AN OUTSIDE VIEW

  This discussion arose from a YouTube comment. “Keep operating super old locomotives is not exactly environment-friendly or even cost-efficient.” This is true as a broad generalisation. However, the energy consumption of rolling stock and infrastructure has to be calculated over its entire life cycle, from mine to scrapyard. I cannot lay my hands on the figures, but I understand that at least a third of the energy consumed by a train occurs in mining and refining the raw materials and construction of the vehicles. Large amounts of energy are used to just to dig out and transport the minerals and convert the ore to aluminium metal, while aluminium welding is also an energy-intensive process. Aluminium mining is not environmentally friendly. Similar considerations apply to electrification infrastructure and battery technologies. As regards cost, around a third of the total is for the capital costs of the rolling stock. This is usually reckoned to be fully amortised after 20 years, ...