BS: The forgotten workhorse the TRAIN

Subject: RE: BS: The forgotten workhorse the TRAIN
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 23 Feb 09 - 10:25 PM

Passenger trains have always had priority over freight trains, and they frequently travel on the same rails. If a freight train and a passenger train are both ready to enter the same section of track, the passenger train goes ahead and the freight train waits.

Tracks are quite congested. My former coworker's husband was a freight engineer. She told me about half of his time is spent waiting for the tracks ahead to clear.

Subject: RE: BS: The forgotten workhorse the TRAIN
From: Ebbie
Date: 23 Feb 09 - 10:52 PM

"Passenger trains have always had priority over freight trains, and they frequently travel on the same rails. If a freight train and a passenger train are both ready to enter the same section of track, the passenger train goes ahead and the freight train waits."
Jim Dixon

Not in the US, Jim. The freight lines own the rails and the deal is opposite.

BHSC, instead of loading boxcars I picture containers on flat cars.

Subject: RE: BS: The forgotten workhorse the TRAIN
From: Teribus
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 02:37 AM

Rap, your distances without a shadow of a doubt are greater, our little island has far higher population density overall, the pressure on land use is greater and highly regulated. Where once we had an extensive railway network run by four independent companies, those have by and large all gone. While track has been replaced very little new mileage has been put down since the days of the great four.

For the UK to put down track and create the facilities you say are required would be prohibitively expensive and you would not reduce the number of trucks on the road. You would change the type of trucks and in all probability you would increase the number of them.

Subject: RE: BS: The forgotten workhorse the TRAIN
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 06:26 AM

If the UK government only allowed new factory/warehouse construction to take place where they could be connected to the rail network, a lot of problems could be solved!

Subject: RE: BS: The forgotten workhorse the TRAIN
From: ard mhacha
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 07:10 AM

Any excuse to bring back an old school favourite,

From A Railway Carriage


Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in battle,
And through the meadows and horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.

Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,
All by himself and gathering brambles:
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;
And there is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart run away in the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill and there is a river,
Each a glimpse and gone forever!




RL Stevenson 1850-1894

Subject: RE: BS: The forgotten workhorse the TRAIN
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 08:45 AM

'Each a Glimpse' & 'and Gone Forever', the titles of 2 books by a wonderful railway photographer:

http://www.newcastle-arts-centre.co.uk/colin_gifford_photographer.htm

Subject: RE: BS: The forgotten workhorse the TRAIN
From: Wesley S
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 08:57 AM

The company I work for sell industrial metals. The bulk of what we buy is sent to us on piggy-back cars on a train from the Chicago area to Dallas. Then a truck brings it the last 30 miles or so over to us. So olddude - it does happen.

Subject: RE: BS: The forgotten workhorse the TRAIN
From: bald headed step child
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 10:39 AM

Ebbie, as far as I know passenger trains do still have priority in most cases over freight here in the US, as a safety issue more than anything.

The express freight uses containers quite heavily, over boxcars, but requires a container chassis on each end to get it to and from the train, as well as a tractor and driver.

For mega shipments a boxcar can hold as much as 8-10 containers if packed properly. Many of the companies that need that much material have had the foresight to build their factories where a siding existed or could be added.

Trains are rather efficient in many cases, but the idea of replacing even a significantly larger number of trucks than have already been replaced will not lower overall costs, it will most likely increase them.

Trucks and trains have a very symbiotic relationship in the US and probably elsewhere.

Intermodal shipments are a good thing. I would hate to think what the highways would look like with that many more trucks on the road, plus looking at the quality of drivers if that many more drivers had to be hired.

Trains aren't going to go away, and neither are trucks.

I think there really needs to be an emphasis put on passenger rail in this country, right now if not sooner, though.

Amtrack discontinued service to Wichita, the largest city in Ks, 30 years ago. To take a train now requires a 30 mile trip to get to the train, anyway I think you can still do that, and requires transferring to at least one other train to get anywhere you likely would want to go. Last time I checked, it was cheaper to fly, too.

