BS: Railways vs highways

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: Mark Ross
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 02:33 PM

We were late into Bakersfield on Anthrax, and then late into San Berdoo, the bus wasn't going to run down to Beaumont. So the ticket agent put me and She Who Must Be Obeyed into a cab with another couple who had tickets to take them to Palm Springs. With 4 people and luggage I was forced into the front seat of the taxi(and it wasn't a Checker neither)with my guitar in the hitchhiking position(over my shoulder, in my lap) sticking into the back seat. For a 20 mile trip it wasn't bad. Still I would have preferrred to take the train all the way.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: Ebbie
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 02:20 PM

PMB, I know what you mean about train replacement bus service. On one trip in southerb California our train broke down and we were loaded onto two charter buses. These buses had, like, two inch pads on the seats and the rows were so close together our knees touched the seat in front. (I believe they were repainted school buses)

We went through the 'Grapevine', a notoriously winding up-and-down-hills road on the way to Martinez to catch a northbound train.

We went through cities, stopped at stoplights, tailgated vehicles, swooped from lane to lane, travelling with fairly heavy traffic.

We still averaged just over 60 miles per hour.

I was scared spitless.

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: pattyClink
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 09:41 AM

Truck traffic proliferates because it's still profitable but we are running down our supplies of petroleum. As we keep burning up our fossil fuels at an accelerating pace, thanks to industrialization around the world, the price of a gallon of diesel will rise to the point that this crazy level of trade and transport will get too expensive to be profitable. Barge and train transport will become much more important, and distances goods are carried will be looked at in the cold hard light of day (like we'll start shipping apples to New Orleans from Tennesse rather than Oregon). Let the price of fuel rise to what it really should be, resisting the overwhelming urge to whine and insist cheap fuel be our birthright.

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: GUEST,The black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 08:02 AM

I have no idea where the statistics came from, but I was told back in the 1970s that if British Rail was subsidised to the same level as the German railways then they would not have had to charge for tickets.
Also that when the German rail authority closed a railway line the tracks were kept in situ and maintained as a national resource for the future.

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: Mr Happy
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 09:52 AM

LtS,

Agree the Settle - Carlisle line is a notable one


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribblehead_railway_station

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 08:53 AM

There are some rail journeys that you just have to do if possible - going over the Ribble Viaduct is one... through the Rockies possibly another; treated as an actual event or tourist attraction it's fine.

Think of it as a reliable, daily, economical form of transport and you're in for bitter disappointment, it's a joke.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: 3refs
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 08:45 AM

Travelled twice from Ontario to B.C via(ha ha) train. Only a Canadian would get that! Was the best way I ever travelled that length of distance. I agree with those who say it's a great loss!

Beautiful woman or train rider through the Rockies....Beautiful woman or tain rider through the Rockies....it's a tough one!

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: PMB
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 08:04 AM

In the UK, the system is massively fixed to the disadvantage of rail. Not only did much of the final distribution link shut down in the 60s, but since then most of the freight yards necessary to transship between road and rail have been removed and the land sold off.

On top of that, rail is expected to be unconditionally safe, while road is free of such wimpish considerations. I recently travelled on a bus replacement for a cancelled rail service. The driver exceeded the speed limit, tailgated other vehicles, skipped stops and ignored the timetable. A rail driver would have been sacked, and quite probably prosecuted. Even drivers ignoring warnings at level crossings is considered a rail, not a road, problem.

The massive rail subsidy (almost double pre- privatisation) goes straight into the pockets of shareholders and executives without touching the poor passenger, and despite the subsidy, the fares are among the highest in the world.

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: Mr Happy
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 07:50 AM

Don't know about other countries, but the siting of stations in UK can be ludicrous!

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 06:48 AM

We do do things that don't need air travel, but if some silly Scot will go and organise a Mudcat Gathering at the arse end of the Universe (sorry Giok!), then flying is our only feasible option. It will be my first opportunity to meet many northern Mudcatters, some of whom, due to other circumstances don't even have the option of air travel, and after the last couple of weeks, I would like to meet as many as possible before they get whisked off this earth without the aid of aeroplanes.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: Stu
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 04:14 AM

"The cost to the environment may be greater, but regretably, if we want to travel to do the things we enjoy, our finances mean we don't really have the option to be greener."

Er, perhaps you could do things that don't need air travel. You're absolutely correct about the cost of rail travel being prohibitive - the whole pricing policy is absolutely ridiculous and needs to be looked at long and hard (but then this is what happens if you privatise your railways).

