When the Wuhan Railway Bureau arranged more than 40 diesel locomotives to be on standby at any time during the Spring Festival transportation season when the freezing rain was raging, towing the high-speed rail bullet train to cope with the busy Spring Festival passenger transportation.
Many people began to wonder: since diesel locomotives are not afraid of bad weather, why should the early green cars be withdrawn from the Spring Festival stage?
First of all, we have to understand a misunderstanding: diesel locomotives are not the green cars that many people think, and most of those seemingly traditional green cars have also become electric locomotives.
A simple way to judge is to observe whether there is a catenary and pantograph on the top of the car, and their presence is the sign of an electric locomotive.
The electrification of China's railways has been carried out much earlier than people think.
From the policy of "simultaneous development of internal and electric power, focusing on the interior" proposed by the Ministry of Railways in 1965, to the subsequent changes in technical routes, the electric locomotive gradually realized large-scale operation.
By 2005, the electrification of the Beijing-Shanghai railway was completed, and the advantages of electric traction gradually emerged, making the technical route of "electricity-based" truly landed.
With decades of electrification of China's railways, as of 2020, the national railway electrification rate has reached 728%, which greatly improves China's railway transport capacity.
However, while electrified railways are efficient, they are vulnerable to extreme weather, and there is still no effective solution to problems such as icing catenary.
The large-scale suspension of railways in Hubei this time was caused by the icing of the catenary caused by the freezing rain.
However, although electric locomotives have become the main force of railway transportation, diesel locomotives still play an irreplaceable role in today's increasing electrification rate.
In 2008, when a large number of electric locomotives were paralyzed by ice and snow disasters, it was diesel locomotives that stepped forward to ensure the most basic transportation needs.
It was also from 2008 that people began to think again: why should China insist on eliminating diesel locomotives and engaging in electrification!
From a physical point of view, electrification is an inevitable choice. As the speed of the locomotive increases, so does the amount of power required. Diesel locomotives are difficult to provide enough power to meet the needs of high-speed operation due to fuel limitations.
Electric locomotives, in contrast, can provide almost unlimited power over the transmission grid, allowing the locomotive to reach higher speeds and load more cargo.
Nowadays, in China, diesel locomotives are basically only used as emergency backups, and they no longer replace electric locomotives on a large scale for Spring Festival transportation.
However, although diesel locomotives are gradually losing their advantages in the face of electrification, they still play an irreplaceable role in highlands and areas with insufficient grid coverage.
For example, in 2019, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway deployed 36 new diesel locomotives at one time to replace the electric locomotives after Golmud entered the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, because the plateau diesel locomotives with turbochargers had to be used there due to lack of oxygen and low air pressure.
Therefore, although the importance of diesel locomotives is not reflected in daily transportation, it is the country's capacity guarantee in the face of major natural disasters and wartime.
With the advancement of technology and the continuous improvement of the electrification rate of railways, diesel locomotives have gradually withdrawn from the stage of history, but it does not mean that diesel locomotives have disappeared, on the contrary, their advantages in specific occasions are still irreplaceable.
At least until the problem of catenary icing is solved, diesel locomotives will never withdraw from the Spring Festival stage, and it will always be our bottom line in the face of sudden disasters.
In the future, electric locomotives are the mainstay, supplemented by diesel locomotives, which is a strong guarantee for railway transportation at any time, and can jointly undertake the important task of ensuring national transportation safety.
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