Wabtec (formerly GE) has dibs on some of them to rebuild with 7+ MWH of batteries on board for use by Australian miners. The loaded run is all downhill to the isolated port where it's loaded on ships to China. The run back up the hill is empty. The trains recover and store enough power from regenerative braking, loaded, to power the empty train all the way back to the mine. Concept works - it's not perpetual motion. Proven by use of battery-powered mining trucks at a mine in Europe, doing the same thing between the mine on a mountainside and the processing plant at base level.

One wonders how they find somebody to haul them to Australia, unless the batteries are shipped separately (from China?) and installed at the site. Ships have sunk when EVs in the hold caught fire, with much smaller batteries.

And as usual Clem ignores the cost of installing *and maintaining* all that catenary. It.Ain't.Cheap. The relatively infrequent operation of freight trains in the US doesn't justify spending all that money. The studies have been done several times. Plus, while the CA grid can *probably* withstand the demand of a couple of HSR lines given planned improvements, it's hard to see it withstanding the demand of all the freight railroads too, unless a few old power plants are not retired as scheduled.

And ... my commute on light rail was diverted to buses at least once by copper thieves grabbing a large piece of trolley wire in the middle of the night, next to a main street. You can imagine the attraction of long stretches of trolley wire way out in the boonies with nobody watching it...