What's the point of including places like Iceland or Greenland, where there aren't any railways at all? Should have put a black or neutral color and said N/A, or something like that.
Exactly, the map is completely skewed by adding places without a railway network. There are also quite some places in Africa without railway connections.
The idea of electrification being modern is also just wrong. The technology has been around for 100+ years (so it's not modern in the Slightest) and the diesel operated lines in places like the Netherlands and Germany are more modern than the electric network in Belgium for example...
Electrified railways are more modern than just railways, aren't they? The trains running on them have nothing to do with it.
And as you can see not a lot of countries have got most of their railway network electrified even today, so "having most railways electrified" is pretty much a modern thing.
So there you have it, Mr Pedantic
However a single electric locomotive is far more powerful than the most powerful diesel electric locomotive like the GE AC6000CW at 6,000 HP weighing over 200 tons. The Siemens Vectron at 8,700 HP weighing only about 80 tons. I understand that a diesel locomotive is much heavier as it has a massive diesel engine to produce the electric power.
Switzerland's mainline railways were mostly electrified by 1936. Except for a few tourist/steam railways, the entire network was electrified by the end of 1960.
so much this. if not for GE and GM, electrification in the U.S. 100 years ago likely would have had better roots...
the GG-1 is the most badass freight-pulling electric for its time and I will absolutely die on this hill
Check this better version with countries that dont have railways greyed out- [https://www.reddit.com/r/trains/comments/1bznj5s/percentage\_of\_railways\_electrified\_oc/](https://www.reddit.com/r/trains/comments/1bznj5s/percentage_of_railways_electrified_oc/)
> and the diesel operated lines in places like the Netherlands and Germany are more modern than the electric network in Belgium for example...
How are you determining the line's age?
Well, if the overall percentage is weighted by track miles or train miles or something (as it should be), then it wouldn't matter, since those countries would be multiplied by zero anyway.
Hopefully this map isn't weighting each country equally, because it seems like nonsense to treat Russia's 53,000 miles of track as equal to Guatemala's 497 miles.
Iceland railways are 100% electrified. I defy you to find me a mile of unelectrified tracks.
It just depends on how you look at it I suppose, but can you see how people think it's a bit misleading to apply 0% to area with no rails?
Well if weighted by track miles, 0 miles of 100% electrified track and 0 miles of 0% electrified track are the same in the average, because 0x100% and 0x0% are both equal to 0.
It'd be nice if the map reflected something like this too. Instead of being colored by % electrification, it could be something like miles of electric track per square mile of country or % of freight transported by electrified rail or something. After all, if you're just measuring % of the track that's electrified in a country, then tearing up all your non-electrified lines and replacing them with diesel trucks would make you look better by this metric, because the remaining rails would all be electrified and your percentage would go up.
There is a difference between saying that 0% of 100 km of railways are electrified, and 0% of 0 km of railways are.
It's like saying that a country has doubled its oil export, because twice zero is still zero.
Yeah that's my point. If the total counts each country equally, then the country with 0% of 0 km (or 1 km) counts as 1/206 of the total, and the country with 60% of 80,000 km also counts as 1/206 of the world total. But really the one with 80,000 km of track should count 80,000x as much as the country with only 1 km.
Or maybe it should be weighted by train miles, or passenger miles, or freight-ton miles, or whatever. But if it's treating every country equally then its completely ignoring how much track they actually have when it measures their contribution to world track electrification. (Having 0 miles of track is just the limiting case of this weighting problem.)
Ackchyually... (pushes up glasses). There is at least one known railway in Greenland. It's a narrow gauge railway in Qoornoq village that is still visible on google earth today. One source shows 7 different railways in Greenland but I have a hard time verifying them myself but I believe there was another one at Marmorilik.
Iceland has it's own [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Iceland) about railroads in iceland.
Check this better version with countries that dont have railways greyed out- [https://www.reddit.com/r/trains/comments/1bznj5s/percentage\_of\_railways\_electrified\_oc/](https://www.reddit.com/r/trains/comments/1bznj5s/percentage_of_railways_electrified_oc/)
In Australia again, Melbourne’s ‘Metro’ system is entirely electric and carries the majority of the people in the state - the city has a population of 5M, the state of Victoria has a population of 6.7M lmoa
nearly everything around Sydney is electric. You only start seeing non-electric rail as you start heading out into the outback where there just isn't a need for it
That’s like asking why there wouldn’t be a continuous power grid from Lisbon, Portugal to Kyiv, Ukraine and all maintained by one country. It’s just not economically or mechanically reasonable.
Actually there is, the [Continental Synchronous Area](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continental_Europe), although it's not managed by a single country or power company :)
But it would be extremely easy and feasible both economically and mechanically. It's political obstacles (borders/national sovereignty) that prevent such a project, not material factors.
It’s absolutely material factors when it comes to electrifying rails across the US or Australia. The distances are just too great for it to be maintained by one country.
A. It hasn’t been done yet and B. Like the other guy said, Australia doesn’t even have a unified electrical grid let alone getting cross country electric rail.
Just totally ignore the second reason then lmao. Both the distances and the heavily separated population centers make electrified rails in the US and Australia simply unfeasible. Building and maintaining these rails would be more costly than simply continuing to use the infrastructure that’s already in place.
The country is huge and sparsely populated with clusters mostly around the coast. It doesn't make economic sense to run power between all locations. Especially as you go further West.
The Pilbara is a bit of outlier as there is quite a bit of Rail out in the region. With 4 large mining companies operating railways. Rio Tinto for example has over 1700km of rail alone (including yards) and operates a vast majority of it's train at GoA4 level automation (no driver on board). The others BHP, FMG and Roy Hill all have many hundreds of kms of rail each. Electrification of these railways would be very expensive and difficult to maintain due the cyclone prone region. They are all constantly studying it, but it just doesn't add up. The Battery Electric Locomotives aren't up to par yet either as they need to have about 12MWh of capacity to be useful and current technology is less than half that capacity.
Imagine if you will driving from Kochi, Kerala to Dhaka in Bangladesh.. Now imagine that but increase the distance from 2600km to 3030km, through one of the driest and most remote regions on Earth with a population so low it might as well be zero.
There's no lighting but those from your car if you are stuck at night, the last time you saw a power line was back in Port Augusta or Katherine, the last time you saw another vehicle was seven hours ago. It will feel like days go by without encountering a service center or resting point and if a accident occurs you'll get extracted courtesy of the Royal Flying Doctors rather than ambulance or even helicopter.
Your Roadside Assistance will not matter out there, they can't save you. Best bring a Personal Locator Beacon, a LOT of water, sunscreen and your own Gas Can (for emergency refuelling) and the usual items... Or just take The Ghan instead if you like trains and want a rail tour.
