I can't drive 55

[yankee flyer]

Regarding aviation, slower is not necessarily more fuel efficient. Aircraft flight manuals indicate two specific speeds: best range and best economy. The former gives you the most miles per gallon. A slower speed decreases fuel efficiency and may even require a refueling stop, which would further decrease efficiency. The latter is the speed that gives you the most time in the air. You would use that speed, for example, if you were delayed entry to your destination and need to conserve fuel until you are cleared to proceed to landing. The point here is that arbitrarily cutting aircraft speeds will not necessarily result in fuel economy. I just isn't that simple.

It isn't that simple for trains, either. Fast trains are fast because goods have to be moved quickly. Think of the Tropicana Juice Train. Or the BNSF Z trains. Slow them for greater fuel economy and you might as well not run them at all. Saving fuel is nice, but again, it isn't that simple.

I think you will find in your airplane operators manual an economy power setting, which is  below cruise power. any setting above economy cruise increases fuel flow. Roughly speaking  by the square.

On the home front,  last fall I took a 3000 mile vacation in my toyota avalon V6. From St. Louis to Denver, (The flat land portion). At 60 to 65 MPH I would get 32 - 32.5 MPG on a tank of gas. Boost that speed 70 - 75 MPH and I would loose plus or minus 5 MPG or 15 %. I started driving 65MPH even though I used to add 5-10 MPH to the speed limit.

Good day

Lee 

 

[Anonymous]

And to re-state an earlier post of mine...  During a live, on-air tv interview, the press asked President Bush if he would do something like this (lowering the speed limits) to save on gasoline.  He said he would NOT change any laws or impose restrictions that would affect the amount of gasoline we can use.  And again, that being said - the speed limit will not be changing because the President said so.

 

But the president will soon be changing.  And with whichever new one it happens to be, we are going to get a boatload of new restrictions that will definitely affect the amount of gasoline we use.

[Prairietype]

I never understood how the number 55 was arrived at, why not 50, or 60 mph (one of the great mysteries of the past?

But don't worry about a change! Stock market's been up for two days and oil is down 10 dollars a barrel. It will be back to $60 before too long, and we can forget about this blip, and there will be no need to consider passenger rail expansion.

I drink cool-aid. 

 

[andrewjonathon]

Well if the President said so then I guess that settles it. Unless of course Congress and the Senate pass a bill that is veto proof (not too likely) or politics gets involved and they start negotiations then anything can happen.

Along those lines would anyone be interested in a deal that saw more funding for Amtrak (environmentally friendly so good for politics) in exchange for lowering the speed limit to 55 mph (also supposedly environmentally friendly)?

[RRFoose]

I heard on the radio this week that UPS instituted a policy a long time ago where their drivers use routes that require all right turns whenever possible, even if it means going out of the way geographically.  Apparently it saves them (by their estimate) something like 3 million dollars in gas every year (and I have no clue how that figure is computed).  The reasoning is that right-turns are more efficient because you can turn right on a red light in most places.

OK - so let's have railroads do the same thing!

Yes, and unfortunately this stupid rule is still in place.  The GPS on the trucks even allows supervisors to see if the drivers are following this practice.  However, most of us (back when I worked for UPS a couple years ago) could care less and turned left anyway.

And to re-state an earlier post of mine...  During a live, on-air tv interview, the press asked President Bush if he would do something like this (lowering the speed limits) to save on gasoline.  He said he would NOT change any laws or impose restrictions that would affect the amount of gasoline we can use.  And again, that being said - the speed limit will not be changing because the President said so.

 

[Murphy Siding]

      Did the railroads do anything differently during the 70's energy crunch?

[tomikawaTT]

Has anyone noticed that all the Congresscritters who think that lowering the speed limit is a good idea come from Eastern states where a strong kid could ride a bicycle from border to border in one day.  Has anyone heard of a Congressmember from Texas, Nevada or Montana who thinks that lowering speed limits is anything but stupid?

As for pumping our way out of the oil crisis, there are huge known oil reserves in places where our wonderful politicians have outlawed drilling - and won't change those rules, even though the technology of oil extraction has become a LOT more environmentally friendly.

BTW, the Federales were buying up oil and pumping it into the Strategic Oil Reserve even as oil prices were climbing like the Space Shuttle.  Smart.  Real smart.

