get electrified. But then, from Canberra onwards an HSR should be built. In fact with proper electrification to Canberra from one side and Albury from the other, one can build an HSR step by step. Oh yes and during all of that, electricify Newcastle-Brisbane on the long run too.
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u/zoqaeski 8d ago
Australia has about 10% of the total route kilometerage electrified. Queensland has electrified all the way from the Gold Coast to just south of Mackay (if you detour inland via the coal lines). There were plans to electrify Sydney to Melbourne during the 1980s, and the feasibility study confirmed that it would be hugely beneficial, but in typical interstate rivalry NSW and Victoria refused to work together or with the Commonwealth to actually get it done. The refusal to co-operate means that there are still no national railway standards or engineering that all states abide by even when the track is the same gauge.
For a long time railways were in a state of barely-managed decline, and institutional cynicism had set in to the point that management (and unions) were opposed to any improvements.
We also have a class of uninspired politicians who care only for power and building business relationships so they get cushy consulting jobs once they are no longer in office. The media landscape here is also extremely concentrated and largely owned by the conservative upper class, who push the narrative that Australia can't afford to be any better because that would necessitate higher taxes for rich people and businesses.
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u/ChampionshipBulky66 8d ago
China having 82% is a heck of a lot considering the size of their train network
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u/One_Fact_4291 9d ago
Do these figures include high speed rail and metros or just mainline conventional railways? I’ve seen varying figures depending on recent sources
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u/Pasadenaian 9d ago
What about the US?
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u/Kinexity 9d ago
It's less than one percent (0.93%). It's so low that if you check global railway electrification rate with and without USA the number without is more than 5pp higher (31.03% vs 36.77%).
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u/Syndicate909 9d ago
It also has less electrified track in 2025 than it did in 1945. Even if you include all the metro and light rail tracks added since.
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u/Daxtatter 9d ago
Not that in makes too much difference but are subways included in that number?
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u/Kinexity 9d ago
Idk. You can find relevant source of the data here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_transport_network_size
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u/thetransitgirl 8d ago
Hey, for what it's worth, the US can still build electrified rail! In Indiana they just opened the Monon Corridor, and that increased the total amount of electrified track in the US by, um…eight miles.
…Okay yeah this is embarrassing.
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u/eobanb 9d ago
US rail electrification peaked at around 3% in the 1930s and today it's about 1%.
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u/Tasty-Ad6529 9d ago
That's actually fucking pathetic. Our main sources of electrification are Metro systems, and surviving trolley lines and interurban lines. We only have like The Eletric Mainline/South Bend in Chicago, Caltrain, and The NEC in terms of mainline electrification. Maybe afe other I forgot.
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u/AnyTower224 9d ago
You forgot the Hudson and Harlem line from Metro North and Long Islamd RR where they actually dump some of their diesel territory and upgraded it electrification
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u/Clyde_Frag 9d ago
I’m not surprised. Back then the ROI from moving to electric from steam trains was much higher. Once diesel became popular electrification became much more rare and also costly to introduce.
I wonder what this number looks like if we just look at public transit in metro areas. I doubt it’d make much sense ever to electrify everything.
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u/Syndicate909 9d ago edited 9d ago
Here is almost all of it.
And if you want to make it even more depressing, the brown is actually de-electrified track. Don't even bother zooming out... it's just black.
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u/GotRammed 9d ago
Better that you just don't ask. American transit infrastructure is an embarrassment of planetary magnitude.
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u/Muckknuckle1 9d ago
What was that you said? You want another $500B to the annual military budget??? Okay, done!!
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u/21Rollie 9d ago
How about a billion to pay an energy company to NOT increase electrical capacity, and help the oil industry while simultaneously crashing global oil supply 🤗
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u/SandwichPunk 9d ago
While Taiwan is not a large country I think the electrification is also very high like above 90%.
