Battery Locomotives Are Niche

The title of the video is actually "Battery-Electric Locomotives DON’T Work" but it's a bit of an exaggeration even among the examples the video gave. I guess the TLDR is battery locomotives are worth less than a lot of people think, but they aren't worthless.

He points out the problem of Joule locomotives. They basically can't reach the same range as diesel locomotives. Even at many diesels' full throttle, which is not optimized for fuel, has much farther reach for as a freight train. Plus lithium is not exactly cheap.

Another one he talked about were Wabtec's FLXDrive locomotives. These lack prime movers and are attached to a consist with a regular locomotive. They provide regenerative breaking. Power is stored in batteries and the energy is used to move the train later. When I first heard about this I was thinking "well, why not just string together a bunch of electric locomotives and dump the power back into the grid" but then I realized his examples were for non electrified lines. The uploader gives approval to these since as he "doesn't have as much of an issue with hybrid battery locomotives since they can potentially decrease fuel usage by a considerable amount"

Then there is the MBTA's plan to acquire electric locomotives and run them on lines that will be mostly, but not completly electrified. He admits this could be done and it would work, but then says they should just fully electrify the relevant lines.

He never mentioned shunter locomotives that never leave their yard, but I assume they could be useful here. I agree with him battery locomotives get a bit too much hype. But there are some highly specific niche uses they could fill, even including the examples he admitted where they could work.