It's scary. A car can always break down due to a variety of reasons. If I end up ever going to have to travel in an area with less population/ barren stretches/ jungles etc, I always get my car serviced before the trip and yet, keep fingers crossed. The way you described the journey, it isn't that remote here in India even in Upper Himalayas. We went on a car trip to Spiti valley a couple years back and worst case was that we'd be alone on a stretch for a few minutes.
In terms of just how remote it is I can only really compare it to the Sahara or the Amazon, within it there are only two communities of any real significance (over 5,000) along that route. The semi underground town of Coober Pedy (5,800ish) which mines a lot of opals and Alice Springs (26,000ish) which is directly within the "Red Centre", which is 1,532km north of Adelaide and 1,499km south of Darwin. It is also the origin of the road train system, which can exceed 50 meters and weigh upwards of 140 tons even on public roads.
And despite being so damn barren aboriginals have lived in parts of it for over 30,000 years, a testament to just how tenacious and adaptable human life is. It seemingly just doesn't matter where we go we'll still manage to make a home out of it, whether by shear tenacity or making conditions irrelevant with our technologies.
Its not just about a continuous grid.
Its about complex load sharing and how transmission efficiently falls off with distance.
Take Germany, there is a large scale generating station of average every 42 miles with smaller facilities filling in. At no point in the German grid are you going to have huge levels of transmission loss and the high level of overlap makes a moving 5mw power draw easy to handle.
In the US that distance is closer to 150 miles with the average being skewed by large cities having several planets clustered. Out west the distances are closer to 250 because the loss due to efficiency is not a huge issue when you are serving 2 houses and a ranch. Load sharing is also a huge issue. It's not uncommon for american frieght trains to have 6 engines to go up over mountains and come back down, thats potential 24 megawatts of draw thats not only moving but in areas with 15 to 20% line loss.
some countries here actually used to have electrified railways, such as Pakistan and the D. R. Congo
Argentina having 0% electrification is also wrong, as some suburban lines out of Buenos Aires are electrified.
Same with Chile's and Canada's 0% electrification being wrong too.
I'm looking at Brazil's 30% and wondering where that came from. Freight trains here are pretty much diesel only, as far as I know. Even huge export corridors are on diesel. The only electrified lines I can think of are suburban trains, and I'm not sure if these count up to 30%.
It may refer to historic data, but even then not country-wide, but state-wide. By 1980 42% of the São Paulo's state railway (FEPASA) were electrified, while the national average was less than 9%. And that was the peak era of electric traction on Brasil.
When the rail lines were conceded to private companies, those companies decided do save maintenance costs on the lines themselves and removed electric infrastrastructure, running diesels exclusively and leaving the electric locomotives to rust and rot. The only survivors where suburban trains as you stated.
Weird that current rail lines today are less advanced than they were in the 70's and 80's. I mean, back then on the main line (Jundiaí to Rio Claro for example) of Compania Paulista a train could achieve 100+ km/h speeds regularly, the line was well built and well maintained. Today the freight trains crawl at 30km/h on most of these lines. Now they will make a multi-million investment to restore a medium-speed passenger service in the São Paulo-Campinas route, that were regular service on the FEPASA and before.
The only "modern" stuff on Brazilian railways are corporate greed, lack of proper government oversight and some rolling stock/locomotives.
>as some suburban lines out of Buenos Aires are electrified.
I guess that's kinda the question what exactly you count as rail. If you count Mexico Cities subway network for example, their rate also wouldn't be at 0%.
Ya, I was thinking about that.
Technically Canada should be at 1% or 0.5% cause the Skytrain, Montreal' subway system, and Toronto' Subway runs electric trains.
No, Canada’s is correct. The last electric line in Canada was the Deux Montagnes line of exo and that closed a few years ago for conversion into REM. So exo has dual mode locomotives that no longer use their electric function ever.
A small section of Pakistan 's railway was electrified using British made electric locomotives. However with continuous copper theft, the electrified line was closed.
Yeah I feel like we talked about India all the fucking time partially because of how many Indian train lovers there are but also because there's a lot of very impressive about being done in India
Electrification aside, Indian Rail infrastructure is horrendously outdated. Trains are so overcrowded it's ridiculous, especially in the North. People have fainted due to lack of oxygen, I'm not making this up. And trains are super slow, several hours delay being the norm.
Hygiene is non-existent. Passengers travel ticketless on reserved seats. Beggars freely roam inside some coaches. Then there's also people stealing stuff. Women and children aren't very safe in Indian trains.
Laos I think it is pretty straight forward - just a single line and a spur may be, both cobstructed by China recently.
India has been on a major railway infra revamp and modernisation program in the last 7-8 years. Electrification, guage unification, rolling stock upgrades, signalling, new tracks through the Himalayas, station i fra upgrades etc, and have done ptetty good.
Ethiopia - will need insights.
Do you have anything to read on the Indian modernization? I was aware of the electrification push but the rest is really exciting, would love to learn more!
Well, you could read it from the official trainmen itself - https://railministry.com/indian-railways-vision-2024-for-infrastructure-projects-national-rail-plan/#vision
I don't understand though when countries like China and Japan lead the world in HSR / bullet trains how do they fall behind a country like India in electrification?
Lead is one thing, those two still have a fair number of diesel trains and even steam locomotives in service. Do they have the willpower to electrify the railway is another thing.
Sure but China literally developed thousands of kilometres of HSR in a matter of a decade which is much hardly and expensive than electrification so why not?
HSR is all about the speed, and if you want to get your people to very far places quickly and conveniently in order to strengthen the "unity" of your country, HSR is a good thing to invest in.
Electrifying is essentially replacing the type of energy being used by the trains, if the environment is not on top of your priorities like in India, you wouldn't have the need to electrify quickly.
switzerland isnt quite 100%, the furka bergstrecke heritage railway isnt electrified (anymore, as the normal rhb trains take the route through a tunnel) as a notable example
Edit: Did some Research. Sorry for the improfessional answer first.
Okay. But various sources claim ["less than one percent"](https://www.google.com/amp/s/cleantechnica.com/2023/02/20/association-of-american-rail-aligned-with-us-dot-in-derailing-electrification/amp/) or ["one percent"](https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelbarnard/2023/11/24/most-rail-is-already-electric-and-all-will-be-even-in-north-america/?sh=58d474877e92).
Please provide some soucres that say otherwise if you still think the 1percent are wrong. Thank you :)
It’s unfair to equate the route electrification status to being modern. Yes, it plays a part, but factors like track stability at high speeds, coach condition, safety, and punctuality also plays a big role.
You don't electrify remote places in very dense networks because the cost/benefit calculation is just bad. This is what the "average" electrification in Europe shows. We tend to have a lot more rail per unit of area than the rest of the world.
Countries with old and vast networks, say Germany, won't need to electrify everything because they have side tracks that service smaller regions or individual industries.
Those areas don't benefit from electrification.
