Modern drive systems of rail vehicles

Rail vehicles are one of the sources of environmental pollution in the transport sector. Therefore, it is necessary to equip these vehi-cles with modern drive systems. This article concerns the issues of contemporary and future-oriented solutions of drive systems used in rail vehicles. The article analyzes energy storage possibilities including: electrochemical, mechanical and hydraulic accumulators. The conducted analyzes have taken into account the importance of how frequently they charge up, which dictates their possible applications. Characteristics of hybrid drive systems were presented, with particular emphasis on parallel systems of: hydrostatic, flywheels and electrochemical batteries. The analysis of energy flow control strategies in hybrid drive systems of railway vehicles has been made. In the summary, a solution was chosen that resulted in high conversion efficiency of the energy extracted from the vehicles wheels.