I quit going to LA regularly due to traffic congestion. I find less traffic going to NYC. Maybe because fewer people drive as a result of having a plausible mass transit system?

California really needs to get on the ball with trains. It would solve a great deal of their congestion and pollution problems.

I think they might find it would help some of their social problems as well, as people in lower income areas would have an economical way to get to where a better job exists.

In the current automobile society, only those who can afford to get to the job get the job.

Most cities in the US need improved mass transit, of course some people will never use it, as then they wouldn't be able to show everyone their fancy car to show their imagined importance.

BHSC

Subject: RE: BS: The forgotten workhorse the TRAIN
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 02:30 PM

BHSC: Thanks for confirming my belief that passenger trains have priority over freight. I'm only repeating what I've been told, but it seems to fit. I'm most familiar with the Empire Builder, which starts in Chicago and ends in Portland or Seattle (it splits in Spokane). The only time I recall sitting on a siding for any length of time was when we were being passed by the Empire Builder going the opposite direction, and that only happens once a day, since the train only runs once a day—or it used to; I think they may have cut the schedule to less than 7 days a week.

I was offering that as an explanation for why passengers can go from coast to coast in less time than freight. Here's another reason:

It's a fairly simple matter for a passenger to get off one train and onto another at a hub such as Chicago. Freight can't do that. A freight train often ends up at a freight yard where all the cars are uncoupled from one another and shuffled around and reassembled into different trains going different places. The cars are moved around one at a time by switch engines. I don't know how long this takes, but I imagine it adds significantly to the travel time. I once watched a model-train enthusiast do this with model trains. It was agonizingly tedious. I didn't have the patience to watch until he was finished. I concluded the guy was obsessive-compulsive. I wanted to yell at him, Pick up the damn car already!

There's another kind of freight yard, called a "hump yard", where, instead of using switch engines, the cars are allowed to coast downhill, slowed by brakes built into the tracks, until they wind up on the right track. This is a bit faster.

More and more, with containerized freight, the train winds up at a yard where the containers are lifted off the cars by crane and onto other trains, or trucks, or cargo ships.

Then there are "unit trains" where the entire train consists of one kind of cargo (usually coal), going from one origin (the coal mine) to one destination (usually a coal-burning power plant). This is the cheapest way to move freight. You might think it would be more efficient to build the power plant next to the mine, and transmit the electricity over power lines to wherever it is needed, but apparently that isn't the case.

In northern Minnesota, unit trains are used to move iron ore from the Iron Range to ships in Duluth or Two Harbors.

Subject: RE: BS: The forgotten workhorse the TRAIN
From: Ebbie
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 07:00 PM

April 2008

WASHINGTON, D.C. – "A new report requested by Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) and released today describes how delays to Amtrak trains that operate over freight railroad lines cost the company almost $137 million in fiscal year 2006, an amount equal to 30 percent of its federal operating subsidy.

"This report puts in real dollars what these delays are costing Amtrak, taxpayers and rail travelers. Passengers shouldn't have to miss their meetings or family engagements because a freight train is blocking the tracks," Sen. Lautenberg said. "With high gas prices, widespread traffic congestion and flight delays the norm, we must ensure passenger rail is a reliable option for travelers."

"The audit was conducted by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Inspector General (IG). Sen. Lautenberg requested the audit in February 2007 to study how much money could be saved from Amtrak's federal operating subsidy if Amtrak was not delayed when using railroad lines. A full copy of the IG's audit is located at: http://www.oig.dot.gov/item.jsp?id=2273.

"More than 97 percent of Amtrak's 21,000 miles of routes run along tracks owned and maintained by private freight railroad companies. By law, these railroads are required to provide Amtrak with priority use of their tracks; however, this law is not often followed and the U.S. Attorney General has never pursued a case."

Lots of information

All I can say is that so far as I knew, in thousands of miles travelling by Amtrak, not once did we pass a freight that was waiting for us to go by. And countless times we pulled onto a sidetrack and waited for a freight, sometimes more than one to pass.

I'll put that up against you guys's intuitions any time.