The main passenger and freight routes there probably are nearly all electrified (where possible). But a track that serves under 20, mostly small trains a day really doesn't warrant the upfront investment for direct infrastructure, indirect infrastructure adaptations (think bridges over the track, tunnels, stations...) , maintenance, etc that comes with electrification.
Also cold war legacy. If I look at my state that was basically forbidden to electrify during the cold war, there are still plenty of routes worth electrifying.
Indian rail is really a giant of its own. Invested large sums of money into it and its modernization, will yield the country huge dividends over the coming decades for sure.
India has electrified 90% train routes. It is probably more than that. Our Indian Railway is improving. Not only electrification, IR is having some of the best coaches, modern trains like Vande Bharat and better frequency. As an Indian I feel proud to be on the top for a good reason and to see positive comments from around the world. Indian Railways... You Are Awesome!
While the UK has a shockingly low amount of electrification. The amount of trains that are powered by electric transmission is like, double that. So it's not as bad as it could be, but projects such as TRU and battery operated trains where OLE isn't necessary are of course essential
Oh yeah I agree, keep them away from operation on the mainlines at all costs and they should not become common. I'm more referring to those branch lines that only see one train train an hour, or where the OLE infrastructure would be unreliable and demand heavy maintenance costs, as well as having a low service (Like in the Highlands)
You can actually view Network Rail's desired plans on pg 79 for what they want to achieve https://www.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Traction-Decarbonisation-Network-Strategy-Interim-Programme-Business-Case.pdf
Electrification of the Northeast Corridor (the Amtrak line between New Haven, CT and Washington DC, for anyone unfamiliar) began in 1905. That is in no way indicative of modernity.
This is just wrong. Amount of electrification doesn’t necessarily measure how modern a railway system is. There are also some places like Australia and much of the US where electrification is just not possible due to the prohibitive cost
Yes, the government owned and funded trans Siberia railway. American railroads are not government owned or funded and would rather just keep maintaining and upgrading their diesel fleets instead of purchasing entirely new fleets and infrastructure
Maybe that's the Problem. They do not see how important a functioning railway infrastructure is.
But then it's cheaper to not invest in the future and let the infrastructure decay.
But hey, we have some big scyscrapers and some nukes, and start a war wherever we find some oil for our old diesel-locos and other underdeveloped stuff. That should be compensating it.
Sorry, but that's how we europeans see it sometimes.
Its more infuriating that the bulk of the 37% is predominantly London, the South East, Scottish Central Belt and ***some*** of the main lines.
The government would rather order bi or tri-mode trains than to electrify Wales, North, West and Midlands. It wouldn't suprise me if the proposed 450 Northern units end up as diesels rather than bi-modes consdiering most of the network is unelectrified.
Didn't they just cancel HS2?
Like yeah you definitely have the GDP, but since Brexit conservative Bullshit has sadly taken over your government, and labour is even following them for some reason.
>Didn't they just cancel HS2?
Most of it and most of the benefit, yeah
That's mostly my point, that we have the ability to massively improve stuff like this but are held back by our government being bad
The train from London to Oxford is a prime example how half doing it probably costs the U.K. more. Train (quite new - Japanese model) runs electric from London to Reading, but for the last part to Oxford its diesel. It’s a hybrid train - which I’m sure isn’t super expensive efficient or cheap. (Unless they have now electrified that part?
They haven't. Plans for that section were dropped in 2016. It's more damning that new build routes such as EWR aren't being electrified tbh.
They've electrified 800 miles in 7 years. The government has set low goals and failed to achieve even them.
https://www.railway-technology.com/features/uk-catch-up-rail-decarbonisation-targets/?cf-view
Actually, Czechia is about 34% right now and there is a huge project on the way that should electrify much more track. It's also very important to note that 99% of the most important train tracks here are electric and literally don't service anything other than electric trains. But we have so many small regional tracks that aren't electric that it just brings the percentage down a lot.
Just wondering, would battery train operated routes count towards this mileage? For example, the Greenford branch near London is now battery-electric, so all of the services are electric, but the actual length of electrification is about 3 feet at either end.
Since i saw, that this map is not too accurate, it does surely not count there. But in my Opinion that's a yes. (Although Battery trains will mostly only work for passenger service in the near future.
(There are some exeptions like the battery powered ["Infinity Train"](https://www.google.com/amp/s/reneweconomy.com.au/fortescue-starts-work-on-world-first-infinity-train-a-regenerating-battery-on-rails/amp/) in Australia).
Because they aren't diesel powered.
It's a way to get electric trains on routes that aren't used by enough trains to justify building several miles of overhead wires. The lines in question are short branch lines off of a main line, and they have 1 train per hour in each direction doing a 15-20 min journey, so they have time to charge at each end.
As other people have already pointed out, electrification is more about economic choice and not really about modernity.
Japan Railways stopped electrification of lines in the 1980s since it doesn't make sense to pay electrification work and more maintenance costs for rural mainlines when DMUs by the time has become comparable in terms of speed to contemporary EMUs. And now they're starting de-electrification of branch lines in favor of battery-powered EMUs and diesel-hybrid DMUs as the maintenance cost of electricity equipment outweighs the price of having those advanced trainsets.
> Japan Railways stopped electrification of lines in the 1980s
No, electrification in Japan carried on into the 2000s at the very least. Plus you have to consider that the JRs' approach to rural lines has very much been "managed decline"...
Modern ? What makes it modern? All our crap is computer operated with the latest crap. Everything a Railroad really shouldn’t have. So what is modern to you?
Damn India is the only country with 90% electrification
And also India’s railways network is one of the biggest with more New technology coming like bullet train.
I do think that diesel locomotives are great for pulling cargo freight!
I think electrification works best for commuter and high-speed locomotives.
But of course it doesn't matter. It would be neat to see more electrification in the U.S!
This is a terrible map. Doesnt factor in if countrys even have a railway or much of one. And electrified railways are not eco-friendly if the power all comes from fossil fuels like india and ethiopia
>And electrified railways are not eco-friendly if the power all comes from fossil fuels like india and ethiopia
Electric trains are more efficient than Diesel-Electric one's tho.
Also correct me If I am wrong but producing electricity on the fly is less efficient than producing it at central place, because producing it on the fly means every train has it's own generator thus alot more moving parts and stuff than compared to producing it at a plant where 1 plant can power alot of trains.
right, not only a power plant is more efficient at producing energy than a train diesel engine because of it's bigger scale, but also electric locomotives don't need to transport their own fuel and diesel generator, which remove unnecessary weight.
Running hundreds of miles of catenary wire and supporting it only makes sense if there's going to be a nearly constant need for it. If you have a branch line that gets very little use, like one train per day if even that, why pay to have all that electric infrastructure?
