When you’re a locomotive hauling thousands of tons of cargo over two steel rails, you gotta brake sometimes. And that takes up a lot of time and energy. But what if you could trap all that energy and repower it? That’s what the folks at freight rail manufacturer Wabtec Corporation are hoping to do with the world’s first battery-powered, heavy haul electric freight train: the FLXdrive.
Powered by 18,000 lithium-ion battery cells and with an energy capacity of 2.4-megawatt-hours, FLXdrive is capable of producing up to 4,400 hp. Designed to operate in a hybrid consist, FLXdrive’s battery-powered engine can be paired with a traditional diesel engine where FLXdrive functions as one unit in a series of multiple trains. The magic’s in Flex’s regenerative braking power. Because the hybrid locomotive can capture excess heat from braking and store it for acceleration, Wabtec estimates the train could cut fuel consumption by up to a third. Eventually, Wabtec wants to build a zero-emission train using hydrogen fuel cells, which could reduce emissions by 120 million in the U.S. alone.
FLXdrive completed a successful 13,000-mile trial run in California earlier this year. Although rail transport is already the most efficient way to move goods because of factors like low rolling resistance of steel wheels, trucks still dominate transport. Wabtec hopes to change that dynamic and encourage greener usage with FLXdrive. Wabtec’s CTO, Eric Gebhardt, has been quoted as describing its next-gen train has having “100 times the power and energy within a Tesla.”
Charged and ready to crush capacity and haul heavy loads more efficiently. Hey, that sounds like another rolling manufacturer we know.