Midnight Railroader wrote: jeffrey-wimberly wrote: kenkal wrote:Uh, Jeffrey, maybe you want to check he calculations again? The difference is a lot less than calculated. Was gas really around 95 cents a gallon in 2005? ;o) KenIt was here.Maybe in 1995, but not 2005. Not even close.
jeffrey-wimberly wrote: kenkal wrote:Uh, Jeffrey, maybe you want to check he calculations again? The difference is a lot less than calculated. Was gas really around 95 cents a gallon in 2005? ;o) KenIt was here.
kenkal wrote:Uh, Jeffrey, maybe you want to check he calculations again? The difference is a lot less than calculated. Was gas really around 95 cents a gallon in 2005? ;o) Ken
I really liked my 1993 GEO Metro Convertible. I could get close to 50 mpg with it. I only had it for about 6 months before my daughter totalled it.
Texas Zepher wrote: Midnight Railroader wrote: jeffrey-wimberly wrote: kenkal wrote:Uh, Jeffrey, maybe you want to check he calculations again? The difference is a lot less than calculated. Was gas really around 95 cents a gallon in 2005? ;o) KenIt was here.Maybe in 1995, but not 2005. Not even close.I believe it was 2002 or 2003 when, here in Denver, fuel jumped from a decade low of $0.85 to $1.48 almost over night. It was right at Memorial Day.I really liked my 1993 GEO Metro Convertible. I could get close to 50 mpg with it. I only had it for about 6 months before my daughter totalled it.
Phoebe Vet wrote: Don't they make baskets for bicycles anymore?That was what I used when I delivered newspapers on mine.
Don't they make baskets for bicycles anymore?
That was what I used when I delivered newspapers on mine.
I took saddle bags, cut a hole in the middle for my head to go through and then rode my bike rolling, rubber banding and tossing newspapers out of the bags. If I tried that now I'd be in the hosiptal.
Engineer Jeff NS Nut Visit my layout at: http://www.thebinks.com/trains/
It hasn't affected by purchases. I budget about 500.00-1000.00 for this year for models and supplies. I spend most of my time driving my F150 to Little Russia and the BNSF Topeka yards and sit and watch the trains. The better of the two LHS's is in KC and I get there about once a month. It costs 80.00 to fill up my F150 but, I prefer versatility over gas milage.
Charlie
MP 53 on the BNSF Topeka Sub
I had a early 90's Colt one of those 4 cylinder commuter bombs, it turned in 42 mpg no matter what situation I threw at it. Fighting BMW's on the Wash DC area roads knocked it down to about 38 or so. Not bad. But Brake replacements and tires ate into the savings and there was the difference between a little car that tries versus those UK Big cars that can.
all of this diesel fuel, in one little locomotive, gosh. sure adds up.
Every week it seems to go up. I went to the local hobby store today, and he was saying how it has hurt his business. Its sad when it happens. Not much we can do abou it.
"Rust, whats not to love?"
Now dont be down in the dumps. Just start taking orders at that hobby shop that is hurting and have the customers come down once a month to pay it all for that month's orders. Half the stuff takes a few weeks to arrive anyhow.
I still go to my store because I LIKE to go. Yes that gas bites. But a durn sight better than feeding a Kittycat with 300 gallons of 5 dollar go go juice. Ugh.
I always have to watch my expenditures, and now with the rising cost of fuel and food things are even tighter. The Greenberg show is tomorrow, but I'll probably just be window shopping, unless I can find some inexpensive parts.
About the only silver lining on the skyrocketing price of oil is that they might have to replace all of those dismals with coal burners.
Nelson
Ex-Southern 385 Being Hoisted
I feel that gas prices are indirectly controlled by the government. I think of it as a way of manipulating the economy while keeping our foreign oil parties profitable.
