Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by londons_explore 507 days ago
The missing piece of info here is that while most of the trains have the capability to do regen braking, it is generally ineffective because it can only be used if another train on the same section of track happens to also be accelerating at the same time.

That happens rarely enough that most of the trains, most of the time, do not effectively regen, and instead use mechanical or resistive braking.

1 comments

There was chatter 20-30 years ago about using flywheels to bank the energy until needed.