the fastest diesel locomotives usually have a speed around the low 200kph range, while the fastest electric locomotive can go over 300kph, and up to 574 kph. what is the difference? what makes it not currently possible to design a diesel locomotive that can go over 300kph?
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High speed rail requires a metric ass-load of power to continuously fight wind resistance and keep the train moving. Diesels aren’t as efficient as they’d need to be to produce enough power to run a HSR train in the size we want those trains to be.
We absolutely could design a diesel-electric HSR locomotive. It’d be a fuck-off huge landwhale of a train with a generator that would make an ocean-going supercarrier blush guzzling enough fuel to run a thousand traditional diesel trains, but it’d run!
But using the track gauge and vehicle length restrictions we have, diesel just can’t make the power needs required for high speeds.
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