Quick story about why hybrid & electric battery powered freight & long distance locomotives are more than just greenwashing.
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@BNSFRailway is testing these out right now, but they likely won't be able to use all electric fleets due to limitations in hauling up inclines throughout the mountain west.
2/ https://www.railwaygazette.com/traction-and-rolling-stock/bnsf-and-wabtec-prepare-to-test-battery-electric-locomotive/56906.article

The good news is that even just one electric locomotive on a 4 locomotive pairing means more than just reduced emissions for that single train. It means that exhaust can be cut by 1/4 or more when headed through tunnels.
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That's really important because the capacity limiting factors for most tunnels aren't number of tracks, or signal segments that can be reduced with PTC.

It's the amount of time that it takes for the exhaust system to clear the tunnel of dangerous fumes.
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If you reduce the amount of fumes you increase the number of trains that can pass through that tunnel in a given day. This isn't just important for this segment, it's important for overall network reliability, because bottlenecks have cascading effects.
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If there is a crash, flood, or other event that causes a delay in say, Sandpoint, ID along the Empire Builder route btwn 2 mountain ranges w/ many tunnels (Cascades & Rockies). Then the backed up freight trains in both directions are constrained by the tunnel exhaust.
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This backup inevitably leads to delays for the passenger trains that can add up in both directions, but even without a major event it can lead to trains that might have made up time still being delayed (& idling) bc the tunnel has not been fully exhausted yet.
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This is especially true since tunnels are choke points on these networks, which means that it doesn't make sense to upgrade the capacity of the alignments leading to and from the tunnel if any efficiency savings would be lost at the tunnel anyway.
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Double the number of trains that can head through that tunnel & you might be able to double the number cross country freight trains & shift those goods off of trucks that are WAY more polluting than a normal diesel train.
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The knock on effects could even improve reliability far away from the tunnel by limiting the ripple impacts of those delays throughout the network. Which could mean increased passenger rail frequency, or fewer delays for a commuter rail passenger in Seattle or Twin Cities.
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