this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2024
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The annual fucking of Wellington commuter trains by icy overhead lines has begun. If only there was some kind of power source nearby that could be tapped into and used to deice the lines...
I guess the question is how to efficiently heat the lines. Not really feasible to install fan heaters all the way along. Heating up the wire itself may not be that easy.
I went looking and found that some solutions are to either use a specially equipped ice cutting diesel engine, or some trains have a separate pantograph (the thing that goes against the wire) that is designed to scrape the ice off just ahead of where the power collecting pantograph is. Some interesting bits in this blog post.
It links through to this page that has photos of the ice cutting pantographs, though not in action.
Oh neat. Unlikely to happen here, I think.