The Fascinating Engineering behind Electric Trains!

It might be surprising to know that in electric trains, the power collected from the overheadlines ends up in the grounding cable of the track after flowing through the wheels. Three phase power conversion, regenerative braking and zig-zag overheadlines - all these make electric train technology quite unique. Let’s understand all the engineering secrets behind the electric trains starting from the simplest design possible.

[KanishQQuotes]

Americans watching this and wondering what alien civilisation is this

[aarkln]

Small correction needed. Multiple motor axles are in place to improve the traction. Because we can transfer the required power through a single motor, but the traction force depends on the friction between wheel and rail which is a limiting factor for an axle. By increasing more number of axles we can get enough traction to pull the train.

[gizmoknow-how]

This channel is just perfect, the way you first address the issue with a particular technology and then another technology that fixes that issue, always makes me smile. The animation is spot on and narrator's voice is great for these types of videos.

Certainly much much...…. much better than most of the college engineering classes.

Oh yeah, and the way you appreciate the technologies explained in your videos so deeply is just awesome.

[kdeuler]

Fascinating. How efficient are all those rectifiers and transformers? I imagine they must emit a lot of heat.

[mkkm]

Some bogies are 4 wheel while some are 6 wheel. Typically 6 wheel is on heavier, slower but higher torque engines like for freight trains while faster passenger trains have 4 wheel bogies. The one shown in the animation is the ES-64 from Siemens which has 4 wheel bogies. This is directly related to the ACS-64 that Amtrak uses on the Boston-NYC Northeast Regional and on trains to Harrisburg PA.

[everydayday]

This is a very interesting video.
I am Japanese train geek and I translate and play the auto-generated subtitles, but I would like to have English subtitles that match the narration, as there are some parts where the auto-generated subtitles are not sufficient.

[rdgkse]

The way the first set up is shown, is actually how General Electric built the Milwaukee Road "Bipolar" electric locomotives in 1919.

[srinivasansukumaran]

Complex topics explained in a very simple manner with the help of nice animation. Superb content !

[aut_bedenis]

I like the video it is very informative. However I have one problem with the animation. The locomotive powering the railjet is an OEBB 1116 (or "Taurus" or "Siemens ES64U2") has 4 axles (two per bogie) and it is primarily build for 15kV and 25kV, but minor details.

[abhisheksharma]

This is Fascinating and driving me back to where I started to know more and more and keep refreshing.

[modelllichtsysteme]

Great explanation, BUT: 8:01 the function of a spring isn't shown correctly.

[eugeneleroux]

Thank you for such a clear and informative explanation.

[MeriaDuck]

In the EU, many systems use DC as base, no rectification needed. In the Netherlands it is 1500v only. The first design you showed for the single phase electric motor or even dc motor was used quite extensively. Power reduction was done using a bank of resistors on top of the train, heating up the surrounding air. That was quite inefficient of course.
Modern induction motors, transformers and stepping circuits are very efficient.

[andrewzwaniga]

I love these videos! Now that I have a basic understanding I don’t feel as mystified while taking trains and streetcars.

[akashsingh-gxge]

That's very impressive.. Lots of respect and appreciation to the creater.... ❤️❤️

[chandanrawal]

Best video to understand step by step about the traction mechanism in Railways

[Romualdomgn]

What an amazing animation! Thank you for your efforts. Keep up doing this great educational work!

[raghunandan]

Wow. U simplified it fantastically.
Thank U

[mehdielgari]

Great video and impressive explaining 👏
Just for additional information the secret of engineering behind this technology is in the power conversion and changing between greed distribution power and the system Motor .the system Motor rechange the power when it turns in downward sloping direction and become generator power so we always
take advantage of the purely mechanical movement in this case

[andy]

There was fitter killed in UK just by removing axle box covers to UAT the axles, the pan had been left up and loco was drawing power for auxiliary's . All was ok till he removed last axle box cover then his body became part of the circuit between axle and bogie frame for the 25 kv . Also the ground bonds on the track can be lethal if disconnected