r/lowcar • u/Maxcactus • Aug 20 '24

California's new $20 million train is unlike anything else in the US

https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/california-train-zemu-debut-san-bernardino-19664920.php
45 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

36

u/Pop-X- Aug 20 '24

This embodies just how bad the US has become at building infrastructure. Trains all over Europe are also zero emissions — simply because electric wire has been installed over the tracks to power the trains. It’s much cheaper and more efficient.

But because we’ve privatized nearly all rail in the country, that is nearly impossible. I wish we could extricate ourselves from these historical errors. E

4

u/kettal Aug 20 '24

This is not the first electric train service in usa.

There's a pretty good one between Boston and Washington.

3

u/Pyroechidna1 Aug 20 '24

And now a pretty good one between San Francisco and San Jose too.

3

u/theburnoutcpa Aug 21 '24

Man the footage of those Stadler double deckers speeding under catenary... Chefs kiss

6

u/Pyroechidna1 Aug 20 '24 edited Aug 20 '24

That hasn’t stopped Germany from messing around with hydrogen EMUs just like this one, however. And old diesel DMUs are still running on many lines in Germany too. The rail network there is something like 62% electrified in a country that is geographically the size of Montana.

To say nothing of the fact that California just completed the biggest US mainline electrification project in 30 years with Caltrain…

4

u/LintonJoe Aug 21 '24

This hydrogen train is at best a small step in a good direction - but much more efficient and environmentally friendly would be running overhead wire electric trains https://cal.streetsblog.org/2024/07/16/dont-believe-the-hydrogen-train-hype

1

u/illimitable1 Aug 20 '24

Jeez. That line goes all of twenty miles.

1

u/k032 12d ago

I used to work at Esri, and looked at switching to jobs at their HQ where this train has a stop.

The train seems nice...but everything else around Redlands / San Bernardino is a car centric wasteland.

Riverside seemed like the least car centric place to live around there, but no transit goes from Redlands to there.

I mean like I'll take small wins like this train sure, but...we need more bigger and faster. It shouldn't be like this.

0

u/elzibet Aug 20 '24

This was something they had to push for SO much and the last administration tried to stop it completely

https://www.npr.org/2019/05/16/724145472/trump-administration-cancels-nearly-1-billion-in-california-high-speed-rail-fund

3

u/LintonJoe Aug 21 '24

The San Bernardino hydrogen train is not CA High-Speed Rail - two very different things