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Rail: The Case for "Interstate II"
Washington (DC) Highway Transportation Fraternity | May 1999 | Gil Carmichael

Posted on 12/20/2001 8:42:55 AM PST by Publius

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To: biblewonk
You're right about that, but keep in mind that there are some other enormous costs associated with air travel that aren't an issue with interstates and railroads.

Imagine, for example, what it would cost to drive from New York to Chicago if every car had to be monitored by the equivalent of an air traffic controller.

81 posted on 12/20/2001 10:43:17 AM PST by Alberta's Child
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To: Alberta's Child
Ultimately, if even the rail right-of-ways are maximally developed, there may be congestion of all three main thoroughfares: rails, interstate highways, and the air.

But RIGHT NOW, we have the interstates and air near saturated, and we have almost complete lack of use of railroad right-of-ways around the country.

So, it seems logical, that, until EVERYTHING is saturated, we may get tremendous benefit from developing the rails.

After all, Publius is right, there was a huge interurban rail system up and running all over the United States prior to WW2.

Notice: We had thriving small towns then, with minimal metropolitan sprawl.

And cars were not essential for many persons.

My thesis is that the American pattern of huge cities, huge suburbs, nonexistent small towns, and everything spread out over everywhere, developed AS A CONSEQUENCE of the near-exclusive subsidy of the highway infrastructure and the airways, and the complete neglect of intra- or inter-urban rails' infrastructure.

The auto is king, as are jets, and small towns die with the rails.

I am not advocating the death of the car or of the interstate highway system. Or anything but continued development of the air traffic control system.

But we are overlooking a huge untapped resource in the already-existent rail right of way network that we have carved out all over the rocks and mountains of the United States.

It is a network that is capable of carrying twice as many person per hour as our interstate highway system, given the right development, capital, trains, and improvements.

No kidding.

82 posted on 12/20/2001 10:46:03 AM PST by caddie
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To: Cleburne
Dude, you are right on.
83 posted on 12/20/2001 10:46:52 AM PST by caddie
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To: Alberta's Child;newgeezer
Yes! I was thinking of the air traffic controller thing when I mentioned the FAA but those are two different things aren't they. So who pays for the air traffic controllers? Newgeezer usually helps me with this kind of question. I wonder what the cost per passenger comes out to there.

I know that the gmt pretty much destroyed rail passenger service and look at the types of things that make it impossible for it to ever compete again.

84 posted on 12/20/2001 10:47:35 AM PST by biblewonk
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To: biblewonk
My point was that CONSUMER PRODUCTS move by truck. While many raw materials, especially things like coal, ore, steel, etc... are moved by train, most consumer products components are moved by truck as are the finished product.

I see gasoline tankers in trains all the time, and we know how it gets to the individual gas stations. 10,000 gallons at a time in a truck.

But again, this debate is about transporting the public. Not metric tons of raw material.

85 posted on 12/20/2001 10:51:37 AM PST by Phantom Lord
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To: T. P. Pole
For 4 years I lived in Simi Valley (Wood Ranch) and worked in Woodland Hills. The train was useless for that commute unless I was working either in downtown LA or within walking distance of a Metrolink stop.

But that gets to the point of commuter rail. It's intended to get you from a low or medium density area (your home) to a high density area (your place of work). It's intended to bypass a congested highway system by using its own guideway. You may have to take a bus or drive to the local commuter rail station, but that's normal if you don't live next door to it.

But the greater issue is whether a commuter rail train gives you an advantage over driving, either with respect to time, congestion or sanity. Your Southern California commute would not work very well by train. Neither did my SoCal commute.

86 posted on 12/20/2001 10:54:59 AM PST by Publius
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To: Tauzero
Many times you are right, but there are compelling reasons to get excited about rail travel from the "efficiency" standpoint.

First, the wheels and track of a train are essentially nondeformable. Rubber inflatable tires on asphalt are the exact opposite. HUGE savings in energy there.

Next, rails often run on super-high-voltage overhead electrical energy, which may come from anything from nuclear energy to dinosaur juice to coal to hydrogen to wind to hydoelectric to burning trash to methane ice from the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.

Next, rails can carry ten thousand persons on a single train, pulled by a single motor or single locomotive or at most, few motors. No way can ten thousand cars and trucks come close to that.

Next, rail upkeep is cheaper than road upkeep.

Last, train stations are centrally located in towns and cities, encouraging even less road travel than the point-to point nature of car and truck travel.

