Considering the state of the world we live in, in this day and age, if there was no such thing as a train i.e., steel wheels traveling on steel rails and someone came up with that idea tomorrow, how likely would it be that the regulators would allow it to be developed? I am thinking the idea would crash and burn as being too dangerous and never be developed as a viable means of transportation.
Assuming that the present arrangement of wheels and rails were adopted, I would think that there would be no grounds for objection on safety grounds.
Today I would think that trains would be automatically controlled, would all be powered by overhead catenary and would use a system like Positive Train Control rather than fixed signals. ECP brakes would be used. the couplers would be of the Scharfenberg type where air and electrical connections were made automatically.
All the tracks would be securely fenced and there would be no grade crossings.
There would be very little switching of cars and all freight would be either bulk in hopper cars or in containers.
Passenger trains would be like current commuter trains, with elevator style doors on platforms to ensure safe boarding.
Peter
Can you imagine the war with the NIMBYs and BANANAs when you tried to build the right of way? Cost would kill it. I have doubts that you could even build the Interstate Highway system today. The government can't even manage the maintainence of it.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
They would probably pick a nice round number like six feet for the gage. Trains could be a little wider and a lot shorter for less distributed power and shorter grade crossing delays.
I'm with M636C on the isolated ROW. Like the Interstates, the lines would be built to go around towns, and over or under existing roads - and it's less likely that "new" towns would be built up around them, like has happened at many freeway interchanges.
Whether passenger service would even be considered is up for debate.
I suspect that industries that would benefit from rail would crop up instead.
A far deeper question would be, where would industry be without having had the railroads to carry the goods?
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Since power is so much cheaper than in 19th century, railroads would be laid out more like the new HSR line than along river grades. Fewer curves, steeper grades, faster speeds.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
sps I am thinking the idea would crash and burn as being too dangerous and never be developed as a viable means of transportation.
I am thinking the idea would crash and burn as being too dangerous and never be developed as a viable means of transportation.
Since more people die on highways than on railroads every year, I'm surprised at this statement. If the OP's join date would've been 2017 or 2018, I would've thought we had a Brightline opponent trolling around.
Jeff
Had railroads not been 'invented' and developed when they were, we would not have anything that looks like the civilization that we know today. Without railroads to move the mass quantities of raw materials necessary for the production of steel and other components that were necessary to create the industry's that moved civilization beyond the horse and canal boat stage we would still be in the horse and canal boat stage.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACD Without railroads to move the mass quantities of raw materials necessary for the production of steel and other components that were necessary to create the industry's that moved civilization beyond the horse and canal boat stage we would still be in the horse and canal boat stage.
Without railroads to move the mass quantities of raw materials necessary for the production of steel and other components that were necessary to create the industry's that moved civilization beyond the horse and canal boat stage we would still be in the horse and canal boat stage.
Either that or we would just be one big service economy.
BaltACD Had railroads not been 'invented' and developed when they were, we would not have anything that looks like the civilization that we know today. Without railroads to move the mass quantities of raw materials necessary for the production of steel and other components that were necessary to create the industry's that moved civilization beyond the horse and canal boat stage we would still be in the horse and canal boat stage.
Assuming that it was only steel wheel on steel rail that had not been developed, it's possible that water transportation would, indeed, be a major player. Had vehicle development followed a similar course to what it did, I'd opine that where canals weren't in place, dedicated roadways and truck/trailer trains (think Australia) might have developed.
A book considering the possibilities would be rather thick.
tree68 BaltACD Had railroads not been 'invented' and developed when they were, we would not have anything that looks like the civilization that we know today. Without railroads to move the mass quantities of raw materials necessary for the production of steel and other components that were necessary to create the industry's that moved civilization beyond the horse and canal boat stage we would still be in the horse and canal boat stage. Assuming that it was only steel wheel on steel rail that had not been developed, it's possible that water transportation would, indeed, be a major player. Had vehicle development followed a similar course to what it did, I'd opine that where canals weren't in place, dedicated roadways and truck/trailer trains (think Australia) might have developed. A book considering the possibilities would be rather thick.
Irrespective of steel wheel on steel rail - steel for its' strength was the major player in the development of the civilizations we have today. Had not the cheap and effective production of steel been developed we would be talking about the deforestation of the country.
Steel was the critical development of the late 19th Century as well as the entire 20th Century.
This is a much more interesting question than the OP thinks.
What I take him to be asking is 'what if the current version of the railroad were proposed for implementation tomorrow' -- replete with poor braking, vast capitalization, inherent private ownership, problems with derailments, etc. -- rather than what if railroads hadn't evolved as they did in the 19th Century.