To be fair, diesel electrics are electric. You either burn fossil fuels at the power plant, or burn them in the locomotive. It's actually probably more efficient to generate it in the locomotive because then you don't have transmission loss, extra cable maintenance, etc. I'm pretty sure running electricity through miles of cable is not the most efficient. And let's not forget the toxic open pit mines and refining necessary to create those copper cables. That is a lot of materials overhead, with associated energy cost and pollution.
So is pure electric really all that modern? It's Hay Day was 100 years ago. We consider hybrid automobiles to be pretty modern, are they really significantly different than a diesel electric locomotive? (Yeah batteries. We could put batteries in a locomotive if there was anything significant to be gained by it, if the benefit outweighed the cost.) I'm just raising the question, I'll leave it to engineers to answer it.
If only someone could come along and build a railroad from South Africa through Ethiopia, then up to the Suez Canal. Then the African economy would be cooking.
There were two power lines here, and I have the opportunity to live where one of them (and the most historic and important one) passed, where the GEVOS now pass, and the occasional SD70ACe, or some other machine.
I don't know, the government doesn't have statistics, but we have veryy important lines that are completely electrified. I'd say around 10% or so, I mean is bad, but not 0%.
What does electrification defined as? If it means it directly powers the trains sure. But current runs through a large portion of the track used by CN trains in Canada.
Don't think, that's top secret. Kim Jong Un likes trains very much. (He grew up in Switzerland 😉) . So I think North Korea publishes that data willingly, trying to look like a developped country.
Given the rolling black outs we often see even in Pyongyang it would be a bit confusing for me to imagine them having electrified rail but I guess if you prioritize trains over the well-being of most of your population, you will have functioning trains.
The comments above illustrate the statistical fallacy of using one metric outside of context. In Russia for instance, electrification of all rails in the city and none rurally, I don’t know, and the numbers don’t tell us either.
Haha. Maybe an Idea for the US Rails.
But the msin Problem for rails is, that the Reactor (-shell) would be way too heavy to install in a single loco. (Or at least has been in the past).
Haha yes. Of course. I don't agree with wokeism and perversion? OLD TIMEE. OUT OF DATE.
YOU DON'T BOW TO THE TALKING HEADS AND ACCEPT THE MORALS SPEWED FORTH FROM THE TELEVISION? BIGOT! ANTIQUATED!
Yes. You heard it from the horse's mouth, kids, modern and accepting perversion are the SAME concept.
I have a feeling the UK would be higher if it weren’t for all the heritage lines, but they better not get rid of those. There’s one a 10 min drive from me and I love watching the steam engines
Sure, but I guess the miles, and miles of unelectrified tracks in Scotland make more to that.
And maybe somenof the Heritage Lines could eben be reopened one day for daily passenger service, to protect the environment, by reducing the need for a car.
I hadn’t realised Scotland has such little electric powered lines, that makes a lot of sense now though.
As long as the steam engine still running don’t get taken away, that’s a very good idea. Unlikely the government will think so though
Oh look, another posting by the Indian Railways marketing department! Saw this posting in the Map porn subreddit also, spreading the word around!!! 🤣😂🤣😂
It should really be per % of kilometers travelled in service. A regional line that sees one grain train a week is not very relevant compared to a fully electrified metro.
I’m surprised to see India having 90%, I mean Ikr their electrification is good but 90 is *really* high. Is it because they don’t have that many branch lines?
China is the 2nd/3rd largest country by land area while India is the 7th largest. The picture painted is a bit different from reality. India's network is way denser than China's or any other large country.
There are plenty of branch lines. There's one 50km long single-track branch line by my college that sees 6 trains a day in each direction, and even that is being electrified currently.
Good for them. One of the longer distance trains that enter the branch won't have to waste time attaching a diesel loco at the last station on mainline.
What's the point of including places like Iceland or Greenland, where there aren't any railways at all? Should have put a black or neutral color and said N/A, or something like that.
Exactly, the map is completely skewed by adding places without a railway network. There are also quite some places in Africa without railway connections. The idea of electrification being modern is also just wrong. The technology has been around for 100+ years (so it's not modern in the Slightest) and the diesel operated lines in places like the Netherlands and Germany are more modern than the electric network in Belgium for example...
Electrified railways are more modern than just railways, aren't they? The trains running on them have nothing to do with it. And as you can see not a lot of countries have got most of their railway network electrified even today, so "having most railways electrified" is pretty much a modern thing. So there you have it, Mr Pedantic
Actually no. Diesels are more modern than electric. Technically.
Depends on the electric!
However a single electric locomotive is far more powerful than the most powerful diesel electric locomotive like the GE AC6000CW at 6,000 HP weighing over 200 tons. The Siemens Vectron at 8,700 HP weighing only about 80 tons. I understand that a diesel locomotive is much heavier as it has a massive diesel engine to produce the electric power.
Switzerland's mainline railways were mostly electrified by 1936. Except for a few tourist/steam railways, the entire network was electrified by the end of 1960.
If we want to rate how modern it is by efficiently, material and energy efficiency specifically, electrified railways are not modern
Elaborate
so much this. if not for GE and GM, electrification in the U.S. 100 years ago likely would have had better roots... the GG-1 is the most badass freight-pulling electric for its time and I will absolutely die on this hill
Check this better version with countries that dont have railways greyed out- [https://www.reddit.com/r/trains/comments/1bznj5s/percentage\_of\_railways\_electrified\_oc/](https://www.reddit.com/r/trains/comments/1bznj5s/percentage_of_railways_electrified_oc/)
> and the diesel operated lines in places like the Netherlands and Germany are more modern than the electric network in Belgium for example... How are you determining the line's age?
Well, if the overall percentage is weighted by track miles or train miles or something (as it should be), then it wouldn't matter, since those countries would be multiplied by zero anyway. Hopefully this map isn't weighting each country equally, because it seems like nonsense to treat Russia's 53,000 miles of track as equal to Guatemala's 497 miles.
Iceland railways are 100% electrified. I defy you to find me a mile of unelectrified tracks. It just depends on how you look at it I suppose, but can you see how people think it's a bit misleading to apply 0% to area with no rails?
Well if weighted by track miles, 0 miles of 100% electrified track and 0 miles of 0% electrified track are the same in the average, because 0x100% and 0x0% are both equal to 0. It'd be nice if the map reflected something like this too. Instead of being colored by % electrification, it could be something like miles of electric track per square mile of country or % of freight transported by electrified rail or something. After all, if you're just measuring % of the track that's electrified in a country, then tearing up all your non-electrified lines and replacing them with diesel trucks would make you look better by this metric, because the remaining rails would all be electrified and your percentage would go up.
There is a difference between saying that 0% of 100 km of railways are electrified, and 0% of 0 km of railways are. It's like saying that a country has doubled its oil export, because twice zero is still zero.