We need a paradigm shift in our approach to travel in order to help combat our environmental problems, and this needs to come from individuals. We all need to face up to our responsibilities here - big business donesn't give a shit about the environment as it's led by the markets. If consumers change their habits, business will adapt and service those changes. All that bilge about carbon offsetting is an excuse to avoid changes to the fuundamental causes of carbon emmissions - how we travel. Rail could play such a major role in these changes, but it has to be consumer-led.

Of course, the main problem for us rich westerners is we will not be paying directly for our own actions when it comes to air travel or our SUVs. Next time you settle down into your aircraft seat or rev up your Mercedes 4WD, have a good think about the people who will be paying - down on the Ganges delta where they will be flooded out of their homes, watching their children crap themselves to a miserable death with dysentry or typhoid they caught from the rising flood waters.

It ain't easy changing these habits, and I don't advocate the banning of air travel (I can't afford to fly at all, but would do occasionally perhaps) but unless we take individual responsibility for our actions then we are, as I'm sure we would all agree, "totally fucked".

(BTW, the Manchester MetroLink (they're trams) is a wonderful project. If you live on the route (as my dad does) you get cheap, clean reliable transport that provides an excellent service).

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 02:39 AM

Personally speaking, it's always price, convenience and comfort that has influenced me when taking the train.

I take the train (Underground) to work because it is convenient for me and not too expensive (works out at about 50p per mile). Comfort doesn't really come into it, but travelling very early in the morning as I do, I usually get a seat.

I don't take the train anywhere else (other than to airports) simply because it costs too much. Recently, enquiring about prices from London to Inverness I was quoted between £173 (with all discounts available) and £600 (turn up and go, not even first class) per person! So for 2 adults, 1 child, at the cheapest rates available, to travel from London to Inverness, it would cost £475. 3 return air fares plus weekend parking is £250. The cost to the environment may be greater, but regretably, if we want to travel to do the things we enjoy, our finances mean we don't really have the option to be greener.

To put freight on rails would be better environmentally, but not financially, and it's finance that drives everything these days. If your box of cornflakes doubled in price overnight, would you be so keen to buy them? Besides - you'd still need haulage companies to take the stuff from the station to the depots and stores. You could probably get away with smaller vehicles, but there'd be more of them doing short, uneconomical journeys. As long as the consumer demands value for money before environmental impact, then freight will go the most economical way.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: mg
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 12:58 AM

a huge factor for me going to Seattle or especially coming from there is the sheer nastiness of the station. The floors look like they have not been cleaned in 100 years. I have watched them just leave nasty spills right in the middle of the floor while cleaning staff just stood around. it is truly horrid and nasty. There is no reason for it. Give people free tickets in exchange for mopping or something. The Portland station is nice and clean, and Los Angeles was very nice too. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: Mark Ross
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 12:19 AM

What killed passenger service was twofold; when travel restrictions were lifted at the end of WWII, the Armed Forces still had first priority, so people who wanted to travel had to find other ways of getting around, and then the RR's lost the mail contracts. Passenger service never was self sufficient, the tab was paid by mail and express services. We are the only place in the world that think that public transportation should be self supporting. We never consider the ways the gov't has subsidized the airlines and the automobile. If the passenger trains were considered as a social cost we wouldn't be in this mess.
We once had the best RR's in the world and we let it all go to travel in what Ed Abbey used to refer to as motorized coffins.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: Midchuck
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 08:48 PM

I strongly doubt that anyone will ever come up with a feasible way of overcoming the fact that Carbon plus Oxygen yields CO2.

It's called green plants + sunlight....CO2 + water + energy input = hydrocarbons to build more plant tissue + oxygen for us to breath.

So we:

1) Shouldn't waste it running more powerful and less efficient vehicles than we need, and

2) Should plant more green plants and pave and build over less area.

Seems simple enough in theory.

Peter

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: folk1e
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 08:42 PM

Manchester (UK) has a new LRT system (Light Rail Transit) that seems to be working well. It has had cutbacks in future development (Ashton / Trafford Center) caused by the "Olimpics" spending.
If one of the problems of highways is fuel useage, Biodiesel will factor in to reduce this! I suspect the main problem will be one of convienience ........ any takers on that?

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: gnu
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 08:18 PM

We have 600 years of peat in the Canuck bogs alone. Let alone the oil sands and so on and so on.

The real point here is.... rail vs road. There is a lot of oil to fuel the road.... hmmm... can we ponder?

What about the real "vs"? Say you were a prospector, a mining engineer, and knew how to extract oil from the earth. Better than them there rail guys. Why, you could build small automobiles and sell them to the general public and fuel them. And, you could use the heavy bitumen to bind sand and gravel and build flat roads for these vehicles. And, all the while, get government subsidies to do so, if you paid the government officials off. And bought them enough bullets for them to, oh, say, keep world peace.... whatever.

