Water trains to California

[overall]

Can tank car trains carry water economically? There has been a discussion on NPR about building a pipeline from the Mississippi River valley, which is flooded at times, to California, which is in the midst of a drought. The thinking is that water could be taken from the Mississippi region, where there is too much, to California, where there is too little. Instead of building a pipeline, could the “111” tank cars now being taken out of oil service be used to transport water between these two places? Obviously, if there was a wreck, water would be harmless

[Buslist]

overall

Can tank car trains carry water economically? There has been a discussion on NPR about building a pipeline from the Mississippi River valley, which is flooded at times, to California, which is in the midst of a drought. The thinking is that water could be taken from the Mississippi region, where there is too much, to California, where there is too little. Instead of building a pipeline, could the “111” tank cars now being taken out of oil service be used to transport water between these two places? Obviously, if there was a wreck, water would be harmless

 

 

How about people move from water poor regions to water rich regions?

[Ulrich]

Desalination of ocean water might be cheaper..

[tree68]

Bad idea.  Even if the Mississippi does flood at times, there are others where it's low, and it is a major navigation artery.

You also have to consider that water is heavier than oil, for a given volume.  Crude comes in at 790-862 kg/cu meter.  Water tips the scales at an even 1000.

That means the weight of crude ranges from 6.6 lbs per gallon to 7.2 lbs per gallon.  Water comes in at 8.3 lbs per gallon.  Pretty significant difference - as much as 51,000 lbs for a 30,000 gallon car.

overall

Obviously, if there was a wreck, water would be harmless.

The cars themselves, however, would cause just as much phyiscal damage as they would if filled with crude, and I don't know that your house would withstand the sudden influx of 30,000 gallons of water any better than mine, should a car catastrophically fail.  In the middle of nowhere, you're right - basically harmless.  In a built up area, not so much.

[trackrat888]

Well we do have some dead head traffic now moving west instead of empty tank cars we have full ones. However there are regulation against exporting Great Lakes water out of a Great Lakes State. Their is fear that we could bleed them dry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lWeYa0_5bc

[creepycrank]

The trouble with Great Lakes water is the Zebra Snail menace, an evasive species that came in ballast water. In the marine transportation forums ballast water treatment has gotten to be a big issue for regulation. Even the small amount left in outboard motors can spread Zebra Mussels to other lakes. You have to filter it and chemically treat it so as far as California is concerned they should just use reverse osmosis on sea water like they do now.

[rdamon]

Could be a use for all those older DOT-111 tank cars ..

Transport by sea is also an option ..

http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/SIMHONM/

 

[Norm48327]

Here is a link to an article in Newsweek describing California's water problems. It's doubtful enough water could be shipped in to solve their water problems when they are not properly managing what they have.

http://www.newsweek.com/why-californians-are-starved-water-314867

[samfp1943]

Norm48327

Here is a link to an article in Newsweek describing California's water problems. It's doubtful enough water could be shipped in to solve their water problems when they are not properly managing what they have.

http://www.newsweek.com/why-californians-are-starved-water-314867

 

FTL:(posted by Norm48327)  [snipped] "...One of the ironies of the current drought is that urbanites who canceled these projects never made plans either to find more water or to curb population. Take the most progressive environmentalist in Los Angeles and the Bay Area: The likelihood is that his garden and bath water are the results of an engineering project of the sort he now opposes..." [snipped]

Woud seem to be somewhat 'penny-wise and pound foolish' "..to  want all those folks to come live there, and fail to provide for sufficient water supplies..."  Not too long ago in San Fran area there were stories that the adoption of 'low flow' plumbing had caused problems with the ability to flush out the effluent sent to the City Sewers.  Seems like this current issue of not enough water to drink, could be an extension of that same lack of planning???  Maybe, they need to have everyone going into California bring their own water with them....  

[trackrat888]

Try stopping Ilegal immgrant flow and implement mandatory birth control....That would be the most politicaly incorrect solution or wait for CA to fall into the Ocean. More likley would to redetrbute the pop to other underpopulated places that need people like.....Cleveland!

[trackrat888]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heMbsdTJaAw

From my fav media guy its a Chem Trail Geo Engineering thang

[CAZEPHYR]

Interesting idea, but the pipeline would be better and would only have to run to the head waters of the Colorado River.  It would be a free ride down to California, Arizona and Mexico which all use the water from the river.

Ah, but that makes too much sense and involves a pipeline which does not create any jobs.

A pipeline was proposed from the Columbia in Oregon to Northern California  several years ago, but was turned down because some group did not want us to use any water out of the Columbia.

The food production in California will be much lower this year since the water is not being used for growing good and food prices will continue to rise.