With that said, note how the average American's disposable income has increased over the last 20 years. I can say that overall my income has increased, yet the amount of money I save has not increased much either over this period. Why? Lots of things, like a house, car, a child, are the main factors, but at the same time, I'm spending my money on quite a few luxuries that I don't really need. Here are a few:
Cell phone? What's wrong with my regular land based phone? Seems that people have decided somewhere that it was *required* to own one of these things. All I can say is, I don't necessarily want to be bothered anywhere at any time, plus the reception sucks. Yeah, it has some positive qualities, like if I get stranded or I need to meet someone at a bar, but how did we manage before? We did. Get rid of it.
Satellite/Cable TV. Incredible waste of money. I can barely find anything on, and if I do, I have to sit through an inordinate amount of commercialism. It never seemed this bad when I just had my local channels. It's gone when my contract expires.
Large gas wasting vehicles. A couple posts mentioned they hate small vechicles. Well, I hate large ones. They are difficult to see around, no matter whether your driving, biking, running or walking. I understand if you need your truck for your business or you're hauling something around regularly, but who on earth needs an F-150 or an Avalanche to commute to work by themselves? It's excessive and a waste. Downsize.
Bottled water: I don't buy any, but if you do, consider this: It's more expensive by the gallon than gasoline. Think about that the next time you're at your local convenience store.
Personal internet access: Agreed, I would miss this if I were to cancel it, but once again, most of us didn't have this 10 years ago, so how on earth did we survive? Yeah, things took a while to get, but it's another expenditure we didn't have just a short while ago.
Fancy coffee houses: Don't get me started.
What I'm trying to say is, the majority of us average folk are better off than we were 15 years ago EVEN with the rising gas prices in my opinion. We spend our money on a lot of things we didn't just a short time ago. All the while, gas prices stayed pretty constant and CHEAP. With that in mind, perhaps it's the oil companies turn to make a buck. All this time we've been spending our cash on other things making other people rich, they (the oil companies) have been stuck making their same profits. Like I mentioned before, the price we see at the pump is indirectly controlled by the government. I think of it as a way of determining the strength of the economy. For instance, we've heard about $4 gas by Memorial day for a year now. Well, what happened? Exactly that. Meanwhile, the government collects data and watches the economy. If the economy slips too far due to lack of consumer spending, they will back off on the price. If they think people will still spend their money even if they push the price of gas to $5, they'll do just that; raise the price to $5. It all depends on that "disposable income" we talk about.
OK, whew, that was a lot.
As far as model railroading an higher prices...
The higher prices have made me want to get back into the hobby. Since I usually go between railfan photography and modeling, the high prices are driving me back into the basement. I can't justify driving all over the state as much (or at all) chasing trains, so it's made me want to get my layout up and running again. So I could say that high prices have actually helped my modeling, just as long as the prices of model trains don't skyrocket, but I'm not holding my breath.
It's funny how people always like to compare finances to a time that makes it look like these are the good times.
20 years ago includes Bush 41 and Clinton administrations. How does your financial picture look when you compare it to March 19th, 2003?
That's the day before somebody, I won't mention any names, decided he had the moral and legal authority to invade and occupy a foreign country and replace it's government with one he liked better.
I don't know about you, but my lot in life hasn't improved since then.
My wife and I have cell phones, but we do not have a hard wired phone. We use the cell phones primarily to stay in contact with each other. We do not own an SUV and never have. Bottled water is just tap water that tastes like plastic. I have no idea why anybody buys it. I tried Starbucks coffee once. I wouldn't drink that stuff if it was free.
I guess all that extra disposable income everyone has explains the thousands of airline employees who have recently lost their jobs, the housing industry in freefall, the 6 automobile factories that have just announced closings, etc.
Yes, I guess it's just time for the oil companies to make a little money.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Your gas is cheap guys. Come to Sweden and pay 8,83 dollars per gallon of regular gas. A full tank of gas for my Volvo is a 175$.
Most of it is tax. Darn government.
