Jim - 5/13/2024 21:41
Your logic on "hybrid" diesel-electric railroad locomotives is a bit off target. It had nothing to do with the availability of "cheap" western electric power but with the physics of starting a long train or going up a mountain. The electric motors used on locomotives have tremendous zero speed startup  torque, as required to get a train moving or to climb a hill. But to do so requires incredible amount of electrical current. And as trains got larger the batteries and/or wires etc required to store or transmit that power got larger and larger. It made a lot of sense to put a large, diesel powered generator in each locomotive to generate the needed electricity rather than string more wires or 3rd rails or charging stations through the countryside. Then you could also add a second or third locomotive to a train without overloading the electrical transmission system or killing the batteries of the time. The weight of the large diesel engine and generator also added weight and traction to locomotives which was useful as train got longer and heavier especially in the mountains.

Hybrid diesel-electric railroad locomotives have almost nothing to do with present day automotive gas-electric hybrid automobiles although the same diesel-electric hybrid concept may be useful in large over the road trucks in the future.