RR

overall

Can tank car trains carry water economically? There has been a discussion on NPR about building a pipeline from the Mississippi River valley, which is flooded at times, to California, which is in the midst of a drought. The thinking is that water could be taken from the Mississippi region, where there is too much, to California, where there is too little. Instead of building a pipeline, could the “111” tank cars now being taken out of oil service be used to transport water between these two places? Obviously, if there was a wreck, water would be harmless

 

RR

[Andrew Falconer]

California has a large border on the Pacific Ocean coastline. They have to take the ocean water, filter out all the contaminants out of the water, and there will be plenty of local accessed fresh water for for Californians. 

Where ever they get the water it would have to be filtered and purified for safe usage. There is a great amount of water in the Pacific Ocean.

A short tank car trip to and from the Pacific Ocean water purification plants in California is the result. 

[BaltACD]

Man has done a pitiful job trying to reallocate natures distribution of water resources on the planet.

[NKP guy]

I think the very serious problem of water shortages out West could be allieviated,  not by water trains, but by a suggestion I once saw offered by a hydrologist.  Please take out your maps.

The Great Lakes funnel into the St. Lawrence River not far from Massena, NY.  At this point the fresh waters of the lakes start running into salt water.  In other words, the fresh water from this point on gets "wasted."  It is completely doable to build a pipeline or pipelines from Massena, NY to, say, California.  Taking this water from the St. Lawrence River would not violate our (fine) treaties with the Dominion of the North and would turn millions of gallons of fresh water from a resource about to be wasted (salted) into a valuable, usable natural resource by our countrymen who need it and would pay for it.  I can't imagine anyone seriously arguing the Atlantic needs more water to be salted.

Is this a doable project?  It depends. It would be to men like Theodore Roosevelt or Franklin Roosevelt, or men like Albert Norris or those who built the TVA.  Dangers? Sure; imagine news reports saying, "Pipeline breaks: one million gallons of fresh water spills onto the Great Plains."  

Take a look at your maps.  Then realize the paralyzed country we live in, and with a sigh turn the page as the West slowly burns up for yet another year....needlessly.

 

[K. P. Harrier]

When I was a kid in the 1950’s there was a Southern Pacific (Pacific Electric) tank car train that would operate up and down the streets of San Bernardino (CA) to and from a place up in the mountains.  Reportedly, the cars were water cars.  Obviously, it wasn’t an economically beneficial situation because the trains and tracks are no more.

[tree68]

NKP guy

It is completely doable to build a pipeline or pipelines from Massena, NY to, say, California.

How big would such a pipeline have to be to be useful, never mind economically feasible?

The aqueducts feeding NYC from the Catskills are big enough to drive a bus through.  And they're building more.  Is this St Lawrence pipeline going to be buried, or tunnelled?

Significant amounts of water are already drawn off Lake Ontario, and appropriate water levels on the St Lawrence River are crucial to both maritime and recreational use.  There are already problems in that regard from natural cycles.  

Taking millions of gallons out of the St Lawrence above Montreal is going to have an effect on navigation and a host of other factors.

[erikem]

Ulrich

Desalination of ocean water might be cheaper..

 

In addition to being more energy efficient. With the latest reverse osmosis (RO) membranes, the energy needed to produce a gallon of fresh water from sea water is less than what it takes to pump it over the Tehachapi's. It would certainly take less energy than shipping the water from the Mississippi.

There's a 50,000 acre-foot per year RO plant that will be opening soon in Carlsbad, took close to a decade to get the permitting completed. One of the hold-ups was the amount of marine life that would be killed by the seawater intakes - would have been interesting to compare how many Delta smelt would have been killed by taking an equivalent amount of water from the Sacramento delta.

- Erik

[Dr D]

The Great Lakes are the largest consentrated supply of fresh water in the world.  Pristine and untouched except by native Americans until the discovery and settlement of the North American Continent by European people just some 300 years ago.  The pure runnoff of the glaciers of millions of years ago.  Cool fresh water - oceans of it to play in!  The mighty ocean liners could bathe in its beauty!  

Since that time much of it has been severely ravaged by industrial waste and farm chemical "run off." 

I remember in the 1969 when the Cuyahoga river in Ohio caught of fire from the oil pollution.  It was the 13th time in 75 years and was the cause of the US Congress creating the EPA - Enviornmental Protection Act.  Lake Erie could not be navagated because of the 25 foot high soap foam run off from public sewers that caused ships to churn the phosphate rich soap water into mountains of un navagatable of soap foam.  Unlike constant sewer effluent runnoff into the lakes of the past, presently the City of Detroit sewer system - like other American cities - when it cannot handle the public waste just dumps the overflow into the lakes.  Just like they do and have done in Lake Erie or Lake Michigan or Lake Superior.  

Yes Virginia, the bottom of Lake Erie has heavy metal concentration from industrial waste settled into the mud so many foot deep, that will take centuries to clear it out.  And I'm not counting similar industrial run off from Duluth, Minnesota - Gary, Indiana - Milwaukee, Wisconson and Chicago, Illinois.

