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"mile code" markers on train tracks?

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Originally posted by: EyeMWing
Originally posted by: dpopiz
awesome! dannyboy must now tell us everything he knows about trains!

hey, my friend told me that locomotives actually use electric motors to propel themselves -- that the diesel engine just charges up batteries and generates electricity to drive the motors. --because even a huge diesel engine can't provide enough torque to get a whole train started from a halt.

true?
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I know GE has a big beast that does just that. It's a hybrid, similar to the car's implementation, with generator drives off the engine and regenerative braking (mwahaha) Was just introduced recently, though. Not sure how it was done previously.

I suspect DannyBoy doesn't know too much about diesel, it doesn't really fly in Europe. Virtually their entire system is electric.
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Additionally consider that if a locomotive was driven by a transmission, it would be huge and very complicated. In current locomotives the electric motors that drive the wheels do use regenerative braking where the electrical energy is dissipated through a large resistor network in the form of heat. There are disc brakes for emergency stopping and where the electric motors wouldn't stop fast enough, too.
 
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