The Oil Drum

Electrified rail transport uses relatively little electricity compared to total electricity consumption. So what he probably means is, rather than sticking a solar panel on top of a train, instead of the train companies buying electricity from coal-fired stations, they buy them from wind, etc.

Alernately, he might mean that the train companies could invest in renewable energy power plants to match the energy they use.

Either way, costs for them would go up a bit. But they get enormous public subsidies as it is. The Victorian government is spending $1 billion over ten years just for the stupid Myki "smartcard" ticketing system... after which there'll no doubt be another change anyway.

Currently wind, solar, coal and gas are all together in a national grid. If I tell my power company I want to buy wind they don't hook a line from my house to a turbine. They just charge me for it. And I'm charged the same whether the wind turbines are turning or humming along like mad. So if on a particular day only 1% of our power comes from wind, and 50% on another day, that wind customers make up only 10% of consumers makes no difference. It just all goes into a national pool of electricity generated.

Edit: I think Hart's got a decent plan, by the way. I've had an article like this fermenting on my hard drive for some time, but I was looking for more data to see where the subsidies would go.