Hacker News Reader

Not in Denmark where I live. Most (I think) trains are running on Diesel as our politicians decides not to electrify all parts of the country.

When travelling on our highway (e-45) I see many trucks which are not first/last mile but more likely in the 1000 km range. I think that we should consider smaller trains which cost more to establish but could use some of the power getting wasted (wind/solar) at times where it is generated but the demand is low.

View on HN

The problem here is that Europe optimized for passenger rail (so the rail is fast, which is good for people, but expensive per mile, which is bad for freight) and the US optimized for freight with the reverse positives and negatives.

The only country that I’m aware of that did both great on the same network was China, but they ran into capacity issues so they spent hundreds of billions to move people onto a brand new dedicated passenger high speed rail network and now the legacy slow one has more room for freight.

That was the leadership call. In the US, current leadership might do the same. It's likely a national poll would support an electric solution though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com