Posted on 08/26/2014 8:57:37 AM PDT by reaganaut1
There’s always trucking.
Atlas ping. In the book, it was soybeans, not oil, but the result is the same.
Wesley Moochelle can solve the problem....................
Bulk Ag is my business. Give me a shot at it!
Gee if only there was a way to transport oil without needed a train.
Just so long as the Smather brothers get their grapefruit hauled.
That...sounds...familiar...
yes it does
Distill it into alcohol first, then pipe it to me.
They are welcome to find other means to transport their commodity. Unit CBR is hot and hazmat has good tarrifs. Shortline originators are benefitting tremendously.
I can imagine vacuum rings inside a pipe line to pull grain along. I used to have a fantasy of elevated pipe lines to replace long haul trucks. With computers and conveyor belts to direct to delivery point warehouses. I still think it would work. At end point you have UPS or FedX.
...and we all thought Rand’s central focus on railroads was an anachronism.
Oops. :-)
After I concluded my business a few days later, I had to wait in the Amtrak station about ten hours (no, I didn't mind. I always travel prepared) until the train arrived. Since the time slot had been missed, our train could only move in short runs while deferring to the oil traffic. To make a long ride short, We arrived back in Chicago about fourteen hours late. I had missed my connection so Amtrak put me up in a nice hotel for the day. It was soon after that Amtrak cancelled that route, losing money I am sure, until Washington stepped in and gave the passenger service a higher priority. The route resumed shortly after and has run closer to schedule ever since.
I just thought it was interesting how things went and the attitudes of different people I met on the trip. Some were disgusted with Amtrak and others understood it was not in their control. I like riding the train and will do it again at the next opportunity. Amtrak gets hammered a lot but it is the only service available of it's kind. The employees are friendly and helpful and the trip is usually relaxing. I don't care for driving on trips in the winter weather and felt really safe looking out the window at snow drifts towering above me as I passed through at eighty mph!
One thing I will mention is the appearance of the oil trains, either moving or at rest. They looked for all the world like a big black pipeline!
I've also been on Amtrak routes when all the important dispatching windows were missed, and the train was hopelessly late. The relationship between Amtrak and the Class I railroads has always been tenuous, although BNSF is better than the other railroads in servicing Amtrak.
Imagine my surprise when the oil recovered in Colorado using a revolutionary process developed by Wyatt turned out to actually exist in the form of shale oil.
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