You would say that the greening of trains has been played out reasonably well. Catenary above the track and running the train on clean electricity. It is not as if the train suddenly follows a different route. But apparently it’s not that simple. In Australia, for example, trains still run a lot on diesel.
That is why Williams Advanced Engineering will focus on greening the iron ore trains in Australia. Not because they care about the health of kangaroos, but because the technology arm of the F1 team has just been taken over by Fortescue, one of the largest iron ore producers in the world. The F1 team went to investment firm Dorilton Capital. Exact details about the access arrangements are not known.
Williams Advanced Engineering often does odd jobs for third parties, for example they helped with the development of the Singer DLS. Now they are working on the so-called infinity train† This is a battery powered train that charges itself with gravity. It should be the most efficient locomotive in the world.
Maybe not as special as it sounds
Charging with gravity, that sounds very revolutionary. Until you hear that there are regenerative brakes in the train that recharge the battery when it goes downhill. But apparently this is all so efficient that the train only needs to charge once for a return ticket. According to Fortescue, this saves a huge investment in the charging network for the train.
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