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early AC trains sound terrifying from the viewpoint of existing trolleys and DC trains. 11,000 volts???? We only go to 3,000 at absolute max??? Frequency???? Needing special equipment where tracks overlap so you don’t fucking vaporize trolleys with it??? Black magic fuckery spiderwebs of wires overhead that no tram could comprehend???

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random thoughts: electric trains would use polearms in a fantasy setting as a play on trolley poles and hot sticks

You also have the “historically common but unpopular in media and wildly underestimated” aspect

(I keep imagining Krupp as a Winkie Guard but with a hot stick)

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others’ takes on electra: they work for an outside company and are not a “real train” and out to destroy the combustion technology of the past

me: Electra is part of a visually distinct minority largely associated with the northeast US that’s been subject to bizarre conspiracy theories, misinformation, and suppression for years- 25 Hz electric trains, or the Old Order Hertzians in broader electric society. Once seen as a terrifying radical faction in the early 20th century, they are the oldest AC train culture in the world and have been nearly destitute since the years following WWII. Other electric trains worldwide are baffled by how they praise frequency converters, largely still depend on absurdly antiquated fixed-attachment catenary, and beg multiple 50+ year old rotating bridges for mercy on a daily basis. The US has been looking for reasons to pull the plug on them for years and fear of failure is a much bigger deal for Electra than it sounds.

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”GM is dying”

*crabs click* serves you right, trolley killers

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For how hardline I am on a lot of things, I’ve never really seen cabooses weaponized as a broader symbol so I don’t really feel that strongly about him being taken a specific way. People overestimate how extinct they even are (they still pop up on some short lines and niche situations) and are usually pretty honest about why they went away. It usually leads to important and relevant topics to rail in the US like labor regulations, train lengths, and defect detection. Or at worst they’re just the mysterious red box at the back that looks cute and makes money for tourist railroads.

they’re not terribly relevant to modern operations (except in India) so it’s not that bothersome if people get them wrong. Hell, even the existence of radio control cabooses make brake van behavior kind of make sense. They’ve been repurposed a lot of weird things so it’s hard to truly get them wrong. Sure, maybe he’s just evil because he’s full of clowns. That’s something tourist railroads have totally used for cabooses for!

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Thoughts on electric train culture

EXTREMELY tangential from canon and often flying in the face of the framing it presents because this is based on actual electric train conditions. I more see the show’s framing as a reflection of societal stereotypes around electric trains. They’re ultimately a weird Other that Anglophone media won’t seriously explore so I’ll do it myself

-EMUs and electric locomotives largely share most of the same cultural traits and accept the blanket word “trains”. Electric railways have a particularly long history of not using dedicated locomotives and use the word “train” very casually and liberally for anything on rails. If a single passenger-free EMU is a “train”, then a locomotive running alone may as well be one since it’s self-propelled and has just as many people in it. They accept trams as their own, they accept electric amusement park and model trains as their own, they even see anything powered by a direct sliding electrical contact as an ally because it’s so rare (trolleybuses, a few ferries, bumper cars)

-Train divisions like passenger/freight and coach/engine are particularly arbitrary to them because MUs predated widespread use of electric locomotive-hauled trains and so many of them are mixed-traffic. They’re notably egalitarian in that way (this is even implied in canon and I’ve seen people unfamiliar with the show express this view of electric trains). The real social divides are regional “cultures” due to wildly varying electrical standards and traction type conflicts in some countries.

-Electric trains are fundamentally group-oriented. Since the 1880s they’ve depended on extensive external infrastructure and had “ability to work together via MU control” as a HUGE advantage. Most are painfully aware that the fewer of you there are, the more easily you can be discarded. Economy of scale is a massively important factor in rail electrification

-Above all they focus on the big picture and long term plans as much as they can. Short-sightedness has harmed and outright destroyed them time and time again. The stories of the US electric train apocalypse are often told as cautionary tales against short-sightedness and how destructive it can be. Ironically a lot of electric trains are prone to mood swings and changing their minds rapidly on an individual level, since they’re so oriented towards fast acceleration/braking. Personal conflicts between these things are widespread

-The vast majority are economically left-wing, how hostile they are to capitalism varies wildly. Private business failed electric trains repeatedly in multiple countries and privately own urban transit is rare now (and the abuses of trolley companies well known). Subways find being profit-oriented almost unthinkable, most European lines have seen the failures of privatization in the UK and fear it, and electric trains in the US are among the most aggressively hostile due to their particularly long, ugly, and colorful history of getting stomped on by it but rarely managing to escape it. You’ll find more rivalry between companies and brands in countries with nationalized rails, but in the US electric trains desperately align more with each other than their separate systems despite attempts at pitting them against each other. They’re usually pan-electricists eager to align with any other electric trains at all due to their decades of precarity and weird minority status.

