Room 101 - Steam, Diesel or Electric trains?

I remember an article in one of the railway mags many years ago about the relative efficiencies of various types of steam locos v. diesel. There was a mention of a steam loco driver in India who would do all sorts of unpaid maintenance work/cleaning etc. on his loco which brought the efficiency almost on a par with the local diesels, however this was the result of a lot of extra labour!

As for overhead electrification (especially with the UK rail network's limited loading gauge) the cost of powering the whole network would be unfeasible plus the numerous problems with such structures. Talking with some line engineers on the WCML one of their main problems was birds sheltering under bridges in wet weather: damp bird perches on 25kV wire, shuffles under bridge, gap between bird and structure less than safe, arc strikes up carbonising bird and eventually burning through wire and dropping a mile of overhead line into the dirt!

Could I suggest some form of diesel-electric hybrid loco? Battery storage charged by a diesel engine running at maximum efficiency and with the engine available to give a boost when needed (on starting or steep gradients). This could be taken a step further with partial electrification of the rail network so instead of the diesel engine there are sections of overhead line or third rail or some other power transfer method, probably at stations where the heaviest power requirements would be needed for starting. Train uses power supply to charge up/start, runs on batteries for most of the route. Simples! No long runs of overhead wires. No pollution.

I would also think that there should be some development of lighter weight trains as well: at the moment I hate to think how much energy is being used just to get hundreds of tons of rolling stock up to speed (and wasted when it slows down) let alone the additional weight of passengers/cargo.

I remember an article in one of the railway mags many years ago about the relative efficiencies of various types of steam locos v. diesel. There was a mention of a steam loco driver in India who would do all sorts of unpaid maintenance work/cleaning etc. on his loco which brought the efficiency almost on a par with the local diesels, however this was the result of a lot of extra labour!

As for overhead electrification (especially with the UK rail network's limited loading gauge) the cost of powering the whole network would be unfeasible plus the numerous problems with such structures. Talking with some line engineers on the WCML one of their main problems was birds sheltering under bridges in wet weather: damp bird perches on 25kV wire, shuffles under bridge, gap between bird and structure less than safe, arc strikes up carbonising bird and eventually burning through wire and dropping a mile of overhead line into the dirt!

Could I suggest some form of diesel-electric hybrid loco? Battery storage charged by a diesel engine running at maximum efficiency and with the engine available to give a boost when needed (on starting or steep gradients). This could be taken a step further with partial electrification of the rail network so instead of the diesel engine there are sections of overhead line or third rail or some other power transfer method, probably at stations where the heaviest power requirements would be needed for starting. Train uses power supply to charge up/start, runs on batteries for most of the route. Simples! No long runs of overhead wires. No pollution.

I would also think that there should be some development of lighter weight trains as well: at the moment I hate to think how much energy is being used just to get hundreds of tons of rolling stock up to speed (and wasted when it slows down) let alone the additional weight of passengers/cargo.