Riding on one of these was far better than an airliner.
Posted on 03/01/2006 10:14:13 AM PST by Willie Green
Riding on one of these was far better than an airliner.
It's not going to work.
1: How will the accounting be to determine the payback? Will motorists just turn over the money they would have spent on gasoline/diesel over to the government? Or will the government own and operate the rail system?
2: If the government operates the system, then there will be extreme pressure from local politicians to put stops in their hometowns, thereby negating the time savings. The rail workers will then use their union muscle to featherbed the jobs, causing massive inefficiencies and creating a need for operating subsidies from tax funds.
3: Where will the space for rental car operations be at downtown passenger terminals? Downtown retail space is at a big premium and will drive up the cost of rentals, thereby negating part of the 'cost savings' over driving.
4: If rail transportation is so much more efficient, then why is an ever increasing of long-distance freight hauling being carried by trucks? It seems that just market forces alone would keep virtually all long distance freight operations going by rail.
5: Most intercity travel is by air. Rail just cannot compete with the cost and time of flying. Amtrack is competitive and profitable only in the Boston-Baltimore gigaplex area. A Chicago to Indianapolis high speed rail system cannot compete with Southwest Airlines.
Yeah, a couple of scum-bums.
They consistently fail to factor in human behavior and, speicifcally, American preferences. Indy to Chicago in 50 mins is great but what about Indy to the four stops someone is going to make in Chicago: shopping on Michigan Ave; have lunch with Aunt Betsy in Northbrook; stop by NWestern and see how your alma mater looks; and finally go visit a friend on the way back south.
Americans want to drive their cars. Mass transport makes sense going very long distances or moving great numbers of people in small areas (ie Manhattan)
What is it that you can't understand about this Willie? Or is your pro-union, pro-train bias so great that you just don't care to consider it?
I laid out a decent plan for how to use trains in one of your threads one time, and you ignored it. If you could quickly load/unload small cars on trains, then they could be useful for commuting medium distances. Quickly meaning load/unload in less than 20 seconds. No need to leave the car, just plug it into the train for power and stay in it. No need to mingle with smelly boom-boxers in the rail commune, just stay in your own car and surf the net while you travel.
You didn't like my idea. Maybe you just hate cars too much even when they ride on trains.
Nothing is idiot-proof to a sufficiently talented idiot...
nah.. most cars already are fully capable of 100mph+. we just need to get the gov't to allow us to go that fast.
The whole point of a conveyor system is that the car would use no fuel while on it. It could be powered by nuclear generated electricity and reduce our oil consumption by a substantial amount.
Yes, it would be extremely capital intensive - but then so were laying the original railroad tracks, building and maintaining airports and most of all - building and maintaining our highway system.
Don't quite agree.
Can a blithering idiot still kill themselves, for example, in a modern elevator?
I can't think of too many ways to do that, but I guess it might be somehow possible.....
It will take hours to load and unload the traincars.
Good idea, but the point would actually be a bit deeper than that. Everyone would have to go this fast. This would mean that no one would be able to individually control their car. The plus side is that it would eliminate traffic jams (for the most part) since the space between cars and speed would be the same. I'd take the first part of that to begin with, then we can bump up the speed.
How is a high speed train any more "socialist" than the freeway system?
You'd need far better highways and automobile dynamic controls for +100 MPH. The average driver is not as good as Earnhardt (Jr or Sr), or Patrick.
You got it.
Individual vehicles, but an overall control system.
I like it. No more traffic jams on the freeway.
Elevator surfing.
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