-Little, almost no sleep needs and very capable of partying/otherwise staying up all night. But also capable of falling asleep in minutes if needed/waking up near instantly.

-Way more cold tolerant than you may think, as long as wires and rails remain clear of ice. if designed for it, it’s a noted thing that electric trains do much better in low temperatures vs combustion equivalents (and batteries). They generate way more waste heat than you think due to sheer power involved.

-Almost all trains like bright colors but electric trains tend to be the most design and branding-obsessed. They tend to love graphic design and maps and public art.

-basically all of them yearn for the mines. They love being underground or otherwise in enclosed settings because it’s where they first developed and eliminates a lot of weather troubles that impact wires. They love caves and underground worlds in fiction, more than they do space and sky settings. The dark, confined spaces are comforting to most of them.

-Due to often having unusually long lifespans (40-50+ years) “generation lengths” are often unusually long and you see some weirdly antiquated tastes and mannerisms among them. It’s kind of like people raised by 40+ year old parents or grandparents.

-They are by far the most pitch-inclined of all trains because detecting exact AC frequencies is like smell/taste for them, and being in tune with the distinct sounds of AC traction motors is important. Most have perfect pitch. All of them get confused and kind of agitated by how whistle codes are not a tonal language but steam engines use different inflections as a form of self-identification. American electric trains will happily partake in the scary horn chords characteristic of the region, though.

-Yeah they usually like forms of electronic music, but they also gravitate towards surf rock and power metal because they’re very melody-heavy and have those long fast electric guitar solos. A concerning number of electric trains would happily listen to 25 minutes of self-indulgant shredding few humans would stand. They’re easily entertained by music in general with how sound is close to scent/taste for them. Acoustic music is sometimes jokingly called “secular” for reasons discussed later. They don’t care for human vocals vs instrumentals but probably like clunky Vocaloid/other synth voices.

-an absolute crapton of them are weebs, as far back as the 60s-70s because the shinkansen was SO influential worldwide. Korean and Chinese media is increasingly popular among them due to their more recent growth in the rail industry. A lot of them are infatuated with a specific weird, mostly benign and technology-heavy image of Germany and alpine Europe in general. They just love the idea of their train systems, though it’s often based on dated or inaccurate perceptions.

-disk-shaped glass beads that resemble insulators are a symbol of power, as more of them signifies higher voltages on equipment.

-pantograph type also says a lot about an individual train. Age, conditions they work in, country/region, etc. They won’t go to war over it, but holy hell are there a lot of incompatible regional variants that you will be kicked out for not complying too.

-They use water metaphors a LOT because it’s widespread with electricity and they had a heavy early association with dams and hydropower.

-They have ungodly elaborate and regional religious practices that are all some kind of animism centered on the electrical grid. They believe in an elaborate system of reincarnation and electrical infrastructure as mortal but powerful divine beings. Heat is the cause of inefficiency, electrical degradation, and suffering in general, so they usually Moloch or some enbodiment of the sun into a “big bad”. Anyone can technically convert if they want to, but it’s incredibly complicated process and wildly different mindset from combustion trains. Just HOW animist they get varies, some think even ballast suffers, and then of those, half of them think it’s just another hell realm you can end up in for being a bad train.

-Catenary inspection and maintenance vehicles are kind of like priests, monks, and nuns to them. A lot of them are not overhead-powered and think electric trains are nuts. They’ll complain about the literal vibes being off and shutting down, but actually yeah that is an important thing for them in terms of wire tension and current frequency.

-trams and subways are generally the most “human” and approachable. Heavier, higher speed lines get more and more alien and complicated. A tram will play pool with you. Mainline trains will start talking about the divine intricacies of overhead wiring and how they hope they reincarnate as part of a substation. Both of them will call busses “railcars possessed by demons”

-electric trains hate cars and road vehicles in general. Except for trolleybuses, they’re valid. Cars are inefficient, murdurous, and live short, painful lives and are seen as demons or lost souls stuck in a hell realm. It’s a VERY conflicting life being a car shuttle train but most see it as keeping them off the roads and a net positive (particularly in Switzerland)

-dieselism is a heretical faction that split off around the 1930s that basically none of them claim as their own (despite some diesel-electrics trying to claim they count as “electric”). If you do not directly depend on the electric grid in some way, you do not count as an “electric train” regardless of having motors. Bimodes are broadly agreed to be somewhere in between and accepted by both. Degree of hostility is just as regional as hatred of capitalism but tends to be correlated. It’s more a playful cultural rivalry in Europe but incredibly bitter in the US with just how hegemonic diesels became. In mostly-electric countries and areas, they see them as kind of weird and exotic and fascinating. Diesel trains are willing to exorcize busses because they recognize them as possessed DMUs (which are often based on bus designs)