Magnus
Lillen wrote: Your gas is cheap guys. Come to Sweden and pay 8,83 dollars per gallon of regular gas. A full tank of gas for my Volvo is a 175$.Most of it is tax. Darn government.Magnus
Where the demand for gasoline is rising the fastest are countries like China, India, and Indonesia where the governments subsidize the cost to make gasoline more affordable to the consumer. This increases demand and increases the price of gas for consumers who aren't subsidized.
I thought the purpose of Europe's high taxes was in effect to inflict a very high import tax (paid directly by the consumer) to fund government programs and to reduce imports, and a general attitude disparaging the use of private vehicles. What is the Europeans' point of view on this?
Mark
Modeling the N&W freelanced at the height of their steam era in HO.
Daniel G.
Lillen wrote:Your gas is cheap guys. Come to Sweden and pay 8,83 dollars per gallon of regular gas.
Your gas is cheap guys. Come to Sweden and pay 8,83 dollars per gallon of regular gas.
Mmm - gas is a bit cheaper in Sweden, I see. We pay about $9.50 a gallon these days over here in Norway. Up about 1.2 times relative to a couple of years ago.
A mild annoyance, to be sure, but still far less of a shock for the wallet than having gas increase in price four-fold within five years without having your income increase four-fold as well.
And of course it does help quite a bit that I don't live too far out in the boonies - I can walk to the RR station in my small town of maybe 4000 people and take an EMU to within two blocks of where I work in the city.
The 30 miles or so takes me 37 reasonably civilized minutes on the train, spent reading, snoozing or chatting with neighbours. Or trainspotting
While those of my neighbours that swear by commuting by car arrive at work all stressed out after fighting their way through the morning rush hour traffic on the roads.
My local hobby store is also by the RR line, about halfway between work and home. We get by with maybe one full tank of gas every 14 days or so - car is mainly used by the wife to haul groceries home from the store.
No worries, mate!
Grin, Stein
"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."-Albert Einstein
http://gearedsteam.blogspot.com/
It hasn't affected me at all since I always use the train to go to work/shop/trips...etc. I don't even have a car and that money I save I spend on a lot of other things.
Of course we have a pretty good Public Transportation system in Switzerland so no need for a car really. :)
steinjr wrote: And of course it does help quite a bit that I don't live too far out in the boonies - I can walk to the RR station in my small town of maybe 4000 people and take an EMU to within two blocks of where I work in the city.
I live in the opposite way. To the university I got 120 km back and forth. To a decent grocery store 80 km back and forth. So no such luck for me. To take my kids to school and kindergarten 15 km.
8500HPGASTURBINE wrote: Geared Steam wrote:8 mpg?? They would have to pay me to take that gas pig off their hands. I paid almost 50 for it and got a deal. Right now I would get squat for it if I decided to trade it. NOBODY would want it. The sticker did say 9/12 MPG. I live 1 mile from work and 2 miles from anything I could need. I don't drive it a lot ( basically it's a toy). The local hobby shop is also very close. But the local hobby shops still are holding prices low, really haven't noticed a differance yet. Mike
Geared Steam wrote:8 mpg?? They would have to pay me to take that gas pig off their hands.
I paid almost 50 for it and got a deal. Right now I would get squat for it if I decided to trade it. NOBODY would want it. The sticker did say 9/12 MPG. I live 1 mile from work and 2 miles from anything I could need. I don't drive it a lot ( basically it's a toy). The local hobby shop is also very close. But the local hobby shops still are holding prices low, really haven't noticed a differance yet.
Mike
I had a 1969 427CI Corvette that got better gas mileage than that.
Daniel1975 wrote:It hasn't affected me at all since I always use the train to go to work/shop/trips...etc. I don't even have a car and that money I save I spend on a lot of other things.Of course we have a pretty good Public Transportation system in Switzerland so no need for a car really. :)
Now I know why
6.1L SRT HEMI® V8 engine
It's definately not your basic Jeep
I guess it's all relative, I get 18 mpg and drive 18 miles to work 1 way.
