[fallujah-nuker]

" Then more money should be put in railways!"

My point was that even if every mile of track was electrified we would only save 2% of our oil consumption. I suppose if the price of oil got too high some freight would shift from trucks to rail, but quality of service may suffer?

I've never ridden Amtrak, it seems to be a joke. If there was a passenger train that carried cars I might find it useful. It would need to be like a land ferry, perhaps something like that might work from moving trucks too. I recall my dad telling me of riding a train through a tunnel in the Alps, it was just a string of flatcars that you drove on and its shuttled them through the tunnel. That could work for trucks since they have sleeper cabs for the drivers, but OSHA or DOT would probably find something wrong with that.

[indthkr]

"If there was a passenger train that carried cars I might find it useful."

Amtrak has an Autotrain that runs from Washington D.C. suburbs down to the Orlando FL area non-stop. It leaves at ~4pm and gets there in the morning sometime.

I've never ridden on it.