London Banter - View Single Post - The Ermine strikes back

Colin Rosenstiel · December 18th 07, 12:43 AM posted to uk.transport.london

In article ,
(Tom Anderson) wrote:

I would hope an electrified service would do better than that.

How much difference does it make? And why? This is something that's
always puzzled me, actually - why are electric trains so much
preferred to diesels? Do they accelerate faster? I assume it's not
a question of top speed.

Quite a bit. Not having to carry diesel engines and their transmissions
around makes quite a difference to weight and therefore power required
for acceleration.

Also, they have a significantly longer life expectancy and maintenance
cost without diesel engines trying to shake them to bits all the time.

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Colin Rosenstiel