Chuck

[wjstix]

The people who want us to drive slower are the same ones who want us to pay high gas prices so we use less gas.  They are also the same ones who tell us we can't drill our way out of an oil shortage and we can't build our way out of a freeway shortage.  The only thing that works for them is a government solution in the form of socialized transportation. 

Ya, let's have the federal government build more highways. That'll keep the government out of transportation!! BTW every time a highway expands, it lessens traffic - for a few years, and then more people start using it and pretty soon it's as clogged as it ever was.

The point about drilling our way out of an oil shortage is that it would be a temporary solution. Fine, we drain our strategic oil reserves and for a few years we have gasoline that's 25 cents a gallon cheaper. What do we do when that's gone?? We're not going to run out of useable oil because we're not drilling enough, we're going to run out of oil because we're using it up. We've used up at least half of all the oil that exists anywhere, and what remains will be increasingly harder to find, harder to drill for and pump, require greater processing to be useable, until finally the cost is greater than the rewards of the oil we get.

[GP-9_Man11786]

One point we've missed here is that a lot of people simply ignored the 55 speed limit. If it's re-instituted, who's to say people won't go out and buy radar detectors? I'll be honest, on I recent trip to Florida, I spent most of the trip in the left lane going 80-85 and still got 32 MPG.

If they really wanted to help drivers use less fuel they'd figure out how to ease gridlock in the cities. All cars, modern or old get the worst fuel economy when they idle. Maybe by replacing trafic lights with roundabouts or changing signal timing to allow the main roads to keep moving, we could really save some fuel and reduce polution. 

[Modelcar]

.....vsmith:

You are right on in agreeing current automobiles are much better at slipping thru the air at various speeds now, then they were back in the 70's.  Design Cd's are much lower...{less resistance}

But.....to move anything  from point A to point B...at a given speed it requires a certain amount of energy....dependant on the design of vehicle being used.  Law of physics.  If one must move that same vehicle the same distance at a faster speed something has to provide the extra energy to do so.

So if we're talking about driving an automobile a certain speed and getting so much fuel usage....we can change that by slowing the vehicle a bit {and pay the price of taking longer to get there}, but in the process we should us less energy with the slower speed.  {Down to a reasonable speed} acceptable on the highway.

[beaulieu]

I am hearing that both BNSF and UP have instituted a policy whereby any train except a few of the hottest Z-trains can operate with the throttle in any position up to 55 mph, above that speed the throttle must be in position 5 or less. What that means is they can go faster than 55 mph only it is possible in a low throttle position ( most likely coasting down hill).

[vsmith]

So I think this proposal will go no where based on the concept of saving gas, they are already trying to respin the whole thing into now its about "saving lives" and makin it a "safety" issue. And again their using the same 70's era evidence despite the glaring fact that todays cars are safety wise hands and feet way above their 1970's era counterparts. The ultrasmall Smart 4two has been engineered and crash test proven that the driver can survive a 60mph head on collision, care to try that with a '74 Pinto?

Wish I could find the data again. Some years ago I plotted the death and mileage variables surrounding the events of 1974 and found that while the number of highway deaths dropped, so did the mileage.  What didn't drop was the death rate per million miles driven.  In fact, a ten year downward trend in the death rate ended around 1974, and the death rate actually began to rise...

Musta been all them dam Pintos...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=NOWIlP9t8y4

 

[Anonymous]

I heard on the radio this week that UPS instituted a policy a long time ago where their drivers use routes that require all right turns whenever possible, even if it means going out of the way geographically.  Apparently it saves them (by their estimate) something like 3 million dollars in gas every year (and I have no clue how that figure is computed).  The reasoning is that right-turns are more efficient because you can turn right on a red light in most places.

OK - so let's have railroads do the same thing!

[tree68]

So I think this proposal will go no where based on the concept of saving gas, they are already trying to respin the whole thing into now its about "saving lives" and makin it a "safety" issue. And again their using the same 70's era evidence despite the glaring fact that todays cars are safety wise hands and feet way above their 1970's era counterparts. The ultrasmall Smart 4two has been engineered and crash test proven that the driver can survive a 60mph head on collision, care to try that with a '74 Pinto?