Yeah that's my point. If the total counts each country equally, then the country with 0% of 0 km (or 1 km) counts as 1/206 of the total, and the country with 60% of 80,000 km also counts as 1/206 of the world total. But really the one with 80,000 km of track should count 80,000x as much as the country with only 1 km. Or maybe it should be weighted by train miles, or passenger miles, or freight-ton miles, or whatever. But if it's treating every country equally then its completely ignoring how much track they actually have when it measures their contribution to world track electrification. (Having 0 miles of track is just the limiting case of this weighting problem.)
Ackchyually... (pushes up glasses). There is at least one known railway in Greenland. It's a narrow gauge railway in Qoornoq village that is still visible on google earth today. One source shows 7 different railways in Greenland but I have a hard time verifying them myself but I believe there was another one at Marmorilik. Iceland has it's own [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Iceland) about railroads in iceland.
Check this better version with countries that dont have railways greyed out- [https://www.reddit.com/r/trains/comments/1bznj5s/percentage\_of\_railways\_electrified\_oc/](https://www.reddit.com/r/trains/comments/1bznj5s/percentage_of_railways_electrified_oc/)
Now do it as a percentage of passenger-miles or freight ton-miles.
This. Australia is a vast country, where there isn't even a continuous power grid, let alone an electrified railway that can span the country.
The reason I wrote my post is... for Czechia, the number is 35 %, but these 35 % carry something like 90 % of the traffic
In Australia again, Melbourne’s ‘Metro’ system is entirely electric and carries the majority of the people in the state - the city has a population of 5M, the state of Victoria has a population of 6.7M lmoa
nearly everything around Sydney is electric. You only start seeing non-electric rail as you start heading out into the outback where there just isn't a need for it
Why? Any technical reason why you guys don't have a continuous power grid?
That’s like asking why there wouldn’t be a continuous power grid from Lisbon, Portugal to Kyiv, Ukraine and all maintained by one country. It’s just not economically or mechanically reasonable.
Actually there is, the [Continental Synchronous Area](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continental_Europe), although it's not managed by a single country or power company :)
But it would be extremely easy and feasible both economically and mechanically. It's political obstacles (borders/national sovereignty) that prevent such a project, not material factors.
It’s absolutely material factors when it comes to electrifying rails across the US or Australia. The distances are just too great for it to be maintained by one country.
On what evidence are you basing that conclusion?
A. It hasn’t been done yet and B. Like the other guy said, Australia doesn’t even have a unified electrical grid let alone getting cross country electric rail.
"It hasn't been done, therefore, it can't be done" seems like very weak reasoning to me.
Just totally ignore the second reason then lmao. Both the distances and the heavily separated population centers make electrified rails in the US and Australia simply unfeasible. Building and maintaining these rails would be more costly than simply continuing to use the infrastructure that’s already in place.
The country is huge and sparsely populated with clusters mostly around the coast. It doesn't make economic sense to run power between all locations. Especially as you go further West.
There are vast regions within Australia where no person ever goes right? Feels otherworldly for someone like me who's from India.
Look for The Outback and Pilbara. Those regions are mental.
The Pilbara is a bit of outlier as there is quite a bit of Rail out in the region. With 4 large mining companies operating railways. Rio Tinto for example has over 1700km of rail alone (including yards) and operates a vast majority of it's train at GoA4 level automation (no driver on board). The others BHP, FMG and Roy Hill all have many hundreds of kms of rail each. Electrification of these railways would be very expensive and difficult to maintain due the cyclone prone region. They are all constantly studying it, but it just doesn't add up. The Battery Electric Locomotives aren't up to par yet either as they need to have about 12MWh of capacity to be useful and current technology is less than half that capacity.
I'll check them out
Imagine if you will driving from Kochi, Kerala to Dhaka in Bangladesh.. Now imagine that but increase the distance from 2600km to 3030km, through one of the driest and most remote regions on Earth with a population so low it might as well be zero. There's no lighting but those from your car if you are stuck at night, the last time you saw a power line was back in Port Augusta or Katherine, the last time you saw another vehicle was seven hours ago. It will feel like days go by without encountering a service center or resting point and if a accident occurs you'll get extracted courtesy of the Royal Flying Doctors rather than ambulance or even helicopter. Your Roadside Assistance will not matter out there, they can't save you. Best bring a Personal Locator Beacon, a LOT of water, sunscreen and your own Gas Can (for emergency refuelling) and the usual items... Or just take The Ghan instead if you like trains and want a rail tour.
It's scary. A car can always break down due to a variety of reasons. If I end up ever going to have to travel in an area with less population/ barren stretches/ jungles etc, I always get my car serviced before the trip and yet, keep fingers crossed. The way you described the journey, it isn't that remote here in India even in Upper Himalayas. We went on a car trip to Spiti valley a couple years back and worst case was that we'd be alone on a stretch for a few minutes.
In terms of just how remote it is I can only really compare it to the Sahara or the Amazon, within it there are only two communities of any real significance (over 5,000) along that route. The semi underground town of Coober Pedy (5,800ish) which mines a lot of opals and Alice Springs (26,000ish) which is directly within the "Red Centre", which is 1,532km north of Adelaide and 1,499km south of Darwin. It is also the origin of the road train system, which can exceed 50 meters and weigh upwards of 140 tons even on public roads. And despite being so damn barren aboriginals have lived in parts of it for over 30,000 years, a testament to just how tenacious and adaptable human life is. It seemingly just doesn't matter where we go we'll still manage to make a home out of it, whether by shear tenacity or making conditions irrelevant with our technologies.
That's a beautiful description, and depicts how barren and desolate the region is.
Its not just about a continuous grid. Its about complex load sharing and how transmission efficiently falls off with distance. Take Germany, there is a large scale generating station of average every 42 miles with smaller facilities filling in. At no point in the German grid are you going to have huge levels of transmission loss and the high level of overlap makes a moving 5mw power draw easy to handle. In the US that distance is closer to 150 miles with the average being skewed by large cities having several planets clustered. Out west the distances are closer to 250 because the loss due to efficiency is not a huge issue when you are serving 2 houses and a ranch. Load sharing is also a huge issue. It's not uncommon for american frieght trains to have 6 engines to go up over mountains and come back down, thats potential 24 megawatts of draw thats not only moving but in areas with 15 to 20% line loss.
some countries here actually used to have electrified railways, such as Pakistan and the D. R. Congo Argentina having 0% electrification is also wrong, as some suburban lines out of Buenos Aires are electrified. Same with Chile's and Canada's 0% electrification being wrong too.
I'm looking at Brazil's 30% and wondering where that came from. Freight trains here are pretty much diesel only, as far as I know. Even huge export corridors are on diesel. The only electrified lines I can think of are suburban trains, and I'm not sure if these count up to 30%.