At Port Huron, Michigan and the Canadian chemical plants, the Mercury level in the water and river bottom makes the game fish inediable.  Michigan Department of Natural Resources is constantly warning game fishermen not eat more than a certain amount - several fish per year.  Unfortunately Lake St. Clair is one of the best producing game fishing areas in the world - Muskellunge, Pike, Walleye, Perch, Bass, Sturgon all are damaged by the heavy metal chemical content found in their body fats.  And why is it I see so many poor people in Detroit feeding on the game fish from the Detroit River?  

Of course, lets not forget that most famous of all toxic waste sights!  The one we all live in mortal dread of - "The Love Canal" of Niagara Falls, New York!  Its on the Niagara River just before the falls!  The former city dump site and for Niagara Power Company and Hooker Chemical which set the very standard for public negligence. Residents of Niagara Falls were found to have highly abnormal birth defects - enlarged feet, hands, legs and heads, and a high miscarriage rate with mental retardation of children.  The ground would not grow grass, flowers or any living thing - right where people were living in homes - with 55 gallon drums of chemicals working up from the ground and where residential foundations grew with indescribable black mould.  This ground, this river so polluted with so many chemicals - today 50 years later it is still considered a "public health time bomb." 

If that was not enough - "Love Canal Two!" - brought to you by the same industrial neglegence - today in Detroit - a similar clean up is going on! Thats right boys and girls another large toxic spill in St. Clair Shores, Michigan in the 1970's when that nasty old PCB transformer oil - nasty dangerous Detroit Edison carcinogenic transformer oil was disposed of over a period of years by dumping it into the 10 Mile Canal of Lake St. Clair.  Yes, that's right "It's the New Love Canal! all over again!" - for you and I as residents living in this recreational boating wonderland - us - we - you and I? - encountering high rates of cancers and mortality again! - and the property in that area is un marketable! - especially not if they find out!  And our local excitement for this year will be watching the Federal govenment spend billions digging up the public streets in a huge clean up - hauling that nasty old toxic lake bed away!  

Because we so much enjoy living and playing in a toxic dump site that was once the campground of native peoples and French fur trappers like Cadillac.  Ah! yes! what was once the boating play place for "rum running millionares of the 1920's" - with all the natural ambiance of the Detroit River industrial centrer for oil refineries, chemical production and steel production for the past 100 years!  

O mon dois!  

Toledo, Cleveland, Buffalo in Ohio, and Sarnia, Hamilton, and Toronto, Ontario all  helping add their 10% - "Oh water wonderland of the world!"

O Mon Dois!

-------------------------------

Yah thats right! ship that water to Califorina - the Valley will surely love it for irrigation and drinking water.  Up till now we have only had to deal with Mexican workers watering the vegetables with human waste!  And, Oh yah! - by the way when California gets it's share - well then? - how you gonna say no to Texas, Arizona, Mexico, Utah, Africa, Arabia?  - And when you drain down that once pristine watershed of the Great Lakes - well what then?

Let em die of thirst in California! - Want the water? - or what's left of it, go live in New York - cause we don't care how they "do it" in California!.  People in Michigan got something to say about this too!  It's our polluted cesspool and we ain't givin it up!  Cause that's what they make shotguns for!

Doc

[DSchmitt]

K. P. Harrier

K. P. Harrier wrote the following post 2 hours ago: When I was a kid in the 1950’s there was a Southern Pacific (Pacific Electric) tank car train that would operate up and down the streets of San Bernardino (CA) to and from a place up in the mountains. Reportedly, the cars were water cars. Obviously, it wasn’t an economically beneficial situation because the trains and tracks are no more.

From:  http://www.oocities.org/gatewaycityca/

"the Arrowhead line was also used for various freight shipments. The most famous being the bottling and transport of Arrowhead Springs water from a resevoir near the hotel. In fact, after the official abandonment of passenger service on the line in 1941, and trolley cars no longer ventured up the steep and winding line, the "water train" became the sole user. The line was eventually abandoned completely and the track was removed in 1960."

From Wikipiedia 

"Arrowhead Water, also known as Arrowhead Mountain Spring Water, is a brand of drinking water that is sold in the western United States, particularly in Arizona, the Northwest, and in California"

"In 1909, The Arrowhead Springs Company was formed and the company's water products were marketed in Southern California. The water was transported from Arrowhead Springs, north of San Bernardino, California, to Los Angeles in glass-lined railroad tank cars."