Wish I could find the data again. Some years ago I plotted the death and mileage variables surrounding the events of 1974 and found that while the number of highway deaths dropped, so did the mileage.  What didn't drop was the death rate per million miles driven.  In fact, a ten year downward trend in the death rate ended around 1974, and the death rate actually began to rise...

[Anonymous]

Assuming that some of the trucking industry would object to 55, might they demand that the government also slow down the trains of their railroad competition to keep a level playing field?    

To which the railroads would agree, if the government would build and maintain all the interstate rail lines for them the way they do the interstate highway system that the truckers use!!

I did not mean that the truckers might demand that the government ask the railroads to slow down the trains to save fuel. 

[wjstix]

Assuming that some of the trucking industry would object to 55, might they demand that the government also slow down the trains of their railroad competition to keep a level playing field?    

To which the railroads would agree, if the government would build and maintain all the interstate rail lines for them the way they do the interstate highway system that the truckers use!!

I remember the 55 MPH era very well, including some long car trips on vacations. Ya it took a little longer but it wasn't a big deal. Saving gas would be nice given the high prices...back then of course it was what, 35 cents a gallon??

Back in the seventies, they also banned (or strongly discouraged) outdoor Christmas lights on your houses (to save electricity) and changed the daylight savings time vs. standard time. I remember going to Jr. High in the winter and not seeing the sun until an hour or so into the school day.

[oltmannd]

The speed limit here in California is already 65, 55 for trucks despite the fact that I've had semi's blast past me at 80+ !

The proposal is actually pretty stupid and ignores a couple of important facts about modern cars. Back in the 70's every car had a carborator, which was a mechanical technology, as in that it ment for the engine to go faster, more fuel had to be fed into it. There was no way to adjust the fuel consumption based on actual load or resistance, you just pushed harder on the pedal to go faster, so lowering the speed limit ment you were effectivly limiting how hard that pedal could be pushed and thus there was a gas savings. But todays cars are almost 99% electronic fuel imjection controled by an onboard computer that automaticly adjusts the fuel flow based on a great deal of parameters that maximize engine performance while maximizing economy of operation at the same time. So the actual speed the car is running at becomes much less important, add to that todays modern cars are for the most part, much more areodynamic than cars back in the 70's creating much less wind resistance.

There was a story online I read recently where a guy with a computer monitoring his cars fuel use at 60 mph and at 80 mph, He reported that given the onboard computers that optomize performance regardless of speed he found that his car used only a small fraction of more fuel to cruise at 80 than it did at 60. This corresponds to my experience with my car as well, I notice no dramatic difference in fuel use when I'm cruising at 75 than when I have to cruise at 60. When I had a carburated Vdub Beetle back in the early 80's, you would most definetly see a dramatic drop in fuel economy the faster the car went. Todays cars, the engine performance is automaticly adjusted to maximize optomum performance regardless of the actual speed the car is cruising at. PS my current car is an Scion xB.

So I think this proposal will go no where based on the concept of saving gas, they are already trying to respin the whole thing into now its about "saving lives" and makin it a "safety" issue. And again their using the same 70's era evidence despite the glaring fact that todays cars are safety wise hands and feet way above their 1970's era counterparts. The ultrasmall Smart 4two has been engineered and crash test proven that the driver can survive a 60mph head on collision, care to try that with a '74 Pinto?

Well, not really, not quite, and sort of.  How much do you really want to know?

[oltmannd]

Could the same mindset used to mandate a lower highway speed limit be used to justify slower speeds on ........?  Trains?

Does freight train fuel usage vary with speed? Has research been done on this? At higher speeds, I would think by reducing top speed, less fuel would be used accelerating when leaving reduced speed areas.

Yes, but not as drastically as for trucks and cars, because the windage, which varies with speed squared, is a smaller % of total resistance.

You can save fuel by slowing down.  I did some simulations years ago that showed a loaded coal train could reduce fuel consumption by 1% by reducing from 50 to 40mph max.  The % savings for the empty coal train were 8%.

The way RRs typically have gone about reducing fuel consumption of trains is to reduce the HP/ton ratio for the trains.  The trains are still allowed the same track speed, it just takes longer to get up to speed and there are fewer miles were that speed can be held, so the net effect is slower operation and reduced fuel consumption.

