RailRoadFan.com

Spurring from the chatbox conversation on gensets, has anyone heard much lately about the progress being made on fully battery electric locomotives? I see Progress Rail has an SD40 sized loco that's fully electric being tested in California doing switching duties at least: https://railpictures.net/photo/849957/
Wabtec has this larger unit in testing phase, using a 7 megawatt battery: https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/tr ... ght-trains
Appears they were testing a similar model with a 2.4 megawatt battery that was paired up with a diesel electric and noticed an 11% fuel decrease over the 3 month test.
Believe there's some yard operations that are using fully electric units too.

NS had a pair of battery units, 998 and 999, home-built somewhat recently that they used for a couple of years before parking them. I think both have since been sold and or scrapped.

As far as I'm aware, there has never been a #998. As for #999, that unit is off in California last I heard stored pending potential conversion or future use by Rail Propulsions Systems.

Omnitrax currently as a "G12" battery-powered GP9 rebuild from AMPS running on its Newburgh & South Shore Railroad in Ohio. Not sure how its fairing against their two SWs.

It seems that manufacturers are targeting the switcher market currently which makes sense given the nature of the work and that it allows roads to keep their batteries close to home for charges.