Last, trains are the fastest for interurban travel in places like Europe, where the infrastructure is as well developed as would be acceptable.

87 posted on 12/20/2001 10:56:34 AM PST by caddie
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To: biblewonk
Who built the airports? Weren't most of them government operations, or are any fully private ventures? I would assume private companies control them entirely (well more or less) today, but what about construction?
88 posted on 12/20/2001 10:56:51 AM PST by Cleburne
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To: balrog666
You use the term "taxpayer subsidized" as a pejorative.

Haven't our roads been taxpayer subsidized since the Madison Adminstration? Haven't our waterways been subsidized since Coolidge began the practice in 1926? Haven't our airports been taxpayer subsidized since Truman began the practice in 1946?

Why is taxpayer subsidized rail worse than the other modes?

89 posted on 12/20/2001 10:57:51 AM PST by Publius
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To: biblewonk
If it weren't for the interstate system, government intervention, you would see a huge difference in the placement of many businesses relative to the nearest railroad.

Do some research for me. What % of business in America are placed within walking distance of the nearest "interstate." If the "interstate" has replaced the railroad, and business would be placed near the railroad then surely a large % of American business must be near the interstate.

And you can NOT count gas stations, or fast food places, which probably are a majority of the business located by an interstate. Because if riding a train you have NO NEED for either of them and therefor they would NOT exist near a railroad.

90 posted on 12/20/2001 10:59:05 AM PST by Phantom Lord
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To: TopDog2
I mean how long do you want to sit in a cramped seat, rubbing elbows with smelly people that you don't know?

The seats aren't cramped on the train. Or at least on the trains I ride.

91 posted on 12/20/2001 10:59:20 AM PST by Publius
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To: biblewonk
"The interstate system itself is a government intervention, where is your outrage about that?"

Had I been alive when they were proposed, I might have opposed them. My understanding however is that one of the rationales for their construction was to facilitate the movement of troops in the service of national defense, which is a constitutional function of government.

"When we are talking trains we are talking efficiency regarding the amount of freight tons miles/gallon of fuel and we are talking cost effectiveness when we consider the number of operators required. "

When you are talking trains, you are talking efficiency regarding the amount of freight tons miles/gallon of fuel and cost effectiveness.

Even if we grant that trains are more efficient with regards to these factors (which I don't) why should these factors be the only or even primary factors? Asserting that they should be is a value judgement. Why should the state enforce yours?

"If it weren't for the interstate system, government intervention, you would see a huge difference in the placement of many businesses relative to the nearest railroad."

You have no argument from me there. The unintended consequences of one government intervention are the pretext for the next, and thus we lose our freedom.

92 posted on 12/20/2001 11:01:37 AM PST by Tauzero
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To: Publius
I love these things, they have glaring falacies right at the beginning:

But if you think about it, the interstate system was not designed for high-speed travel.

I've got a friend that works for the company that does most of the highway building in central and southern Arizona. The highways are built for a speed of 100 MPH (that's the gov spec minimum, he figures most highways bank such that even a weak driver could handle a car at speeds up to 130). Just because the speed limit we put on the highways is slow doesn't mean the highways aren't build for high-speed.

93 posted on 12/20/2001 11:03:08 AM PST by discostu
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To: Cleburne
Railroads especially (the driving force behind our country's rise to prosperity) were massively subsidized in their construction

Saw a special on the first transcontinental railroad in America. You are right. Was heavily subsidized by the federal government. Mostly in the form of the land that the tracks were put on. The government provided the land for a reduced rate of shipping on the rail line. The documentary ended with showing the government got over 100 times the cost of the land in savings on reduced shipping costs. So, that was more of an investment that paid off than a subsidy.

Now, when has Amtrack made money?

94 posted on 12/20/2001 11:03:13 AM PST by Phantom Lord
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To: Phantom Lord
Train companies (railroads) got out of the passenger business when the government agreed to bail them out of it in 1971. Not that the railroads hadn't been moving heaven and earth to kill their passenger business for years, all of which was intended to get the regulators off their backs.

The Class I railroads don't want the capital cost of owning and maintaining passenger equipment, but most of them have no problem with working with third party carriers, usually commuter rail systems, who are willing to pay the railroad to dispatch the train over their tracks for a price.