[andrewjonathon]

Want to also pay the German price of $9.27 per gallon? That would certainly cut down on our gas consumption.  And clear out the traffic congestion so you could drive faster.  A $5.00/gallon tax increase would also provide lots of money for our interstate system.

Enjoy

Paul

Sure, I'll pay $9/gallon if I can also get the same mpg as the Europeans do.  Average mpg in Europe is double the mpg we get here.

Check this out, in Britain BMW sells a 5 series model the 520d that uses diesel. It gets 48 mpg (US). Thats 38 mpg (US) in the city and 57 mpg (US) on the highway. It goes 0 - 62 mph in 8.3 secs and has a top speed of 144 mph. The point is you don't have to drive a tiny European or Asian car to enjoy better fuel efficiency. But what is wrong is that we have to move to Europe to do it?

Double the price but double the distance you go means it all balances out in the end.

 

[Anonymous]

The people who want us to drive slower are the same ones who want us to pay high gas prices so we use less gas.  They are also the same ones who tell us we can't drill our way out of an oil shortage and we can't build our way out of a freeway shortage.  The only thing that works for them is a government solution in the form of socialized transportation. 

[vsmith]

The speed limit here in California is already 65, 55 for trucks despite the fact that I've had semi's blast past me at 80+ !

The proposal is actually pretty stupid and ignores a couple of important facts about modern cars. Back in the 70's every car had a carborator, which was a mechanical technology, as in that it ment for the engine to go faster, more fuel had to be fed into it. There was no way to adjust the fuel consumption based on actual load or resistance, you just pushed harder on the pedal to go faster, so lowering the speed limit ment you were effectivly limiting how hard that pedal could be pushed and thus there was a gas savings. But todays cars are almost 99% electronic fuel imjection controled by an onboard computer that automaticly adjusts the fuel flow based on a great deal of parameters that maximize engine performance while maximizing economy of operation at the same time. So the actual speed the car is running at becomes much less important, add to that todays modern cars are for the most part, much more areodynamic than cars back in the 70's creating much less wind resistance.

There was a story online I read recently where a guy with a computer monitoring his cars fuel use at 60 mph and at 80 mph, He reported that given the onboard computers that optomize performance regardless of speed he found that his car used only a small fraction of more fuel to cruise at 80 than it did at 60. This corresponds to my experience with my car as well, I notice no dramatic difference in fuel use when I'm cruising at 75 than when I have to cruise at 60. When I had a carburated Vdub Beetle back in the early 80's, you would most definetly see a dramatic drop in fuel economy the faster the car went. Todays cars, the engine performance is automaticly adjusted to maximize optomum performance regardless of the actual speed the car is cruising at. PS my current car is an Scion xB.

So I think this proposal will go no where based on the concept of saving gas, they are already trying to respin the whole thing into now its about "saving lives" and makin it a "safety" issue. And again their using the same 70's era evidence despite the glaring fact that todays cars are safety wise hands and feet way above their 1970's era counterparts. The ultrasmall Smart 4two has been engineered and crash test proven that the driver can survive a 60mph head on collision, care to try that with a '74 Pinto?

 

[Modelcar]

....I'm not a railroader, just a fan.....and I've wondered about what you {Wabash} have just related....

Example:  The web video cam we have available here {streaming video and audio}, over in the Netherlands....shows many trains passing on the double track line and over time I've counted the consist and it generally runs from 35 to 45 cars and most of them are really flying past the intersection that is visible.

[majortom]

I don't make the 600 mile runs on a regular basis.  Instead I sit at red lights for what seems like hours every day.  When it finally does go green, I can see the one at the next intersection turn red.  Absolutely no synchronization.  Many times, there is not one coming through the intersection as I sit, idling away my $4.13 per gallon gas.

 

Some one eluded to the 55 mph being instituted whether the people wanted it or not.  Who are the voters here?