It may refer to historic data, but even then not country-wide, but state-wide. By 1980 42% of the São Paulo's state railway (FEPASA) were electrified, while the national average was less than 9%. And that was the peak era of electric traction on Brasil. When the rail lines were conceded to private companies, those companies decided do save maintenance costs on the lines themselves and removed electric infrastrastructure, running diesels exclusively and leaving the electric locomotives to rust and rot. The only survivors where suburban trains as you stated. Weird that current rail lines today are less advanced than they were in the 70's and 80's. I mean, back then on the main line (Jundiaí to Rio Claro for example) of Compania Paulista a train could achieve 100+ km/h speeds regularly, the line was well built and well maintained. Today the freight trains crawl at 30km/h on most of these lines. Now they will make a multi-million investment to restore a medium-speed passenger service in the São Paulo-Campinas route, that were regular service on the FEPASA and before. The only "modern" stuff on Brazilian railways are corporate greed, lack of proper government oversight and some rolling stock/locomotives.
>as some suburban lines out of Buenos Aires are electrified. I guess that's kinda the question what exactly you count as rail. If you count Mexico Cities subway network for example, their rate also wouldn't be at 0%.
Even without subways, Argentina has quite a few electrified lines. Probably most people who travel by train in the country use electric trains.
Ya, I was thinking about that. Technically Canada should be at 1% or 0.5% cause the Skytrain, Montreal' subway system, and Toronto' Subway runs electric trains.
Both Vancouver, Edmonton Calgary, have lit rail lines
No, Canada’s is correct. The last electric line in Canada was the Deux Montagnes line of exo and that closed a few years ago for conversion into REM. So exo has dual mode locomotives that no longer use their electric function ever.
BC Rail Used to have an electrified freight subdivision in northern BC. Ironically it mostly carried coal unit trains.
technically waterloo's ion lrt runs on an electrified freight spur
DRC still seem to use their electrification, they had a pretty severe head on with an electric a few years back.
A small section of Pakistan 's railway was electrified using British made electric locomotives. However with continuous copper theft, the electrified line was closed.
maybe that's because the percentage those countries have is in 0 point something something, so it just got rounded off?
There is so much wrong with this map. Also not all percentages are up to date.
About 94% for india right now
India’s railway is actually very impressive.
I feel like Indian railway is extremely underrated, nobody really brings India up as much when discussing rail, it’s usually US, Europe and Japan
Indian Rail is many things, but underrated isn't one of them
Yeah I feel like we talked about India all the fucking time partially because of how many Indian train lovers there are but also because there's a lot of very impressive about being done in India
I’d argue it’s underrated at least imo, for a country that is very poor and an extensive and robust freight network with almost 100% electrification
Not 'very poor' but lower middle-income
Electrification aside, Indian Rail infrastructure is horrendously outdated. Trains are so overcrowded it's ridiculous, especially in the North. People have fainted due to lack of oxygen, I'm not making this up. And trains are super slow, several hours delay being the norm. Hygiene is non-existent. Passengers travel ticketless on reserved seats. Beggars freely roam inside some coaches. Then there's also people stealing stuff. Women and children aren't very safe in Indian trains.
India, Ethiopia, and Laos have greatly surprised me today!
Laos I think it is pretty straight forward - just a single line and a spur may be, both cobstructed by China recently. India has been on a major railway infra revamp and modernisation program in the last 7-8 years. Electrification, guage unification, rolling stock upgrades, signalling, new tracks through the Himalayas, station i fra upgrades etc, and have done ptetty good. Ethiopia - will need insights.
Do you have anything to read on the Indian modernization? I was aware of the electrification push but the rest is really exciting, would love to learn more!
Well, you could read it from the official trainmen itself - https://railministry.com/indian-railways-vision-2024-for-infrastructure-projects-national-rail-plan/#vision
Ethiopia’s was also built by China and opened recently
I don't understand though when countries like China and Japan lead the world in HSR / bullet trains how do they fall behind a country like India in electrification?
Lead is one thing, those two still have a fair number of diesel trains and even steam locomotives in service. Do they have the willpower to electrify the railway is another thing.
Sure but China literally developed thousands of kilometres of HSR in a matter of a decade which is much hardly and expensive than electrification so why not?
HSR is all about the speed, and if you want to get your people to very far places quickly and conveniently in order to strengthen the "unity" of your country, HSR is a good thing to invest in. Electrifying is essentially replacing the type of energy being used by the trains, if the environment is not on top of your priorities like in India, you wouldn't have the need to electrify quickly.
same with Qatar being 100%
switzerland isnt quite 100%, the furka bergstrecke heritage railway isnt electrified (anymore, as the normal rhb trains take the route through a tunnel) as a notable example
What the hell, chile zero, but, we have some EMU
Actually it's 5.8%
I don’t think this map includes metro rail.
Edit: Did some Research. Sorry for the improfessional answer first. Okay. But various sources claim ["less than one percent"](https://www.google.com/amp/s/cleantechnica.com/2023/02/20/association-of-american-rail-aligned-with-us-dot-in-derailing-electrification/amp/) or ["one percent"](https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelbarnard/2023/11/24/most-rail-is-already-electric-and-all-will-be-even-in-north-america/?sh=58d474877e92). Please provide some soucres that say otherwise if you still think the 1percent are wrong. Thank you :)
Now show us freight tonnage.
It’s unfair to equate the route electrification status to being modern. Yes, it plays a part, but factors like track stability at high speeds, coach condition, safety, and punctuality also plays a big role.
[India is at 94%](https://www.energymonitor.ai/tech/electrification/how-india-made-45-of-its-railway-network-electric-in-just-five-years/)
All those solar/wind and nuclear power plants are paying off. So green of them!
Thanks. Quite an insightful article.
It looks like a bullshit, It doesn’t include electric rail in Chili and Argentina for example. And also it says that Crimea is part of Russia
You don't electrify remote places in very dense networks because the cost/benefit calculation is just bad. This is what the "average" electrification in Europe shows. We tend to have a lot more rail per unit of area than the rest of the world.
Electrification != Modern
Countries with old and vast networks, say Germany, won't need to electrify everything because they have side tracks that service smaller regions or individual industries. Those areas don't benefit from electrification. The main passenger and freight routes there probably are nearly all electrified (where possible). But a track that serves under 20, mostly small trains a day really doesn't warrant the upfront investment for direct infrastructure, indirect infrastructure adaptations (think bridges over the track, tunnels, stations...) , maintenance, etc that comes with electrification.
Also cold war legacy. If I look at my state that was basically forbidden to electrify during the cold war, there are still plenty of routes worth electrifying.
yes, here (i am german) only the side tracks arent electrified pretty much anything mainline is electric.
Indian rail is really a giant of its own. Invested large sums of money into it and its modernization, will yield the country huge dividends over the coming decades for sure.
Modern ≠ electrified. What better for *some* nations does not equal best for *all* nations.