The Brand still exists:

http://www.nestle-watersna.com/en/bottled-water-brands/arrowhead

 

[wanswheel]

Excerpt from Railway Age article, “If Crude by Rail, Why Not Water?” by Bruce Kelly, Contributing Editor, January 31, 2014

http://railway245.rssing.com/chan-16724407/all_p33.html

Hauling water by train might sound outlandish to most, but tank cars were routinely used during the steam era to transport and store water in railway operating territories where wells, streams, or other water sources were not available. And well into the modern diesel era, tank cars continued to bring drinking water to remote communities or facilities whose only physical connection to the outside world was the railroad.

Supplying enough water to partially refill depleted reservoirs or irrigation systems in areas that are not already served by aqueducts and that are most vulnerable to California’s worsening drought will require something along the lines of a pipeline. Or, where pipelines don’t exist, a rolling pipeline on rails.

In other words, trains moving as many as 100 carloads of water at a time, which translates to roughly three million gallons of water per train. Much the same way that crude by rail is now moving oil across vast distances where previously there was no reasonable or competitive way to do it. Trains cannot possibly move enough water to enough places to fully substitute for a lack of winter precipitation, but they could at least deliver some measure of relief to specific areas facing the worst water shortages. In the broader context, water by rail could even be a seasonal or long-term solution to chronic drought or exhausted groundwater in almost any state or region.

For California, tank cars of non-potable water could be dispersed among cities and small towns, and even to remote locations reached by rail, to keep on hand as back-up for ground-based firefighting equipment. Food-grade tank cars could deliver potable water to specific communities where municipal systems are at immediate risk of running dry, and to select farms that are deemed vital to the nation’s food supply. Supporting water by rail on a widespread, long-term basis would likely require the manufacture of hundreds of new tank cars dedicated to such service.

[Leo_Ames]

NKP guy

I think the very serious problem of water shortages out West could be allieviated,  not by water trains, but by a suggestion I once saw offered by a hydrologist.  Please take out your maps.

The Great Lakes funnel into the St. Lawrence River not far from Massena, NY.  At this point the fresh waters of the lakes start running into salt water.  In other words, the fresh water from this point on gets "wasted."  It is completely doable to build a pipeline or pipelines from Massena, NY to, say, California.

Significantly reduce the outflow of water from the Great Lakes around Massena (Something you'd have to do in order to get a volume that would make a difference out West), and I assume that the point where the water starts to turn to saltwater up past Montreal will shift Westward as the waters of the Atlantic reach further inland. 

I can just hear Save the River. 

[mudchicken]

ATSF/BNSF still run water out into the desert in tank cars (some still had rivets into the 1990's) in the M/W fleet (potable water & non-potable) to wunnerfull places like Newberry Springs, Ludlow and out on A&C at Cadiz (ex-ATSF branch)...large scale version of this would be a nightmare.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Water trains (or pipelines) aren't going to address the issue, especially when you consider the amount of water that's needed, especially for agriculture.

[cacole]

Federal courts have been involed in a lengthy lawsuit over Colorado River water for years and years, with no judgement rendered that is going to satisfy all the litigants; so there's no chance of California ever getting more water from the Colorado.

 

[BaltACD]

Remember the Aral Sea - Russia's 4th largest lake

http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/worlds-4th-largest-lake-is-now-90-dried-up-pics-video.html

[diningcar]

CSSHEGEWISCH

Water trains (or pipelines) aren't going to address the issue, especially when you consider the amount of water that's needed, especially for agriculture.

I suggest that there is as much water on this planet in 2015 as there was 5000 years ago. If that is acknowleged then the apparent solution for those locations that now have a shortage (most are adjacent to the oceans) is to desalineate the sea water and discontinue taking water from its natural coarse. 

 

 

[oltmannd]

I'm sure there's plenty of water moving economically on the railroads right now...in plastic drinking bottles!

So, you COULD run tank cars from where they bottle it now, to where it's consumed, and just bottle it there.

This would work until everyone wakes up and realizes their local water is just as potable as water from some other municipality.

[54light15]

It isn't just drinking water and irrigation. Let's not forget those other neccesities of life like golf courses in Palm Springs and Las Vegas that must be kept green. Not to mention all those fountains in Las Vegas. Drinking water? Industry has almost successfully turned it into a commodity like gasoline and not a human right. Bottled water, anyone? That's the future, Mister Gitts!

[Convicted One]

overall

The thinking is that water could be taken from the Mississippi region, where there is too much, to California, where there is too little.

 

If you really want some interesting reading, look back into the internal conflicts California has had in trying to manage it's water woes internally.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Water_Wars

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_in_California

 

What you are talking about is that octopuss' ambitions to become a nation-wide menace.

 

I lived in The Bay area a number of years where there was aggressive water rationing in practice due to water shortages caused by water export to Los Angeles.

Then, I moved to LA, and was shocked to see people hosing off their sidewalks who had never even heard there was a water shortage in California.

 

Now evidently those buzzards come home to roost?

 

The only good reason I could see to send water to California would be as an appeasement to keep the masses out there, so they won't move east looking for water.