In general, is it more efficient for society to invest in electric cars, or in electric trains?

French TGV trains have been planed as turbotrain powered by gas turbines, but after 1973 oil crisis evolved into electric trains.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV

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crote 3 days ago | parent [-]

Considering the article is talking about the UK, which recently axed a significant portion of its new high-speed railway corridor: don't count on it.

Even worse: railway electrification is not at all a given in the UK. A big downside of being the first country to roll out railways is that a huge number of railway lines (crucially, including tunnels and overpasses) were built to the dimensions of early trains. In practice this means that electrification isn't just adding some wires, it means having to re-dig all of the tunnels and having to raise all of the overpasses. To illustrate, the UKs universal loading gauge is small enough that you can't even fit regular intermodal container trains into it - and that's without overhead wiring!

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iamflimflam1 3 days ago | parent [-]

A lot of the railway network uses a “third rail” to carry power. You don’t necessarily need overhead lines.

https://www.networkrail.co.uk/our-work/looking-after-the-rai...

	▲	roryirvine 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		There'll be no new third rail electrification, though (apart from some minor infill, or reorganisation around depots). The conversion of remaining mainlines to 25 kV overhead AC is going slower than anyone wants, but already over 70% of passenger rail journeys use electric traction (and actually more like 80% by passenger kilometers). There are an awful lot of low-traffic rural lines that it won't be economic to electrify using current technology, so we'll need to rely on battery electric for those. Either way, it's largely orthogonal to the problem of electrifying road transport.