In our lives in the US and North America in general (includes Canada) we have taken clean, safe water for granted.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
rrnut282 Call me crazy, but I think economics would justify a pipeline long before 490 daily trains. Though, that also should justify electrication of the mainline at those numbers, just so they could maintain headway between trains.
Call me crazy, but I think economics would justify a pipeline long before 490 daily trains. Though, that also should justify electrication of the mainline at those numbers, just so they could maintain headway between trains.
I don't think you're crazy, and I would be really, really surprised if economics would justify trains over a pipeline. The one exception would be a much smaller population needing emergency water where there was already sufficient track capacity and the emergency was expected to be short lived.
For an area near the coast, desalinizing water seems to be the way to go.
- Erik
gardendance narig01 You can not use tank cars that have been used to haul oil or other chemicals to haul water for human or any other food grade uses. (Like irrigation water or animals use) . Food grade tanks can only be used to haul what we eat and drink. Once something goes in the tank that is not consumable like oil or chemicals you can not use it for food, (or water). Rgds IGN There's no need to use it directly for potable water. You can use it for the intake to a water treatment plant.
narig01 You can not use tank cars that have been used to haul oil or other chemicals to haul water for human or any other food grade uses. (Like irrigation water or animals use) . Food grade tanks can only be used to haul what we eat and drink. Once something goes in the tank that is not consumable like oil or chemicals you can not use it for food, (or water). Rgds IGN
There's no need to use it directly for potable water. You can use it for the intake to a water treatment plant.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
BaltACDIn our lives in the US and North America in general (includes Canada) we have taken clean, safe water for granted.
Indeed. I live just a few miles from billions of gallons of fresh water. One village near here used to take water direct from the lake, with only filtering and minimal treatment before it entered their water mains. And they got awards for the quality of their water...
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...
tree68 BaltACD In our lives in the US and North America in general (includes Canada) we have taken clean, safe water for granted. Indeed. I live just a few miles from billions of gallons of fresh water. One village near here used to take water direct from the lake, with only filtering and minimal treatment before it entered their water mains. And they got awards for the quality of their water...
BaltACD In our lives in the US and North America in general (includes Canada) we have taken clean, safe water for granted.
Don't know if they still do, but in 1965 Lake George, NY did that. The lake was so clear you could clearly see the bottom through 30 feet of water.
Norm
Let's run some numbers... Train size of 100 cars with 104 tons each works out to 2,500,000 gallons. Assume 25,000,000 people in area served by the water trains (this is less than the population of alifornia). Ten trains a day will get 1 gallon of water person per day. The strictest rationing the I recall for a large water district was 49 gallons a day per person in Marin Count in 1977. 490 trains per day doesn't sound practical.
The flaw in your logic is that you are calculating TOTAL water consumption, and using that figure as what needs to be transported in. California's inadequate water supply simply needs to be SUPPLIMENTED, NOT REPLACED, sure California would LOVE to get that much MORE water supplied, that is not what is needed.
Doug
May your flanges always stay BETWEEN the rails
[/quote]
Portland, OR still does draw water out of the Bull Run reservoir system, but those lakes are OFF LIMITS to the general public, only a few guided tours per year.
It is about the Best water in the country. I'll bet the Fishin is GREAT, but I'll NEVER know.
To read the full context of last year's commentary on water by rail at Railway Age, go here:
http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/blogs/bruce-kelly/if-crude-by-rail-why-not-water.html
Note that I made it clear that WBR is not going to solve all of CA's drought conditions, but could at least bring some measure of relief to some of the hardest hit areas. Nodoby should try crunching numbers to figure out how many tanks cars or how many trains per day it would take to maintain a normal/average level of water consumption throughout the state. This would be an emergency/relief-based operation capable of only limited impact. And it's nothing new. In the past, WBR has been used to combat drought situations in Australia, Israel, India, and even Illinois.
Following the RA piece, we heard from one railcar consultant who estimated a cost of $6,000 to $8,000 (per car) to blast and reline the interior of existing DOT-111s. When I wrote the piece, the notion of utilizing DOT-111s retired from crude service was in the back of my mind, but RA Editor in Chief Bill Vantuono jumped right in and said those cars should indeed be transitioned into water service.
The chairman of one of the Class I railroads serving California told me a panel has been formed to explore WBR; one challenge has been to figure out how to cover its costs. After seeing the kind of money that California has recently allocated to drought relief, and knowing that delivery of water to municipalities, farms, and store shelves in California is already a for-profit business, you'd think someone could figure out how to pool the start-up funds and get WBR rolling to those who need it most and/or are willing to pay for it.
challenger3980Portland, OR still does draw water out of the Bull Run reservoir system, but those lakes are OFF LIMITS to the general public, only a few guided tours per year.