-electric trains in mostly-electrified countries where they feel secure and safe are pretty chill and just really weird to non-electric beings. Electric trains in exhaust-huffing post-apocalyptic wastelands like the US are uhhh… Electra “throws tantrums” “overreacts” and “is overly arrogant” because proving themself actually IS life or death, de-electrification is a real threat in the US and they’ve lived on a knife’s edge their whole life. But get treated as out of touch and oppressive and constantly defined by absurd stereotypes and blatant slander while their history and conditions get ignored. Tbh Electra being calm at all is kind of a miracle in the face of neoliberal dogwhistles in their face because that’s basically hate speech (Reagan wanted to kill Amtrak all together that way). Electric trains in most English-speaking countries are notably angrier and louder because they’re so invisible and ignored they have to be squeaky wheels. American electric trains just tend to be fucked up in very weird and distinct ways due to their unusually old and tragic history.

-electric trains worldwide are the most conspiratorial and superstitious by a long shot. They have so many conspiracy theories about businesses/governments being out to get them and lost secret stations/other infrastructure, endless ghost stories, and rituals that look baffling to other trains but are genuinely very important for the intricacies of electrification (like raising/lowering pantographs between sections and to spread current between them when accelerating). Subways are the spookiest and basically live in the Backrooms

-Cities that were rich in the early 20th century usually have the oldest (and weirdest) electric train cultures. Western Europe and the US (where they survive) are utter madness culturally in general. Newer systems are a lot more uniform because they don’t involve century+ old architecture and bizarre traditions based on early 20th century electrical technology (praise the frequency converter)

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sometimes I just birdwatch in places to listen in on anti-electric sentiment in the wild and it takes everything in my power to not well acktually everyone into oblivion and tell them their fav is unironically evil incarnate and their double standards are SO revealing of how society handwaves away the sheer scale of destruction fossil fuels really cause

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industries: we need a better term for “master-slave” controls for machinery

trains in the US: COW-CALF! COW-CALF! COW-CALF!

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Train drivers going “oh yeah electrics like the ALP-46 will rocket off on you if you aren’t really careful with them” is hilarious, as is admitting they too have no idea how electric trains work beyond “pan go up motors go brrr when it breaks it’s usually just replacing a motor. Or the dastardly 30s-era catenary”

also love seeing reddit comments from employees of freight railroads going “I don’t know what an Arrow III or M7 is and I’m afraid to ask” because those absolutely sound like missiles vs commuter EMUs out of context

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I heard someone use “lithium lickers” for people fixated on the idea of battery trains vs actually electrifying. And that’s going up there with “bionic duckweed” for ridiculously specific rail electrification-related insults. Even better is the coiner saying “they all talk about lithium salts so I imagine them as goats at a salt lick” which is way funnier than being a variant of bootlicker like I was expecting.

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I love having absolutely no stake in fandom discourse. I have zero interest in M/F shipping with Wembleyball regardless of orientation because I like pairing her with other shitty girlbosses too much. I don’t ship Rusty with anything besides a barge to Misty Island. It would be a net benefit to both shows because he fits the Thomas world so much better and literally anything is better than the Logging Locos.

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weird realization: catenary inspection and repair vehicles are basically priests to electric trains with how they have elaborate animistic beliefs about the power grid and those are the guys who directly interact with and access the state of it. Ironically a lot of the “priests” wouldn’t even be electric, which is really interesting to think about (resembles how multiple religions forbid their members from doing things but outsiders can do it for them)

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nonrep ideas: representing pantographs with weird metal Arthur Brown crowns (with fake arcing vs fire) . You get some really, really weird ones the older you go and even modern ones have surprisingly varied “head” and horn shapes

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I love when outsiders to the show just into general trains pick up on “yeah electric trains have always kind of defied engine/coach and passenger/freight binaries with how prevalent EMUs are and combine cars were. People denying that they existed in the past fits how that’s done to X human group too”

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me roughly a year ago: haha i will call my blog buffelectratruther because electric engines are actually cartoonishly OP and should look like superheroes

me now: I will die on the hill that media misrepresentation of technology and regulation is a huge cause of the nightmares beyond comprehension happening in the US. Trains are a particularly glaring example since so few people have direct technical experience with them, and being “a stupid kids show not REALLY about trains” isn’t an excuse to get things offensively backwards because decades of that has absolutely contributed to MASSIVE widespread Anglosphere dismissal of rail electrification.

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I love that people who work on trains are the opposite of AI cultists. It doesn’t matter how much you love the train and think it has a soul. It WILL kill you without second thought like a horse.

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It’s funny and surreal to encounter more typical railfans who are more into dining car china and conductor buttons and romantic notions when all I can think is “design for maintainability” and layers and layers of train politics and economics