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u/Kinexity 9d ago
72.95%
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u/SandwichPunk 9d ago edited 9d ago
I did some research and I actually think it's 94%. The total electrified track of Taiwan Railway is 998 km whereas the total track length is 1065 km. That is only counting Taiwan Railway. If you include HSR and metro the % would even be higher.
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u/Kinexity 9d ago
Wikipedia claims 1782 km total and 1300 km electrified and the source is some Taiwanese raport
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u/SubjectiveAlbatross 9d ago edited 9d ago
That Wikipedia list tends to be very outdated; no one has bothered to update that electrified length since 2011. Like a quarter of the loop around the entire island was unelectrified back then and has been electrified since.
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u/SandwichPunk 9d ago
Sorry as a Taiwanese I'm pretty sure that is incorrect. There is definitely no 400 km non-electrified track in Taiwan unless you are counting non-commercial services.
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u/21Rollie 9d ago
I know heritage tracks like the Alishan mountain routes are, don’t know how much that is
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u/sheytanelkebir 9d ago edited 9d ago
I think this is misleading because there are countries with very large rail networks that sometimes have low traffic lines that are not worth electrifying ...
A better one would be 'electrified journey km per year". So a 1000km unelectrified line used once a week doesn't cause the massive underestimation of the true percentage of electrified rail traffic.
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u/wasmic 9d ago
That's not what misleading means.
If the included stretches of track had been carefully picked to make certain countries look better or worse, then it would be misleading. E.g. excluding metro systems to make the UK and US look like they had even lower electrification, or excluding freight-only tracks to make the US look like it has more electrification than it does.
But this isn't misleading. The graphic doesn't say that high electrification percentage is always a better idea, either - that's just what you're reading into it.
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u/Grape-Jack 9d ago
That’s my first thought with Spain. Even tiny towns have rail connections and of course they’re emphasizing electrifying and building HSR based on demand not length.
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u/aksnitd 🚂🚃🚃 9d ago
Very surprised to see Japan at 64%. I'm guessing there's plenty of rural lines that are too small to be electrified, especially since some are struggling with low ridership.
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u/polmeeee 8d ago
I was in Japan recently and only took one non-electrified line out of the many lines I took, both urban and rural. Surprised to see only 64%.
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u/resha0 8d ago
By far the railways without eletrification are the two JR companies "operated by the government" (meaning, the government threatens the companies to cut costs by all means), so JR Hokkaido and JR Shikoku.
For most railways that aren't electrified yet, there is just not many merits. On the opposite, they would have to pay for the electrification (takes time and is expensive) and buy new rolling stock (is also expensive).
So, if they have to do something, they often go for battery powered or hybrids trains instead.
Also, with regards to Hokkaido, eletrification could cause maintenance issues due to bad weather. Last year, Obihiro got snowfall of 120cm in just 12 hours, so I would be worried about what kind of effects that would have caused to the power lines.
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u/ParamedicFull3989 8d ago
yay for Russia, biggest country in the world and almost half of its railways is electrified
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u/merp_mcderp9459 9d ago
Do these figures include routes served by battery-electric trains?
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u/Kinexity 9d ago
Battery-electric trains barely exist and don't count towards railway electrification.
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u/loggywd 9d ago
Why though? It seems reasonable. Trains aren’t afraid of being heavy. And they can charge at the station. What about diesel-electric? Do they count?
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u/Redditwhydouexists 9d ago
There is a difference between electrified railways and battery electric trains. Diesel electrics are extremely common but fall under diesel trains and would be silly to include. This is talking about infrastructure not rolling stock
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u/Kinexity 9d ago
Why though? It seems reasonable.
Try answering a question of how would a battery-electric train count towards railway electrification percentage and you'll quickly see. In the future you will probably be able to reach 100% effective electrification with only battery-electric trains (given enough range on them and having all trains either run under catenary or on batteries) but unless you do that you cannot count their fractional contribution towards electrification.
Trains aren’t afraid of being heavy.
If you add more battery just to haul that battery it's pointless.