The lake I refer to is Ontario - it'd be a little hard to limit access...
Ship Boston's and New Englands snow!
Bruce Kelly Note that I made it clear that WBR is not going to solve all of CA's drought conditions, but could at least bring some measure of relief to some of the hardest hit areas. Nodoby should try crunching numbers to figure out how many tanks cars or how many trains per day it would take to maintain a normal/average level of water consumption throughout the state. This would be an emergency/relief-based operation capable of only limited impact. And it's nothing new. In the past, WBR has been used to combat drought situations in Australia, Israel, India, and even Illinois.
Bruce,
The 49 gallons per person per day was the tightest water ration that I remember for a moderately large water district in my almost 6 decades of living in California. It is nowhere near a normal consumption level, though would be a bit easier with low flow toilets and showers.
WBR may have its place in the California drought, but I'd guess it would be for a relatively limited portion of the state. There's just too many people living here to make WBR useful for the whole state.
A quick comparison - the Poseidon plant under construction in Carlsbad should produce 50,000 acre-feet per year, this is the equivalent of 18 trains per day carrying 10,000 tons of water.
Murphy Siding If you're going to have to take water to a treatment plant, you might as well take salt water to a treatment plant and save the 2000 miles rail shipment.
If you're going to have to take water to a treatment plant, you might as well take salt water to a treatment plant and save the 2000 miles rail shipment.
I agree, but I wasn't addressing the practicality of the water train, but rather narig01's saying humans can't drink the water from an oil tank car.
However the practicality can change. If the oil tank cars have to get cleaned anyway, and I don't know if oil tank cars need cleaning, and the water treatment facility's reservoir is between the refinery that's producing the oil and the place to which they deliver the oil.
But those are several requirements unlikely to line up.
Patrick Boylan
Free yacht rides, 27' sailboat, zip code 19114 Delaware River, get great Delair bridge photos from the river. Send me a private message
Bring people and industry were the water is like to the Miss River and the Great Lakes.Not water to the people that would abuse it. Matter of fact Great Slave Lake in Canada is devoid of people and sparcly setteled
BaltACD Ship Boston's and New Englands snow!
Um how much petro are we going to burn to move h2o?
California goes through cycles of drought followed heavy rains and snow fall (in the mountains) and an abundance of water. It is quite likely before much could be done to bring water in by pipe or by rail, there will be the possibly of masive flooding in many areas of the State.
The State's problems are primairly caused by the inability tp store enough water in times of plenty for use in the lean times.
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
DSchmitt California goes through cycles of drought followed heavy rains and snow fall (in the mountains) and an abundance of water. It is quite likely before much could be done to bring water in by pipe or by rail, there will be the possibly of masive flooding in many areas of the State. The State's problems are primairly caused by the inability tp store enough water in times of plenty for use in the lean times.
Over the years theere have been proposals to tow icebergs from the Arctic down the Pacific Coast to be used for fresh water supply in California and the adjoining states.
Maybe it's time to build the Alaska-Canada rail link and ship the ice by reefer!
PS.my suggestion is best taken with a large grain of salt (a by-product of desalinization)
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
Just purchases 22 oz of '100% Pure California Sea Salt'
"From the sparkling shores of the Pacific...comes Diamond Crystal sea salt. Inspired by the delicious cuisene of the Napa Valley, these all-natural salt crystals will bring out the true flavors of your choicest ingredients."
Don't know if it is from any desalination projects and it is not Corinthian.
[Heated up the link for you]
Friday, January 31, 2014
Written by Bruce Kelly, Contributing Editor
See linked article @
Bruce, seems you were on top of that idea, early!
BaltACD Just purchases 22 oz of '100% Pure California Sea Salt' "From the sparkling shores of the Pacific...comes Diamond Crystal sea salt. Inspired by the delicious cuisene of the Napa Valley, these all-natural salt crystals will bring out the true flavors of your choicest ingredients." Don't know if it is from any desalination projects and it is not Corinthian.
Hopefully, they filter out the debris from the Fukushima reactor disaster.
Murphy Siding Perhaps during the flooding periods, the trains could be used to ship water out of California and take it to the Great Lakes, or maybe the Mississippi River?
You do not know what you are asking, porting water from one watershed to another. WE had a plan to build a canal from Lake Sakakaweah to the eastern part of the state. CANADA had a caniption! (East side of the state flows north into Canada, you know).