Daniel1975 wrote: It hasn't affected me at all since I always use the train to go to work/shop/trips...etc. I don't even have a car and that money I save I spend on a lot of other things.Of course we have a pretty good Public Transportation system in Switzerland so no need for a car really. :)
I was in Zurich a couple of years ago and enjoyed the frequent, comfortable, clean, and on-time service on the trams and trains (and boats). We used them extensively the several days we were there. I can't think of a city with any better rail transportation than Zurich. The train to Baden Baden, Germany was nice too. I always take public transportation in Europe because I was in the major cities. I only rented a car once. That was in Germany and one reason was to drive on the Autobahn. Besides, parking in the major cities is rough. Spent five days in Rome and I only remember seeing two vacant parking spots on the street in the five-block radius of our hotel. Seems like some people never drive their car after finding a parking spot. Also, since most of the roads in towns aren't laid out in a grid pattern but wander around, navigating by car isn't easy if you aren't familiar with the streets.
So gas/petrol is that cheap in the US. Gas in Australia has just gone up to approximately US$6.90 per gallon.
My car does 45mpg and it still hurts!
PASMITH wrote: Daniel1975 wrote:It hasn't affected me at all since I always use the train to go to work/shop/trips...etc. I don't even have a car and that money I save I spend on a lot of other things.Of course we have a pretty good Public Transportation system in Switzerland so no need for a car really. :) Do you still have all of the cool graffiti along the right of way?Peter Smith Memphis
I don't know whether I'd consider them cool but they're still there. Of course what's the point removing them when you rush past them so quickly plus they are colorful vs. the lame concrete-grey.
Gas prices have affected my hobby the way they have affected everything else our family does: now we think whether we REALLY want to drive to the mall, store, park, etc. or just stay at home and do some work around the house. Have never thought of gas prices before now, but that seeems like ancient history. Am still planning my CSX former Clinchfield tour in a few weeks, although I am happy a friend is coming along so we can each share expenses and make things less costly for each other.
grayfox1119 wrote: ... And to make matters worse, we have investors called "Speculators" who buy oil on the Futures Market. What does this do? It runs the price of a barrel up and up and up. In simple terms, if I have one apple to sell, and 3 people want to buy this one apple, they will bid the price up ( you know like EBay? ) And now the Speculators come along with their money and they bid the price up even higher as they purchase barrels of oil, or apples in this simple example. ...
... And to make matters worse, we have investors called "Speculators" who buy oil on the Futures Market. What does this do? It runs the price of a barrel up and up and up. In simple terms, if I have one apple to sell, and 3 people want to buy this one apple, they will bid the price up ( you know like EBay? ) And now the Speculators come along with their money and they bid the price up even higher as they purchase barrels of oil, or apples in this simple example. ...
On Friday there ws a huge spike (around 8%) in the price of a barrel of oil. I have been trying to research every time this happens, and it seems this past "spike" can be described like this: "The price of oil spiked on Friday because investors were worried the price of oil could go higher over the summer." So, to me this translates to, "the price of oil wen't up because the price of oil was going to go up." It is very hard to determin a cause-and-effect pattern in all of this.
CLICK HERE FOR THE CSX DIXIE LINE BLOG
Pasadena Sub wrote: On Friday there ws a huge spike (around 8%) in the price of a barrel of oil. I have been trying to research every time this happens, and it seems this past "spike" can be described like this: "The price of oil spiked on Friday because investors were worried the price of oil could go higher over the summer." So, to me this translates to, "the price of oil wen't up because the price of oil was going to go up." It is very hard to determin a cause-and-effect pattern in all of this.
In fact, Friday's "spike" was a reaction by speculators to the downright dismal jobs market report that came out and the further economic downturns in the auto industry. The speculators view oil as the one commodity that is increasing in value by leaps and bounds, so that's the place to invest. Each bit of further bad economic news is going to fuel this problem until it becomes totally out of control. As of last evening, the supposed economic experts on CNN were forecasting oil to reach at least $160 a barrel before the summer is out, with gasoline passing the $6 mark in the same time interval (I paid $4.30 a gallon yesterday).
CNJ831