Subject: RE: BS: The forgotten workhorse the TRAIN
From: bald headed step child
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 11:59 PM

As your post says Ebbie, the law requires passengers to have priority.

I'm sure it works in reality like the law that says they can't block a highway for more than 10 minutes. They just pay the fine as a cost of doing business. I've had to sit close to 4 hours waiting for a train, as you can't really make a u-turn on a 2 lane road with a 75 foot truck.

Sharing tracks is definitely a problem. It seems to lead to way too many accidents, also.

I always thought they should each have their own tracks, and I may be wrong, but I thought Amtrak had most of their own at one time, and sold them off due to maintenance costs. Like I said though, I may be wrong on that. I was only about 10 years old when they did their restructure.

BHSC

Subject: RE: BS: The forgotten workhorse the TRAIN
From: Ebbie
Date: 25 Feb 09 - 12:28 AM

If it only were just 10 minutes! We often sat there for 40 minutes; the only time it really bothered me was when we sat and sat just 12 miles from Charlotte NC where I was being met. That was not fun.)

I don't know how old you are, Child (*g*), but it used not to be Amtrak. I've read that the 'old' system ended in 1971. When I was a kid my family travelled by train from Oregon to Virginiam, long enough ago that it was still almost all steam trains. I saw my first new (diesel?) one below Washington DC.

Subject: RE: BS: The forgotten workhorse the TRAIN
From: bald headed step child
Date: 25 Feb 09 - 09:35 PM

I was 6 in'71. A few years later, I guess, is when they started getting govt subsidies.

It would be really nice, IMO, if they could get a system worked out that made some sense. I would prefer it, I think, to flying but as I stated above, it is cheaper to fly from where I live.

Of course, it's cheaper to buy a car, tag, insurance, gas and drive from where I live than it is to fly, even with the govt subsidised airlines.

BHSC

Subject: RE: BS: The forgotten workhorse the TRAIN
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 12:30 PM

Part of the problem is that a lot of the RRs don't have long enough side tracks for the freights. Therefore, if a freight and a passenger train are going to meet, the passenger is usually the shorter of the two,and logic dictates which one has to "go in the hole" as they say on the RR. If they could double track the main line(an awfully expensive proposition)this would happen less and less. However here out West, Amtrak runs over Union Pacific track, UP standing for "Usually Parked".


Mark Ross

Gamble Rogers once said to me, "Mark, trains are the most civilized method of travel Man has ever devised."

Subject: RE: BS: The forgotten workhorse the TRAIN
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 08:25 PM

Surprising this hasn't been mentioned:

http://www.railnews.co.uk/news/international/2009/02/24-obama-high-speed.html

Subject: RE: BS: The forgotten workhorse the TRAIN
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 11:14 PM

Oh, sure. This is the project that the Republicans have dubbed the fast train from LA to Las Vegas. It is a LOT more than that.

Subject: RE: BS: The forgotten workhorse the TRAIN
From: bald headed step child
Date: 04 Mar 09 - 01:24 AM

Yeah, Ebbie, I heard a clip of Rash Limburger talking about that today. He says it is so the people in LA can go to the Bunny Ranch cat house in Vegas. I guess he's hoping people won't notice that the Ranch isn't in Vegas, and prostitution isn't legal in Vegas either.

They are still trying to say it's in the stimulus, but there is no LA to Vegas train in there.

I think it's about time we got some better rail service in this country. I think subsidising airlines is ridiculous.

Pre 9/11 LA to San Francisco, flying was about 1hr faster than driving. Now with the security checks, etc, it's over an hour faster to drive, even with the traffic. Imagine how many cars would be taken off the road with a fully functioning high speed rail system servicing the entire west coast.

Imagine how many cars and planes removed with a high speed rail NY to LA.

I think the time has come(actually long overdue).

BHSC

Subject: RE: BS: The forgotten workhorse the TRAIN
From: olddude
Date: 04 Mar 09 - 01:10 PM

BHSC
from your lips to God's ears my friend
don't I wish ... I miss em

bring the train back to its rightful place