Finally! They've had the beast on the property for months. Not sure if there were problems setting it up, or just training time for the support staff and completing any charging stations (I'm guessing one at each end of the run). Having run into delivery problems with something as small as a rooftop solar system, I can easily imagine what a larger project in California would face.

The concept looks really good, and railroads are uniquely positioned to do something like this. In essence, no need to buy special hybrid locomotives: you buy what's basically an autonomous battery-operated locomotive that to the engineer and the rest of the consist looks like just another unit. The unit takes care of power delivery and recharging on the road by itself. Kind of neat, actually. The principle looks good; now we get to see how it works in practice.

This is what public funding of projects on a private railroad is good for: developing concepts that are oriented toward, at first, public benefit (emission reduction in areas with very poor air quality) to a level where the private organizations that will use them can see how they work at scale. It could also be done by regulation or law, but if you don't try it first how do you know if the rule will work?