I saw a cool television ad today.

CSX railroad says they can move a car 434 miles on 1 gallon of fuel.
Putting freight on the rails, they can move 1 ton of freight 434 miles (IIRC) for 1 gallon of fuel.

Goes to show you how efficient trains are.
Apply that ton to people, and you can move 10 people 434 miles...
Or, 1 person 4340 miles, coast to coast and then some, with 1 gallon!!!

Kewl!
-John

 

I wonder why we have so many 16+ wheelers on the roads??? H

 

I saw that ad and had the same thoughts as you. In the rush to de-regulate everything, our governments have created monsters! Long-haul freight should be on trains. Short-haul freight and delivery should be by truck, why not hybrid trucks or even electric?

Since we all pay the taxes that build and maintain our highways, we should also regulate the traffic that uses them.

 

John when I first saw this title, I thought you took your Honda Insight up and down the Rockie Mountains! You may want to report on your fuel mileage when you have the time to do just this.

 

You have become aware of one of the greatest crimes of the last century. In the early days of the country the government gave all those railroads the land for a transportation infrastructure....and after deregulation the railroads became real estate companies (they called them property holdings companys) and sold it all for short term profit. Tracks were pulled up, and businesses, houses and lots of other stuff took their place.

Now its all privately owned in little subdivisions, bits and pieces and no-one can affort to buy it back, so we will never again have a national rail infrastructure worth a d***. The railroads all say, "if you want a national infrastructure, use imminent domain to take back the land and them give it to us (again)!

How stupid do they think we are? (Or in the case of Washington DC, maybe it is "how corrupt do they think they can get away with?")

 

The demise of the railroads isn't so simple. The railroads are actually pretty well utilized now but seem to have some trouble investing to cope with economic expansion. The area the railroads can't compete in is the "just in time" door to door supply. If you need to move stock from a factory in North Carolina to a store in Kansas quickly, rail can't do it. You need two truck shipments and one or more rail shipments to go by rail.

 

I have long wondered if something like "auto-rail" for trucks would make sense. The trucker gets a low cost ride across country in a sleeper passenger car while the train crosses the country. They simply drive-on, retire to the passenger car and later, drive off. If the passenger car has enough power to work like a switcher, the train might not even have to come to a complete stop to 'uncouple' a segment.

Bob Wilson, Engineer

(Who when asked at age four, "What do you want to be?" Answered, "An engineer" not realizing they didn't understand I meant "Railroad train engineer.")