 

Just my ideas

 

majortom

[wabash1]

speed limits on trains have not changed ( at least where i run) they are the same as in the 70s. rail/highway is 60mph and mixed frieght is 50mph. or in other words that is the fastest but we have speed restrictions that keep us slow anyways changing the speed for trains would not affect us as we go thru the throttle from idle to notch 8 and this is to keep the speed consistant. what would save the railroads more money in fuel cost would be not overloading the engines with tonnage. ive never understood the basic idea that if 2 engines were rated at 10,000 tons and they build a train 9,900 or even 10,000tons and say try and run track speed, you cant do it but you stay in notch 8 and burn fuel by the galons per minute If they cut that back to 5,000-7500 you run along in notch 5 and conserve fuel.

[spokyone]

Could the same mindset used to mandate a lower highway speed limit be used to justify slower speeds on ........?  Trains?

Does freight train fuel usage vary with speed? Has research been done on this? At higher speeds, I would think by reducing top speed, less fuel would be used accelerating when leaving reduced speed areas.

[oltmannd]

Who cares really. 55 or 60. What difference is 5 minutes gonna make? If you're worried about being late, leave earlier.

If you're driving 60 miles, you're spot on.  If you're driving 600 miles, it's an hour.  That can be significant.

As for reducing speeds on various modes of transportation, I can just see some egghead in an ivory tower someplace telling the airlines they need to fly below stall speeds...

 

 

True, but besides maybe truckers, who drives 600 mile trips on a daliy or weekly basis?

Me! 

Not daily or weekly, but a few times a year we'll make a 770 mile trek in a day. With 65/70 mph speed limits, we can do it in 13 hours.  When the kids were little, we could get going at 6 AM and get there by 7 PM - in time to get them to bed on time. 

If the speed limit were 55, we'd be looking at 15 -/12 hours.  Too slow to make it in one day and we'd have the expense and hassle of a hotel along the way.

When we've travelled with our trailer, we usually plan on 8 hours of driving.  At 65-70 mph (which is about as fast as I dare go with the trailer!) we can cover 450 miles a day.  That gets us to Colorado in 3 days.  At 55 mph, that would be 4 days in the car and my family would mutiny!

55 mph made much more sense when cars were styled with aerdyanmic coefficients of drag close to that of a rectangular box!  Now that cars are much more slippery, the difference in fuel consumed by slowing down will be much smaller. 

An example.  If your 1973 Ford LTD got 17 mpg at 55 mph and 15 mpg at 65 mph, then you'd save 2 gallons on a 250 mile trip.  If your 2007 Honda Accord gets 30 mpg at 55 and 27 mpg at 65 you'd only save 1 gallon.

[IRONROOSTER]

About a week ago on one of the political news programs I saw a congressman (Republican) who is leading an effort in Congress to reinstitute the 55 mph speed limit. Given the focus on gas prices it could get legs if legislators thought it would make them look like they were taking concrete steps to lower gas prices.

That said, I say if the Germans don't have to slowdown on their awesome Autobahns then why should we have to slowdown on our sorry looking excuses for roads called Interstate highways?

Want to also pay the German price of $9.27 per gallon? That would certainly cut down on our gas consumption.  And clear out the traffic congestion so you could drive faster.  A $5.00/gallon tax increase would also provide lots of money for our interstate system.

Enjoy

Paul

[andrewjonathon]

About a week ago on one of the political news programs I saw a congressman (Republican) who is leading an effort in Congress to reinstitute the 55 mph speed limit. Given the focus on gas prices it could get legs if legislators thought it would make them look like they were taking concrete steps to lower gas prices.

That said, I say if the Germans don't have to slowdown on their awesome Autobahns then why should we have to slowdown on our sorry looking excuses for roads called Interstate highways?

[RRFoose]

Did any of you see President Bush speak on Monday?  A reporter asked him if he would take any measures to cut Americans' use of gasoline.  His response was something to the effect of "American's are smart enough to figure out how to slow down and drive less."  He continued on to say that will not pass any legislation which requires Americans to limit the amount of gas they're using.  That all said - I'd say the speed limits will remain where they are.  The President and Congress have more important issues than speed limits to deal with in the next 6 months.  But a new pres. could bring different views - time will tell.

[Anonymous]

     We all seem to agree, that we wouldn't care for a lower mandated speed limit.

      If, however, that becomes a  reality, how ould it effect railroads?

A speed limit could be imposed on them too for the same reason.  Otherwise, I can't think of a way that it would have much effect on the railroads.  What effect did it have on them when we had it in the 1970s?