Railway electrification in the Soviet Union
During its last 30 years the Soviet Union hauled about as much rail freight as all the other countries in the world combined and in the end, over 60% of this was by electric locomotives.
About 20 years after the 1991 demise of the Soviet Union, China became the new world leader in rail electrification with 48,000 km electrified by 2013, and continuing to grow.
And in fact, railway electrification actually got started several years later but Lenin didn't live to see it happen.
In 1926 a 19 km long section from Baku, electrified at 1200 VDC, was opened for commuter motor-car trains.
in the Soviet Union began in 1932 with the opening of a 3,000 V DC section in Georgia on the Surami Pass between the capital, Tbilisi, and the Black Sea.
In the 3rd 5-year plan (through 1942) it was 3472 vs. 1950 actual but the start of World War II in mid 1941 contributed to this shortfall.
The USSR was hauling more rail freight than all the other countries in the world combined, and most of this was going by electrified railway.
The Estonian Railways use 3000 V DC rail lines for commuter traffic with a total length of 132.5 km.
These are the railway lines: Electrification of the state-owned long-distance passenger network to the east and south is underway, with the newly-built sections east of Aegviidu being constructed as 25 kV AC compared to the existing 3 kV DC commuter network.
[27] The previously planned full electrification of the state-owned passenger network, including branches south of Tartu to Valga and Koidula is no longer planned due to high construction costs, however battery-powered trains may be considered instead.
The Latvian railway network has 257 kilometers of electrified 3 kV DC on four lines centered around Riga.
By 2040, electrification of the entire railway network in the country is planned, along with a voltage change to 25 kV AC.
[30] On 29 December 1975 put into use traction network on Vilnius–Kaunas Railway and in 1979 electrficted line Nowe Wilno – Kaunas i Lentvaris – Trakė.
[36][37] In summer 2021 the electrification of the Kovel – Izov railway line began which was scheduled to finish on June 1 the following year.
[39] Partly due to inefficient generation of electricity in the USSR (only 20.8% thermal efficiency in 1950 vs. 36.2% in 1975), in 1950 diesel traction was about twice as energy efficient as electric traction[40] (in terms of net tonne-km of freight per kg of "standard fuel"[41]).
So the lower fuel consumption of electrics may be in part due to better operating conditions on electrified lines (such as double tracking) rather than inherent energy efficiency.
But after 1974 (thru 1980) there was no improvement in energy-intensity (wh/tonne-km) in part due to increasing speeds of passenger and freight trains.
The result is that under actual operating conditions, the percent energy used for cooling is a few times higher than "nominal".
[52] While the above table shows that about 75% of the electric energy supplied to the rail substation actually reaches the electric traction motors of the locomotive, the question remains as to how much energy is lost in the traction motor and the simple gear transmission (only two gear wheels).
In 1991 (the final year of the Soviet Union) the cost of electrifying one kilometre was 340–470,000 roubles[61] and required up to 10 tonnes of copper.
[62] But how does electrification economically compare with diesel locomotives which started to be introduced in the USSR in the mid 1930s and were significantly less costly than steam traction?
One may plot fuel cost per year as a function of traffic flow (in net tonnes/year in one direction) for various assumptions (of ruling grades, locomotive model, single or double track,[70] and fuel/power prices), resulting· in a large number of such plotted curves.
[73] All of these curves show the difference in energy cost (of diesel vs. electric) increases with traffic flow.
In a sense, these are components of the costs of mechanical energy delivered to the wheels of the locomotive but they are neither liquid fuel nor electricity.
It's claimed that this cost sharing significantly unfairly favored the external users of electricity at the expense of the railway.
Per the calculations by Dmytriev[79] Even a low traffic-density line with 5 million tonne-km/km (in both directions) will pay back the cost of electrification if the interest rate is zero (Ен=0)[80] (no return on investment).
In an extreme case (traffic density 60 million tonne-km/km, and 1.1% ruling grade), diesel operating costs (including depreciation) are 75% higher than electric.
[83] Another proposal was to use 6kV dc\[84][85] and reduce the high voltage DC with power electronics before it was applied to the traction motors.
Only one experimental train set using 6 kV was made and it only operated in the 1970s but was discontinued due to the low quality of its electrical equipment.
[87] 12 kV DC was claimed to have the same technical and economic advantages as 25 kV AC, while costing less and putting a balanced load on the nation's AC power grid (there is no reactive power problem to deal with).