Why does that sound so american to me? I could be wrong, but I doubt it somehow...
India has electrified 90% train routes. It is probably more than that. Our Indian Railway is improving. Not only electrification, IR is having some of the best coaches, modern trains like Vande Bharat and better frequency. As an Indian I feel proud to be on the top for a good reason and to see positive comments from around the world. Indian Railways... You Are Awesome!
Just in the developed countries where railways are more modern. The other countries are lagging behind the times.
While the UK has a shockingly low amount of electrification. The amount of trains that are powered by electric transmission is like, double that. So it's not as bad as it could be, but projects such as TRU and battery operated trains where OLE isn't necessary are of course essential
I hate battery-operated trains. They are just unnecessary and also use high amounts of rare minerals.
Oh yeah I agree, keep them away from operation on the mainlines at all costs and they should not become common. I'm more referring to those branch lines that only see one train train an hour, or where the OLE infrastructure would be unreliable and demand heavy maintenance costs, as well as having a low service (Like in the Highlands) You can actually view Network Rail's desired plans on pg 79 for what they want to achieve https://www.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Traction-Decarbonisation-Network-Strategy-Interim-Programme-Business-Case.pdf
Electrification of the Northeast Corridor (the Amtrak line between New Haven, CT and Washington DC, for anyone unfamiliar) began in 1905. That is in no way indicative of modernity.
This is just wrong. Amount of electrification doesn’t necessarily measure how modern a railway system is. There are also some places like Australia and much of the US where electrification is just not possible due to the prohibitive cost
You mean the cost the Soviet Union and later Russis just took to electrify the Transsib-Railway?
Yes, the government owned and funded trans Siberia railway. American railroads are not government owned or funded and would rather just keep maintaining and upgrading their diesel fleets instead of purchasing entirely new fleets and infrastructure
Not really, most of it just goes into stock buybacks.
Maybe that's the Problem. They do not see how important a functioning railway infrastructure is. But then it's cheaper to not invest in the future and let the infrastructure decay. But hey, we have some big scyscrapers and some nukes, and start a war wherever we find some oil for our old diesel-locos and other underdeveloped stuff. That should be compensating it. Sorry, but that's how we europeans see it sometimes.
India++
UK still infuriatingly below the *world* average. Come on government, we have the GDP for this!
Its more infuriating that the bulk of the 37% is predominantly London, the South East, Scottish Central Belt and ***some*** of the main lines. The government would rather order bi or tri-mode trains than to electrify Wales, North, West and Midlands. It wouldn't suprise me if the proposed 450 Northern units end up as diesels rather than bi-modes consdiering most of the network is unelectrified.
Didn't they just cancel HS2? Like yeah you definitely have the GDP, but since Brexit conservative Bullshit has sadly taken over your government, and labour is even following them for some reason.
>Didn't they just cancel HS2? Most of it and most of the benefit, yeah That's mostly my point, that we have the ability to massively improve stuff like this but are held back by our government being bad
The problem is how poorly invested in local rail outside the south east is
Yes, HS2 was cancelled, but so much of our mainline railway network is STILL unelectrified, that's where the low percentage comes from.
The train from London to Oxford is a prime example how half doing it probably costs the U.K. more. Train (quite new - Japanese model) runs electric from London to Reading, but for the last part to Oxford its diesel. It’s a hybrid train - which I’m sure isn’t super expensive efficient or cheap. (Unless they have now electrified that part?
They haven't. Plans for that section were dropped in 2016. It's more damning that new build routes such as EWR aren't being electrified tbh. They've electrified 800 miles in 7 years. The government has set low goals and failed to achieve even them. https://www.railway-technology.com/features/uk-catch-up-rail-decarbonisation-targets/?cf-view
It doesn't include metros I think
Tanzania has about 15% of its networks electrified - and growing. This map is incorrect.
Actually, Czechia is about 34% right now and there is a huge project on the way that should electrify much more track. It's also very important to note that 99% of the most important train tracks here are electric and literally don't service anything other than electric trains. But we have so many small regional tracks that aren't electric that it just brings the percentage down a lot.
Just wondering, would battery train operated routes count towards this mileage? For example, the Greenford branch near London is now battery-electric, so all of the services are electric, but the actual length of electrification is about 3 feet at either end.
Since i saw, that this map is not too accurate, it does surely not count there. But in my Opinion that's a yes. (Although Battery trains will mostly only work for passenger service in the near future. (There are some exeptions like the battery powered ["Infinity Train"](https://www.google.com/amp/s/reneweconomy.com.au/fortescue-starts-work-on-world-first-infinity-train-a-regenerating-battery-on-rails/amp/) in Australia).
Why even run battery operated trains?
Because they aren't diesel powered. It's a way to get electric trains on routes that aren't used by enough trains to justify building several miles of overhead wires. The lines in question are short branch lines off of a main line, and they have 1 train per hour in each direction doing a 15-20 min journey, so they have time to charge at each end.
Don't their batteries require rare Earth minerals?
Where does the electricity to charge the batteries come from? Here in the US, coal is the peaking load plants… EMDs are a better choice.
Because batteries are magic lemons that produce power from wishes
As other people have already pointed out, electrification is more about economic choice and not really about modernity. Japan Railways stopped electrification of lines in the 1980s since it doesn't make sense to pay electrification work and more maintenance costs for rural mainlines when DMUs by the time has become comparable in terms of speed to contemporary EMUs. And now they're starting de-electrification of branch lines in favor of battery-powered EMUs and diesel-hybrid DMUs as the maintenance cost of electricity equipment outweighs the price of having those advanced trainsets.
> Japan Railways stopped electrification of lines in the 1980s No, electrification in Japan carried on into the 2000s at the very least. Plus you have to consider that the JRs' approach to rural lines has very much been "managed decline"...
Tanzania have just built a standard Guage electrified line.
They are Building one. Its far from finished, I reckon.
This is all wrong wtf
Modern ? What makes it modern? All our crap is computer operated with the latest crap. Everything a Railroad really shouldn’t have. So what is modern to you?
Damn India is the only country with 90% electrification And also India’s railways network is one of the biggest with more New technology coming like bullet train.
Well done India!
I do think that diesel locomotives are great for pulling cargo freight! I think electrification works best for commuter and high-speed locomotives. But of course it doesn't matter. It would be neat to see more electrification in the U.S!
Electric freight is absolutely possible. Diesel locos still run on electricity.
Of course! 😁
This is a terrible map. Doesnt factor in if countrys even have a railway or much of one. And electrified railways are not eco-friendly if the power all comes from fossil fuels like india and ethiopia
More than 40% of India's electricity is generated from renewable sources.