Or... do the rail barons know that their market is in heavy land transit of bulk goods which can never be touched by the spinoff of truck transport, thereby ensuring their hold of all of the natural resources?

I am just askin, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 08:06 PM

Clean coal? It's certainly within technological capabilities to eliminate things like sulfur emissions but I strongly doubt that anyone will ever come up with a feasible way of overcoming the fact that Carbon plus Oxygen yields CO2.

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 07:58 PM

Guest, no one knows.
Making estimates and forecasts are tricky. Here are a few.
We have used roughly 1000 billion barrels of oil to date. Estimates of proven reserves point to an equal amount remaining.
A major problem with these estimates is that the limits on what is producible shift with advancing technology and exploration.

Canada's 'proven' reserves are second only to Saudi Arabia's (some 300 billion). Using figures like these, there are 885 billion bbls proven reserves in the OPEC nations. This suggests that there is an end coming.
But inserting a large BUT-
1. Looking just at Canada, the Alberta oil sands in total amount to some 1.7 to 2.5 trillion barrels. The problem? Getting them would be very expensive. New technology and higher pricing, however would add tremendously to the 'proven' reserves.
2. Russia, Denmark, Canada and the U. S. are squabbling over boundaries in the Arctic Ocean region. Geologists suspect tremendous reserves in the region, but only drilling will 'prove' how much is there and recoverable.
Britain has hopes for the Malvinas (Falklands) offshore.
The north Pacific reserves north of Sakhalin are only guessed at.
Etc.

3. Other sources of energy.
Some small fleets are beginning to use hydrogen-fueled vehicles (even Santa Fe in New Mexico has a few city vehicles that are hydrogen-fueled).
The mental block against nuclear power is being slowly lifted; this energy source is bound to grow exponentially.

I worked for a major oil company before retirement, in Exploration and Research, so I can make wild guesses too. Mine is that nuclear energy and hydrogen fuels will be developed and important long before fossil fuels give out.

And coal.... Clean technology is achievable for a little more money and regulation.

Gnu- 600 years? I won't argue. I dunno. Other technologies will have advanced, and some reserves may remain always.

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: Rapparee
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 07:52 PM

Intermodal has been a reality for freight for years: put the trailer on a train, haul it, drop it off closer to the destination, haul it to the final by truck. Literally hundred of intermodal containers pass through Pocatello daily.

It can be expanded, and should be. But what we really need is passenger rail. We have to give up the idea of a stop in every town and wrap the concept around hubs just as the airlines do, instead.

Salt Lake City is already moving light rail south towards Provo and north towards Logan. They have too -- the Salt Lake valley is HORRIBLE in the winter (and part of the summer) due to air pollution trapped under inversions.

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 07:44 PM

Spaw,
      The freight trains that come through my area are pretty long.
If these are smaller trains I would not want to be waiting at a grade crossing for something larger. I have already counted in excess of 100 freight cars on one of these trains.
                                                 SOL

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 06:51 PM

Gnu - where did you get your 600 years figure from? Does anyone really know?

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: catspaw49
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 05:53 PM

Excuse me Rabbi but union featherbedding my ass. Much truth in most of your post but the elimination of positions such as fireman and head end brakeman made railroading far more dangerous and necessitated smaller trains hauling less freight.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 05:45 PM

Here in the USA it was the Interstate Commerce Commission with all their bureaucatic regulations that put the railroads out of business.
Also, Union featherbeading had a lot to do with it as well. As somone who is afraid to fly I traveled the rails many times between NYC and Miami. In the pre-Amtrak days, there were 2 railway companies that ran the route, the Atlantic Coast Line and the Seabord Air Line. These later merged into the Seabord Coast Line. When it came time to collect the tickets there were 3 men assigned to this simple task. One conductor collected the ticket. He handed it to the trainman who punched a hole in it. He in turn handed it to the passenger agent who put it into a hat. Today, the Amtrak conductor does all this by himself. Poor fellow, he must be very overworked.

                                                   SOL

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: gnu
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 04:54 PM

" The railroad is the most civilized method of travel that man has ever devised!"

Yup. Contestable with the canoe and such, ;-), but, yup. And, so many posts above are so bang on the money. As for the supply of oil, don't hold yer breath. As for the the use of intermodal transport, don't hold your breath... etc, etc, etcetera.

That fact is, in NA, that our society is so competitive that the watermelons have to arrive a day earlier than the competition. The strawberries have to be a deeper red. The hoses and couplings must arrive yesterday to ensure the drill rig can operate 24/7 tomorrow.

