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| Re: LIRR: Third rail vs. catenary (352596) | |||
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Re: LIRR: Third rail vs. catenary |
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Posted by Jeff H. on Wed Dec 13 03:59:06 2006, in response to Re: LIRR: Third rail vs. catenary, posted by RonInBayside on Mon Nov 6 14:22:05 2006. Ron, it seems like this question comes up every year or so.Yes, you could certainly build an urban rapid transit system using "catenary", by which I assume you mean a high-voltage overhead conductor (certainly a 600VDC overhead would not have enough cross-sectional area to deliver the high currents needed for heavy rail). The question then is: why would you want to? High-voltage contact conductors only make sense when the distances involved are large. Only then does the savings in substation facilities and secondary (600-750VDC) feeders and of course third rail infrastructure outweigh the added per-car cost of high-voltage operation. |
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