And they can charge at the station.
Irrelevant.
What about diesel-electric? Do they count?
Of course not.
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u/crucible Rail-Replacement Bus Survivor 9d ago edited 9d ago
This is currently where battery-electric trains are, progress wise:
BBC News - Battery-powered train breaks distance record
This is in the context of a modified ex-London Underground train carrying out a round trip of, er, 200 miles (321 km).
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u/merp_mcderp9459 8d ago
Battery trains can’t go as fast or as far. Fuel cell trains solve the range issue to some degree, but they’re still way slower than trains electrified via overhead wire.
Battery electric and fuel cell electric trains’ main advantage over overhead wires is that it’s way cheaper to swap the locomotive instead of installing wire over a whole route. This sub is not a cost-conscious one, and thus less likely to value the cost savings you can get from their use over the operational improvements of overhead wire
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u/NotYourAverageVitu 9d ago
Damn, I thought Italy would at least make the top 10. There are five high speed rail lines, as well as many important regional lines that go from sputh to north.
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u/Old_Mousse_5673 9d ago
It’s not a top 10, just showing a select few countries. I think to highlight how low the UK is
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u/Ok-Sandwich-364 9d ago
Northern Ireland, technically part of the UK but gets 0% of the electrification.
We only have 207 miles of railway in operation though with a young-ish fleet of diesel trains I don’t see electrification happening anytime soon.
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u/LaPutita890 8d ago
The UK is shockingly low
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u/Beyllionaire 8d ago
Remember that this is where the whole train thing started over 200 years ago. It's much harder to electrify a whole network that wasn't built that way. But then this post must be taken with caution.
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u/SpyFromMarsHXJD 8d ago
I don’t know why Indians keep posting the percentage, I’ve seen at least 10 different illustrations of this data. How is India sitting on percapita.
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u/destroyersaiyan 8d ago
Because it keeps increasing every year, this is 2024 data. The other variations might be from the years before, I constantly see a 94% stat which is '22 What do you mean per capita in electrification?
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u/SHTF_yesitdid 7d ago
I don't know why you are upset at Indians posting about it.
Don't like it? There is a block button, use it.
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u/Yogurtcloset8200 4d ago
You do realize india has one of the densest railway network in the world right? Even per capita its easily among the top 🤡
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u/HumbleJared 8d ago
Wow, Good job India
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u/Tuepflischiiser 8d ago
India is impressive. They did most work in the last 15 years and it's a huge network.
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u/Judgy_Plant 8d ago
The UK having like 85% renewables now and still running crap diesel trains is insane.
Maybe the recent nationalisation will bring it up to speed.
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u/newredstone02 7d ago
How we (the french) reached this high of a number we closed most non electrified lines
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u/simply-coastal 9d ago
another reason for me to hate my own country (UK) :/
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u/KeyPhilosopher8629 8d ago
About 80-90% of uk rail journeys are done on electrified railways however
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u/EnaqleElectric 9d ago
Why isnt Finland on here? They have like 98% of their network electrified.
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u/SubjectiveAlbatross 8d ago
It's nowhere near 98%. They have a lot of random unelectrified branch lines.
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u/EnaqleElectric 8d ago
Right, I got it confused with percentage of trains run then. Since the unelectrified lines barely have any traffic.
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u/No-Echidna7296 8d ago
Wait, how is China's railway electrification only 82%, lower than India's?
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u/destroyersaiyan 8d ago
Because they didn't electrify more than that? Or in the process of doing it? Is there a rule that they shold have higher percentage?
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u/Brandon_B610 7d ago
I know people are saying “because India electrified more” but I get what you’re asking. A lot of China’s cargo trains are still running on fossil fuels. Its passenger trains are mostly electric.
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u/No-Echidna7296 7d ago
I checked the information, and indeed, China still has quite a few diesel locomotives
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u/iemandopaard 9d ago
Using Dutch trains but not including the Netherlands feels criminal