Trains Save Fuel

WGIL -- Galesburg Radio 14 ^ | Thursday, October 14, 2010 | Illinois Radio Network

[Willie Green]

(IRN)-An environmental group is touting the fuel saving benefits of the train.

In particular, the savings are measured based on the use of the Metra commuter rail system in the Chicago area: 34.8 million of gasoline a year, assuming all the train riders would have made all the same trips by car, with 1.3 people in the car each time, according to the group Environment Illinois.

Metra served 77 million passengers in 2008, with ridership increasing an average of 1 percent per year since 2000. Its busiest line, the BNSF line between Aurora and Chicago, carries an average of 63,200 passengers each weekday.

Environment Illinois is calling for an adjustment of the federal transportation funding formula to support rail as much as roads. Field associate Sophie Huckabay says the current formula rewards states that adopt transportation policies that promote fuel consumption, a perverse incentive, she says.

The train related fuel savings would accrue, Huckabay says, on expanded Metra service further into the hinterlands, to places such as Johnsburg, Rockford, DeKalb and Kankakee, and high-speed rail Downstate.

[Jim Robinson]

Are you a Marxist, a socialist, or just born stupid?

[100American]

Trains fit well in high density traffic areas with predictable models of people going from A to B regularly (like suburbs to downtown Chicago)

They do not do well in other more dispersed areas where the traffic is not predictable and intermittent as they still need to run but the savings per seat goes down tremendously

They have their place but not everywhere

[Abathar]

I’m sorry, but I actually LOL’d after seeing who wrote that... :)

[Willie Green]

i've been for reducing our nation's dependence on imported oil ever since the Arab Oil Embargo of '73.

How about you???

[WOBBLY BOB]

"...assuming all the train riders would have made all the same trips by car..."

I wouldn't assume that.

[Jim Robinson]

Eff’em. I’m not giving up my freedom to the idiot left. Drill, baby, drill!! We’ve got plenty of oil.

[cripplecreek]

I wouldn't assume that.

Wise choice. A majority of us here in flyover country will do anything to avoid going where trains tend to go. A dream vacation for me involves driving for hours on a washboard two track carrying a thousand lbs of gear in the back of my truck.

[twistedwrench]

I didn’t know Socialist had a sense of humor.

[ShadowAce]

I’m sorry, but I actually LOL’d after seeing who wrote that... :)

You weren't the only one.

[Drill Thrawl]

i've been for reducing our nation's dependence on imported oil ever since the Arab Oil Embargo of '73. How about you???

Ah the old liberal "I care more than you" canard.

[Frantzie]

LOL! He does not like freight trains which do save money. He likes light rail and HS rail. Detroit is getting more “light rail” even though the present light rail has 2% capacity.

I would love if FR could have a rating system for posters. Willie would have like - negative infinity.

I am sure I would get some low marks too.

[ontap]

Trouble is very few people have as their destination a train terminal....ever checked the price of a taxi ride for say 20 miles if mass transit is not available?

[CrazyIvan]

Galesburg, just down the track from me is a major rail hub
and holds “Railroad Days” every year. No bias here. That
said, I use Amtrak from there to Chicago to go see my
grandson and it works very well.

[Obadiah]

Yes, in theory trains save fuel, in the very same theoretical way that empty buses running up and down the street can save fuel.

How many decades, or perhaps centuries, of theoretical fuel savings will it take to recover our initial infrastructure investment?

[Jim Robinson]

And Detroit is a ghost down. Thousands of square miles of boarded up houses and decaying long shutdown manufacturing plants. Drove through it a couple years ago. Looked like a war zone. Last thing they need is a train system.

[ontap]

That time will have arrived when a private entrepreneur builds it...not one second before!!!

[driftdiver]

You don’t have to pay for the system, you just have to pay the interest on the loan for the system.

- Willie Green 2010

[Abathar]

Trains for freight make great sense and I am all for them, it's far more efficient and logical to move bulk items at once. Inner city trains and commuter lines from the high density suburbs also make sense to me if they can operate without taxpayer subsidies. That's the big sticking point, until they figure out how to do it and at least break even with a ticket price people are willing to pay plus the cab fare they may also need. I don't want to have to pay my hard earned tax dollars each year towards a rail system that can't support itself.

[agere_contra]

Its not the infrastructure cost so much.

It’s the fact that trains go from A to B.

But you live at X and you want to go to Y.