Will rail come back? Eventually, yes. But, don't hold your breath. Unless the entire world decides to run their economies in a communistic style of accounting, ie, life cycle costing, it ain't gonna happen... until the oil runs out. And, that ain't gonna happen for the VERY LOOOOONNNG forseeable future. At least 600 years... and, that's just with the oil we know about.

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: Mark Ross
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 02:59 PM

" The railroad is the most civilized method of travel that man has ever devised!"

Gamble Rogers said that to me late one night over breakfast after a show at the Earl of Old Town in Chicago in '78.

He was right.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: Peace
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 02:53 PM

It was more costly to take a train than take a plane from Edmonton to Montreal.

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 02:37 PM

In western Canada, I remember the 'interurban' rail car between Calgary and Edmonton. I could review notes for a talk in comfort during the trip, and no uncomfortable long holdup at an airport.

In New Mexico, the rail link between the Albuquerque and Santa Fe areas and Rio Grande towns seems to be catching on. I will have to try it when I next go there.

The rapid rail service from London-Paris is supposed to be 2 hrs 20 min when it opens to the public in November.

For most people, however, flying remains the main option for distance travel. And here in western Canada, there is no real way to travel in rural areas unless one has an SUV or Pickup. Urban and interurban travel, however, must change.

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 02:08 PM

I hope I live to see the day that the rail lines are once again seen and utilized as the resource they are. All one has to do to see their sad state is to travel on them for a few weeks.

I think that if 'containers' were loaded onto flatbed rail cars to be offloaded close to their destination, not only would our highways be less congested and safer and more pleasant to drive but truckers themselves wouldn't have to criss cross the continent with all the attendant hazards. I have two nephews who own their own rigs- both "boys" have gone through three marriages apiece.

Not only could containers be shipped by train, so could cars. Say a family is on holiday- they could load their car and spend the time in the user-friendly travel of trains.

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: Bee
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 01:03 PM

I mourn the loss of railways in the Maritimes - there's not much left. It's been many years since we islanders could take the slow train home to Cape Breton - and it was slow! We used to joke that the engineer had a girlfriend in Orangedale, because the train so often derailed in a snowbank there Christmas Eve.

Somewhere here I have a spike from the fabled Guysborough Line.

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: Alice
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 11:31 AM

My dad was an agent for the Great Northern Railway in Montana.
The Railroads were downsized in the 1960's in a sell out to the
Teamsters to move freight by trucks instead of rail. The railroad
unions didn't have the power the Teamsters had. Mike Mansfield
was a great Senator for Montana and the US, but that was one deal that did not
do us good. The passenger service ended here and freight went onto
the highways. Tracks have been abandoned, railways merged.
It happened here 40 years ago.

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: Midchuck
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 10:23 AM

Stigweard is right but he understates it. I think.

China is catching up to us on energy consumption. There isn't enough fossil fuel to go around.

I suspect the Republican solution would be to bomb them back to a low-tech, bare subsistence level so we can have it all for ourselves, and keep profits up.

The Democrats, on the other hand, would prefer for the whole world to live naked in caves and eat lichen and mushrooms.

As usual in the US two-party system, both sides' approaches are useless.

Peter.

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: Stu
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 09:36 AM

Mass-transit systems are the only way that we are going to be able to cope in the future with our transportation needs, and railways should be playing a very big part in that.

But hell, we've known all this since the seventies and still lardarses and rich bastards are piling into their SUVs at the expense of the planet (wait for the "but I need mine because of the weather/terrain/safety of my kids on the school run etc etc" whining excuses from the polluters) so what chance mass transit has against a powerful pro-car society is anybodies guess.

Shame they won't be up to their neck in shit and cholera as the floodwaters rise with the poor sods in Bangladesh who will pay first for someone else's 'freedom of choice'.

Subject: RE: BS: Railways vs highways
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 09:23 AM

It's already happening in the U.K. (albeit in only a small way)! The government need to be much, much, much more pro-active.

We knew this was going to happen when Dr. Beeching closed half the system down in the mid sixties, aided and abetted by the then Minister of Transport, Ernest Marples whose company, I believe, (Marples-Ridgeway Construction), were building motorways all over the place. What a co-incidence! I wonder, could such apparent corruption happen again today? Hopefully the populace are more environmentally aware?

Subject: BS: Railways vs highways
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 09:08 AM

Many of the worlds great railways are in decline (i.e. Canada).
Many consumer goods are now transported by truck. This requires bigger highways and congests existing ones.Given the energy situation, Is this not short-sighted? Is it not more economical to transport goods by railways than truck? Is your railway in decline? Are some countries bucking this trend? How can this be turned around?