Dear Mr. President from Rush Limbaugh

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Wes Tausend

As a side note, some electric rail switch yards pump dynamic braking energy back into the third rail, as recovered power to be used by other switchers in the same circuit.

Well, if that's the case, then energy recovery is already feasible to some degree.

You figure the weight of the empty train/cars go up and down the hill, so the available potential energy is that of the load mass x elevation. If in the process of changing potential energy to mechanical to electrical to mechanical, the loss of energy to mechanical friction/elctrical conduction, etc, is significantly less than that of the potential energy, then I would think there is a possiblity of it working. I think you would have to have two parallel rail systems, or at least a bypass area, so the trains coming down and going up could be operating at the same time, to be able to transfer the electrical power generated efficiently.

I guess anything is possible if you throw enough of money at it.