Exo buys new locomotives
Exo, which I suppose goes on existing because it serves areas the REM will not, has bought ten new diesel locomotives for a total of $153 million. They will be built in California. Despite burning hydrocarbons, they’re claimed to be less environmentally damaging than the model they’re replacing, locomotives bought second hand from Ontario in 1989. Some notes from a trade site.
ant6n 10:19 on 2022-01-30 Permalink
The climate impact of a diesel commuter locomotive is not primarily the exhaust of the locomotives, but the uncompetetive and suburban centric transit system that’s usually built around them, compared to, say, an electric metropolitan surface metro.
Kate 10:50 on 2022-01-30 Permalink
ant6n, why would a diesel system cause different kinds of urban sprawl from, say, the REM?
dhomas 11:40 on 2022-01-30 Permalink
If I had to guess, these diesel trains encourage commuting for work only, due to their less frequent, rush-hour schedules. Whereas a metropolitan metro runs much more frequently, enabling people to use public transit as their primary means of transit, instead of using it only to get to and from work.
ant6n 13:59 on 2022-01-30 Permalink
Exactly. Systems like the RER in Paris or German S-Bahns also work well for trips inside the city, while still having huge reach over the metro area and have huge all day capacity and frequency (the REM will have the frequency, but not the capacity, and is mediocre on both inner city station density and reach). Commuter rail trends to focus on far away places and connecting people via parking – i.e.they induce sprawl.
In terms of ridership, diesel commuter systems get ~10K trips a day, the REM gets ~100K, and aproper RER or SBahn gets ~1M.