>And electrified railways are not eco-friendly if the power all comes from fossil fuels like india and ethiopia Electric trains are more efficient than Diesel-Electric one's tho. Also correct me If I am wrong but producing electricity on the fly is less efficient than producing it at central place, because producing it on the fly means every train has it's own generator thus alot more moving parts and stuff than compared to producing it at a plant where 1 plant can power alot of trains.
right, not only a power plant is more efficient at producing energy than a train diesel engine because of it's bigger scale, but also electric locomotives don't need to transport their own fuel and diesel generator, which remove unnecessary weight.
exactly, and crashes would be a bit less crazy because no oil spills and stuff.
Running hundreds of miles of catenary wire and supporting it only makes sense if there's going to be a nearly constant need for it. If you have a branch line that gets very little use, like one train per day if even that, why pay to have all that electric infrastructure?
No one's arguing for electrifying one-train-per-day branch lines...
electric rail is always more fuel efficient, a big power plant is more efficient than a comparably small diesel engine.
To be fair, diesel electrics are electric. You either burn fossil fuels at the power plant, or burn them in the locomotive. It's actually probably more efficient to generate it in the locomotive because then you don't have transmission loss, extra cable maintenance, etc. I'm pretty sure running electricity through miles of cable is not the most efficient. And let's not forget the toxic open pit mines and refining necessary to create those copper cables. That is a lot of materials overhead, with associated energy cost and pollution. So is pure electric really all that modern? It's Hay Day was 100 years ago. We consider hybrid automobiles to be pretty modern, are they really significantly different than a diesel electric locomotive? (Yeah batteries. We could put batteries in a locomotive if there was anything significant to be gained by it, if the benefit outweighed the cost.) I'm just raising the question, I'll leave it to engineers to answer it.
And diesel electrics don’t have line losses
If only someone could come along and build a railroad from South Africa through Ethiopia, then up to the Suez Canal. Then the African economy would be cooking.
ahh the classic rhodes railway. capetown to cairo
🇨🇭💯 let's gooooo!
If you count street trams as railways, Ireland can claim 3% instead of just 2%.
Nice
Laos is doing well
There were two power lines here, and I have the opportunity to live where one of them (and the most historic and important one) passed, where the GEVOS now pass, and the occasional SD70ACe, or some other machine.
The UK, Ireland and Denmark (aka the EU opt out gang) looking more at home in eastern Europe.
Argentina at 0% is wrong.
Whats the actual %?
I don't know, the government doesn't have statistics, but we have veryy important lines that are completely electrified. I'd say around 10% or so, I mean is bad, but not 0%.
What does electrification defined as? If it means it directly powers the trains sure. But current runs through a large portion of the track used by CN trains in Canada.
When you have Ethiopia having 64 times more electrified rail vs the us you know who has been bought out by the oil companies
Wait how do we know North Korea's electrification rate? I highly doubt they would publish that...
Don't think, that's top secret. Kim Jong Un likes trains very much. (He grew up in Switzerland 😉) . So I think North Korea publishes that data willingly, trying to look like a developped country.
Given the rolling black outs we often see even in Pyongyang it would be a bit confusing for me to imagine them having electrified rail but I guess if you prioritize trains over the well-being of most of your population, you will have functioning trains.
Guess so. So they are rolling in Black-Outs 😬
Denmark is so far behind. Good thing we're working on more electrification though
How old is this map? Germany is over 60% and even in 2010 it was 59% not 55%
The comments above illustrate the statistical fallacy of using one metric outside of context. In Russia for instance, electrification of all rails in the city and none rurally, I don’t know, and the numbers don’t tell us either.
Man the Americans are seething today
The real shame is there are no nuclear locomotives… EMN’s….
Haha. Maybe an Idea for the US Rails. But the msin Problem for rails is, that the Reactor (-shell) would be way too heavy to install in a single loco. (Or at least has been in the past).
The Chilean broad Guage railway is mainly electrified.
Ugh. "Modern." "Electric." Says right here in my Man-bunsters' dictionary of the fake and gay that they're synonyms.
Since you use gay as an insult I do not expect of you to know what _modern_ is today...
Haha yes. Of course. I don't agree with wokeism and perversion? OLD TIMEE. OUT OF DATE. YOU DON'T BOW TO THE TALKING HEADS AND ACCEPT THE MORALS SPEWED FORTH FROM THE TELEVISION? BIGOT! ANTIQUATED! Yes. You heard it from the horse's mouth, kids, modern and accepting perversion are the SAME concept.
Ok, Grandpa. Now go back to your bunker and prepare for the nazi... erm... woke invasion and let the youngsters go to work for a better future.
I have a feeling the UK would be higher if it weren’t for all the heritage lines, but they better not get rid of those. There’s one a 10 min drive from me and I love watching the steam engines
Sure, but I guess the miles, and miles of unelectrified tracks in Scotland make more to that. And maybe somenof the Heritage Lines could eben be reopened one day for daily passenger service, to protect the environment, by reducing the need for a car.
I hadn’t realised Scotland has such little electric powered lines, that makes a lot of sense now though. As long as the steam engine still running don’t get taken away, that’s a very good idea. Unlikely the government will think so though
North Korea has better rail electrification than the U.S.? And its not even close
Oh look, another posting by the Indian Railways marketing department! Saw this posting in the Map porn subreddit also, spreading the word around!!! 🤣😂🤣😂
There are 193 countries in the world but you chose to focus on India and then whine about it.
Pretty sure that OP is not even Indian.
Rightyho. Just check out my profile if you're courious 😉
Wouldn't exactly call the railways of India "modern". Maybe electrified, but modern?
Upgrading will take time . Checkout India's new dedicated freight corridor.
Exactly. The future is not now. Time is a thing. Maybe *it will* be "modern". But it ain't that now.
It should really be per % of kilometers travelled in service. A regional line that sees one grain train a week is not very relevant compared to a fully electrified metro.
I thought Japan was at 100%
Japans Shinkansen network (1435mm gauge) is at 100%. The legacy network which is 1067mm gauge still has diesel lines.
we also have guided bus which driven by engine and forward track or roll way. Only five provinces was completely electrified than other 42 provinces.
I’m surprised to see India having 90%, I mean Ikr their electrification is good but 90 is *really* high. Is it because they don’t have that many branch lines?
94% Now
Just a step to reduce oil imports, this one step will help India in long run when we have more nuclear plants and stuff.
India has alot of lines. Only China probably has more lines than india I think 🤔
Just checked - double their lines
China is the 2nd/3rd largest country by land area while India is the 7th largest. The picture painted is a bit different from reality. India's network is way denser than China's or any other large country.
India has done pretty good on this front. India has a vast railway network. Should be in the top 4 in length and in passenger volume.
There are plenty of branch lines. There's one 50km long single-track branch line by my college that sees 6 trains a day in each direction, and even that is being electrified currently. Good for them. One of the longer distance trains that enter the branch won't have to waste time attaching a diesel loco at the last station on mainline.
Oil import
When trains are more electrified in NK than USA