And there is no particular guarantee that railroads would have become the dominant form of transportation at various times. The history of 'automobile steam' as early as 1802 is easily documented, as is the rather interesting evolution of that technology through, say, Perkins and Goldsworthy Gurney in the 1820s. It is more a 'failure of vision' than a serious limitation on the technological potential that a full pneumatic tire did not follow closely on the advent of vulcanized (sulfur-bridge strengthened) rubber ... note the technological revolution in rubber car springs mentioned by White ... and were the banking system in the United States to have evolved more along Hamiltonian lines, it is not unthinkable that the necessary GMAC-like support for purchase of expensive vehicular technology, development of service and support infrastructure, and then appropriate fueling arrangements might have been put in place as part of an enhanced "National Road" building program.
Now, in the meantime, there were some pretty awful false starts in how rail technology was built and used. Early 'common carriers' were just that: a kind of defective 'iron ocean' on which any person might operate compatible equipment -- we won't go into the fun with center posts and "laying on the leather". Early track design was primitive at best, with the 'optimal' design, as it turned out, explicitly intended only as temporary construction, and the early substitutes for rail (largely wood with 'strap' wearing surface, snakehead city!) were highly dubious for anything of much heavier construction than road vehicles would be.
I see no reason why development of cost-effective steelmaking would be dependent on railways, although there are several areas (curiously, I suspect, specifically including granger branches) where heavier railroad construction would have an advantage over road infrastructure as factor costs decreased.
As noted, this would favor quite a bit of better initial grading for new construction, use of wider gauge combined with compensated curvature, etc. but with one very significant caveat: the 'traditional' way of opening a railroad line almost as shoofly construction and then progressively improving the civil engineering wouldn't be as competitive against established road alternatives, so you'd need more of either the New York and Chicago Air Line disaster approach, or the creative approximation to modern tracklaying equipment that was used to build some of the elevated railroads in New York. With all the fun financial shenanigans seen in the Gilded Age and after.
Without iron, steel or any other kind of rails along with ore cars there would be no way to get metallic ores fom the stope to an ore pass and dropped by gravity to a loading pocket. You cannot use any combustable form of energy due to carbon monoxide. Now a coal mine could use horses because you are following a near vertical or slightly dipping seam on one horizon, but still require ore cars on rails. Air compression and battery development followed quickly. Regardless ore cars on rails was the only solution for moving tonnage.
Underground mining requires multiple levels to access and mine the orebody. Many of the earliest rails were for this very purpose. Now these applications were small, smaller than the shortest of short lines. Small 2 ft gauge, but ore cars nontheless. Once skipped to surface then what do you do? I cannot see moving serious tonnage over roadways with the rubber tires, even if steam powered. Hard rock mining does not lend itself to conveyor belts and still to this day does not, although progress has been made.
Rails had to be developed for underground mining quite some time ago, even if not to get, say iron ore to a steel mill, but because they needed a way to get ore to an ore pass continuously and in bulk.
Extreme early mining was based on relatively easy to find surface deposits which were low tonnage operations, mined out quickly and certainly not enough to meet the needs of a civilization. Smelting was done right on the spot and you could make a bunch of spears for your army or breastplates for your soldiers. Copper was Native and could be hammered into whatever, pretty much right there. Carts would suffice.
So Mining, Rails and 19th Century Civilization all go hand in hand otherwise without one the others do not exist.
As to the hypothetical initial question as asked I would say the government's would not allow it with some extreme exceptions. Even after experimentation out in the desert somewhere they would remain cautious and skeptical of introducing this into society.
Try explaining a highway on ramp to a group of lawmakers, politicians and bureaucrats today and they would think you are nuttier than a fruit bat. Glad we got that one in before the real nonsense set in.
Phoebe VetI have doubts that you could even build the Interstate Highway system today. The government can't even manage the maintainence of it.
Nor can the government maintain the county highways and rural roads, the city streets, the sewer and water systems, etc. I wonder how this country was able to do all the things it did years ago (i.e. aforementioned interstate, Hoover Dam, etc). Just what are those governments doing with all the taxes they collect?
The question that I was trying to ask is related to comments people have made about things like the interstate highway system and the Hover Dam. "It's a good thing it was built when it was, because with todays regulations it would be impossible and cost prohibitive because of our crazy over regulation of everything." If there was no such thing as a train and you proposed steel wheels on a thin piece of steel rail and you want to run it by their house people would think you are nuts. The only reason we have railroads today is because they were invented and developed during a time of very little regulation and standards of design and operation. This is the substance of what I was asking.