95 posted on 12/20/2001 11:03:24 AM PST by Publius
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To: caddie
The problem today is, I think, that little of the population is structured around rail transportation-whether they live in suburbs, highrises, or rural areas, few people are within walking distance of a train station these days. While there is the oportunity of perhaps in street rail or bus service, this would still be but a partial solution. When America moved by train, folks lived in a general close proximity to the railroad, or at least had railroad access nearby. There was a time in Mississippi when few towns lacked some kind of rail transportation. It's really incredible to look at maps of the state from around the turn of the century-little towns that no longer exist had at least once a day passenger service. Mainlines had dozens of passenger trains daily.

Obviously, with the rise of te interstate, rail travel is at serious handicap, perhaps an irreversable one. Should we still try to revamp America's passenger rail? I don't know. Myself, I prefer steam locomotives with fluted domes and capped stacks, and since I rather doubt that will come back, I'm not to emotionaly tied to the furture of rail service...

96 posted on 12/20/2001 11:04:48 AM PST by Cleburne
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To: caddie
Agree with you, caddie! Oddly enough, the same process that occurred here shortly after WWII is now occurring in Europe, where a once efficient train system (okay, not always on time, but they went everywhere) is disappearing bit by bit and stranding smaller towns and cities.

Highway building and increased auto usage have contributed mightily to this in Europe, but you can also thank the unions for it: I have been on trains and local light rail systems in Europe where passengers were attacked, and the trains were pelted with debris and sabotaged by striking unionists (already well-paid and with far too much job security). So the union aspect is definitely something to bear in mind.

That said, I'd love to see more trains, and not only for big cities. They're pleasant to ride, you can sit there and read or work on your laptop, and in general, you arrive at your destination downtown and some place where you can connect to local transportation.

I live in a small city in Florida that needs to be connected to a big city: that is, it has pleasant living conditions, reasonable housing costs, etc. - and an hour-and-half commute over truck-filled highways to get to the nearby big city. This has severely cramped its economic development.

We recently had a much criticized vote in my state in favor of building a light rail system. Obviously, everybody wants it - although the way to pay for it was not specified, unfortunately. But the interesting thing is that the state has had a rush of private companies that would like to build and operate these inter-city lines.

I think that's the way to go: regulatory help and perhaps tax breaks from the Feds, contributions of land and perhaps tax breaks from the states, and private construction and operation. And don't let the unions destroy it...

97 posted on 12/20/2001 11:05:52 AM PST by livius
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To: delapaz
the infrastructure costs must be paid for by the users of the system

personally, i would like to turn over our roads to private industry and eliminate gasoline and other related taxes. private industry would figure out the most efficient way to maintain the roads and charge for them. (note that there are known ways to build longer lasting roads, but most governments are either not willing to take this risk, or do not want to piss off road building companies.)

i have an alternative that may be more politically feasible. eliminate the gasoline tax and charge vehicle license fees that are proportional to the damage they do to the roads. the damage to roads is proportional to the square of the axle weight. fees are more or less linearly proportional to the axle weight. that is, a 150,000 pound semi does over 2500 times more damage to a road than a 3,000 pound car, but the truck pays perhaps 50 times as much as the truck (and deisel fuel taxes tend to be lower than gasoline taxes).

put another way, car drivers (through the government) are subsidizing truck drivers. if trucks had to pay according to the damage they do to roads, i strongly suspect that the free market would cause more shippers to use rail for cross country shipping.

the reason we do not have a strong rail system is because we choose to subsidize highway travel. stop the subsidation and the most efficient system will emerge be it rail or some other mode.

98 posted on 12/20/2001 11:06:00 AM PST by mlocher
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To: caddie
Loved your post #82. You are so good at distilling a lot of prose down to a few succinct arguments.
99 posted on 12/20/2001 11:09:45 AM PST by Publius
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To: Phantom Lord
Amtrak has never made money, and I doubt it could. The reason is simple: the government runs it. With the subsidation of railroads, the government merely funded them, but did not actively operate them, except in WWI (in which the US Military siezed control of many lines for the war effort-came up with some excellent loco and rolling stock designs). Private companies were left to run the things, and paved America's way to the top. I would not propose the government ever run things-which it does with highway transportation-but I would not rule out the government funding a private rail venture. The problem right now: find me a private company willing to risk such a thing. Of course, government attitudes would matter, but right now I doubt many private companies want to take the initiative on a projuect whose future is so fogged.
100 posted on 12/20/2001 11:11:01 AM PST by Cleburne
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