[Gibbon1]

> Furthermore, it makes zero sense to compare "3000kw x 4 hours" since diesel electric locomotives can run for N>>>4 hours.

This is simply you reframing the conversation from using batteries to allow hybrid electric trains to use short sections of non-electrified tracks to hybrid electric trains won't work because they don't have the range of a diesel locomotive.

I'm going to put this down as you're unwilling to argue fairly and thus lost this argument.

[stickfigure]

You're not comparing hybrid against diesel-electric, you're comparing hybrid against fully electric. The cost of putting batteries in your rolling stock might or might not be higher than electrifying the last 5%. Either way, it's small compared to the cost of electrifying the 95%.

Note that the eastern seaboard (with its bridges and tunnels and topography) is getting electrified; the long and flat midwest is not.