Similar question, If you proposed building cars that could kill as many people as they do today, you couldn't get them accepted by the regulators.
Regulation can only apply to the known. New technologies get created in the unknown, and as such, at their inception are not regulated.
Regulations grow from the down side and fears of the technologies as they develop and the populace begins to understand what is actually taking place.
Also the knowledge gained by working with external combustion led directly to internal combustion. The railroad shops of Altoona and Doncaster let right to the car plants of Detroit and Coventry.
sps The question that I was trying to ask is related to comments people have made about things like the interstate highway system and the Hover Dam. "It's a good thing it was built when it was, because with todays regulations it would be impossible and cost prohibitive because of our crazy over regulation of everything." If there was no such thing as a train and you proposed steel wheels on a thin piece of steel rail and you want to run it by their house people would think you are nuts. The only reason we have railroads today is because they were invented and developed during a time of very little regulation and standards of design and operation. This is the substance of what I was asking.
Well, even "back in the day" .....
See:
Early Opposition to the Steam Railroad (61pp.)
by
Thurman William van Metre
Published in 1929 by, of all people,
National Automotive Chamber of Commerce
Haven't read it for years and can't find my copy, so can't comment, except to note that naysayers, (individual and professional) are not a new phenomenon.
Railroad tranportation was first developed by private companies hauling rock or coal a relatively short distance on their own land. Only later when it proved successful was the idea floated of building larger lines for general freight and passengers. I'd assume something similar would happen today.
zardoz Phoebe Vet I have doubts that you could even build the Interstate Highway system today. The government can't even manage the maintainence of it. Nor can the government maintain the county highways and rural roads, the city streets, the sewer and water systems, etc. I wonder how this country was able to do all the things it did years ago (i.e. aforementioned interstate, Hoover Dam, etc). Just what are those governments doing with all the taxes they collect?
Phoebe Vet I have doubts that you could even build the Interstate Highway system today. The government can't even manage the maintainence of it.
Relatively speaking, governments had more money to spend in the past. For example, when Hoover Dam was being built, the top US tax rate was 63%. It went over 90% for a time, and until 1981 was never under 70%, when it was cut to 50%. For the last 20 years or so, it's been 39.6%.
https://bradfordtaxinstitute.com/Free_Resources/Federal-Income-Tax-Rates.aspx
wjstix zardoz Phoebe Vet I have doubts that you could even build the Interstate Highway system today. The government can't even manage the maintainence of it. Nor can the government maintain the county highways and rural roads, the city streets, the sewer and water systems, etc. I wonder how this country was able to do all the things it did years ago (i.e. aforementioned interstate, Hoover Dam, etc). Just what are those governments doing with all the taxes they collect? Relatively speaking, governments had more money to spend in the past. For example, when Hoover Dam was being built, the top US tax rate was 63%. It went over 90% for a time, and until 1981 was never under 70%, when it was cut to 50%. For the last 20 years or so, it's been 39.6%. https://bradfordtaxinstitute.com/Free_Resources/Federal-Income-Tax-Rates.aspx
There are so many deductions, exclusions, etc. that very few entities in the 39% tax bracket actually PAY 39%.
With much lower population density land for right of way was much easier to aquire.
Phoebe VetThere are so many deductions, exclusions, etc. that very few entities in the 39% tax bracket actually PAY 39%. With much lower population density land for right of way was much easier to aquire.
http://www.registerguard.com/rg/opinion/35477369-78/tax-time-and-trump.html.csp
Donald Trump’s boast last September that he hasn’t paid taxes for years grates against some taxpayers who have -- particularly now, with many folks flailing their way down Turbo-Tax homestretch before Tuesday’s deadline. A New York Times investigation showed that, to stave off financial ruin, Trump avoided reporting hundreds of millions of dollars by basically stretching a loophole as far as it could be stretched.
A New York Times investigation showed that, to stave off financial ruin, Trump avoided reporting hundreds of millions of dollars by basically stretching a loophole as far as it could be stretched.
"Loophole" is just somebody's name for a tax law that benefits someone they don't like.
Euclid"Loophole" is just somebody's name for a tax law that benefits someone they don't like.
It is also something that is 'purchased' by parties that know that the USA has the best form of government that money can buy!
Euclid "Loophole" is just somebody's name for a tax law that benefits someone they don't like.
A loophole is an exception. It is not unique to taxation and it is not limited to people you don't like. Many loopholes serve a valid purpose. Many do not.
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