Not sure how diesel trains are "worse". When you have a 1000-mile line through the middle of nowhere, it's probably better to bring the power-plant with the train, instead of having 1000 miles of wire and electrical substations sitting idle most of the time. (Overhead wires also interfere with tall railcars, like double-stack container trains.)
For commuter trains, though, I am not sure why we use diesel. Lower upfront cost is my guess, which is kind of a shame. (The US has big problems with buying proper infrastructure. Much better to spend $100 million over 10 years and provide mediocre service than to spend $50 million in one year and provide excellent service for 10 years. Funding anything other than roads is politically unpopular; trains are "noisy" and we don't want more of them. Yeah... some day I will move to Europe or Japan...)
Depends on what you mean by 'worse.' Electricity isn't automatically good. An electric train could be vastly more inefficient than a diesel train, and the way that the electricity is generated is also called into play.
If using electricity, it is FREE to change fuel source. How much to convert all trains to nuclear/solar/electricity/... if all oil imports are blocked?
I wasn't saying that. I debunking the statement, "Our trains are on electricity, so we're 'greener' than you with your diesel trains." Neither fuel efficiency nor the ratio of pollution to energy produced have anything to do with the cost to convert to different energy methods.
On a side note, I doubt that the amount of money it takes to convert a fleet of locomotives to electricity is even in the same ballpark as the cost to build a nuclear power plant. This also doesn't take into account any loss of power due to transmission distance, heat generated in the lines due to resistance, etc.
In the United States, where this railroad operates, there isn't electrified freight rail. Whether railroads in other countries are electric is irrelevant to this acquisition of a US railroad.
The diesel that diesel engines burn is converted to electricity to power the traction motors, however.
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