In a thought-provoking piece inspired by work Hitachi and Siemens are doing on the development of battery trains, Roger Ford, Modern Railways magazine's Industry and Technology Editor, covers some of the issues currently under investigation and considers the future...

All rail campaigners probably agree deep down that the only 'correct' traction solution for railways is overhead electrification. Everything else is a less satisfactory compromise, but we do acknowledge that electrification is far from cheap (although perhaps more economical in the very long term), so battery assistance is going to be needed on whatever replacement units the Far North Line eventually receives.

Roger's Informed Sources article is definitely worth a read!