They must not be counting light rail which is electric.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_rail_in_the_United_States
"The United States, with its 27 systems (as counted by the Light Rail Transit Association), has a much larger number of “true” light rail systems (not including streetcar systems), by far, compared to any other country in the world (the next largest are Germany with 10 and Japan with 9).[1]
According to the American Public Transportation Association, of the roughly 30 cities with light rail systems in the United States, the light rail systems in six of them (Boston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Portland (Oregon), San Diego, and San Francisco) achieve more than 30 million unlinked passenger transits per year.[2]"
The problem with light rail here is excessive heat makes the overhead wire expand and when that happens, it sags causing the trains to have to slow down. :(
In the winter, the problem is snow and ice blocking the lines and the switches.
In Portland, the biggest problem light rail has are assholes parking on the tracks.
You’d think with current battery tech we wouldn’t need the overhead wire anymore.
Batteries are heavy and expensive. A wired power source is so much more efficient for rail it’s barely worth discussing.
The best use of a battery on a train is a small one to handle junctions. You disconnect from the wire at the end of one set, go through the junction, and then reconnect at the other side. Saves a lot of ugly spaghetti wiring.
Otherwise, no, just use wires.
You don’t even need that. Every electric train I know of has pickups on each car, and any break in the catenary or third rail is short enough that it can be bridged naturally by two cars, or sometimes even just one, if it has pickups at both ends.
That would mean that instead of an engine, you’re lugging around a battery pack, which is just as heavy while giving you a fraction of the range of an engine. Not to forget that battery cells have only a finite lifespan.
Meanwhile, OHLE gives you infinite range and room for major weight savings. Plus you can keep running the same power system for decades.