Devils Lake is now rising, it has taken over farms (farmer must still pay the taxes on land that is under the lake) roads have been elevated. Railroads have been elevated. We tried to build a diversion to dump lake water into the Sheyanne River, Canada Had coniptions. (Devils Lake is a Saline lake with no natural outlet).
Of course if nothing is done it will over flow into Stump Lake, (no wait, it already did that, Stump Lake is now part of Devils Lake) and if it rises any higher it will flow int, you, you guessed it, the Sheyanne River! Then what will the Canadians say.
Train Water into California. And where will that water come from? The Grape Lakes? Nothing west of the Mississippi has anything to spare. (Gotta use all of the extra water for Fracking--and no, you cannot use salt water for that!)
Hey we got a small lake on our property. Selling the water for fracking earns us more money that selling the land. And we can sell the water every year, you can only sell the land once.
California is up S Creak without a paddle. But not to worry, once the land is fully dried out it will be too light to suport itself and will fall off into the Pacific Ocean. So much for the Liberal voting base, eh?
ROAR
BTW: Water IS politics, and always has been in the west.
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
samfp1943 [Heated up the link for you] Friday, January 31, 2014 "If crude by rail, why not water?" Written by Bruce Kelly, Contributing Editor See linked article @ http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/blogs/bruce-kelly/if-crude-by-rail-why-not-water.html Bruce, seems you were on top of that idea, early!
Sure it *can* be done, if not enough for Arag, then at least enough to drink, and you can always use those old DOT 111 cars for that. Just rinse them out a bit
Seriously, the problem is shipping costs. Who is going to pay the freight on a train load of water. Oil has value, well water has value too, but for people used to free and/or cheap water charging them by the gallon is going to cause a revolt in that revolting state. ROAR
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.
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.
Look at the Google overheads. The Colorado is DRY long before it gets to the sea. You can see the chanels that divert Colorado water to municipal and agracultural uses, and these too are DRY before they get to the sea.
BTW: What State Capitol is on the Colorado River.
"BTW: What State Capitol is on the Colorado River."
Austin, Texas, but not the same Colorado River.
SleeperN06 Interesting thread, I just wonder what they would do with all the salt if they filtered the water from the ocean. I’m just not sure there would be enough uses for that much salt. I guess the process would have to remain at the ocean side, but wouldn’t the salt concentration increase in the water around the plants?
The optimal site for a desal plant is on the coast, so the concentrated brine would be discharged back into the ocean. Ideally a desal plant would be co-sited with a power plant to allow the two facilities to share intake and discharge plumbing, which would also dilute the brine to closer to seawater salt concentrations.
My understanding is that the optimal discharge for a reverse osmosis plant is about twice the salinity of the intake water.
BroadwayLionCalifornia is up S Creak without a paddle. But not to worry, once the land is fully dried out it will be too light to suport itself and will fall off into the Pacific Ocean. So much for the Liberal voting base, eh? ROAR
Spoken like a true christian, eh "Brother".
Great Lakes? Nothing to spare west of the Mississippi?
The closest, most abundant, and most logical source of fresh water that also happens to be fronted by more than a hundred miles of Class I railroad on both sides, with connections leading straight to California, would be the lower/western end of the Columbia River. Even after churning past several hydro dams and being siphoned to irrigate the Inland Northwest's booming ag business, there's plenty of unused H20 emptying right into the ocean.
http://www.allcountries.org/uscensus/386_flows_of_largest_u_s_rivers.html
Two key factors to making WBR feasible are minimizing the travel distance and minimizing the impact on other traffic. BNSF from the north bank of the Columbia and UP from the south bank could move water down into California at half the distance (or less) than it would take to move water from the Great Lakes. BNSF and UP lines between the PNW and California are presently not as congested as their east-west lines through Spokane, Hinkle, Barstow, etc.
Bruce Kelly Great Lakes? Nothing to spare west of the Mississippi? The closest, most abundant, and most logical source of fresh water that also happens to be fronted by more than a hundred miles of Class I railroad on both sides, with connections leading straight to California, would be the lower/western end of the Columbia River. Even after churning past several hydro dams and being siphoned to irrigate the Inland Northwest's booming ag business, there's plenty of unused H20 emptying right into the ocean. http://www.allcountries.org/uscensus/386_flows_of_largest_u_s_rivers.html Two key factors to making WBR feasible are minimizing the travel distance and minimizing the impact on other traffic. BNSF from the north bank of the Columbia and UP from the south bank could move water down into California at half the distance (or less) than it would take to move water from the Great Lakes. BNSF and UP lines between the PNW and California are presently not as congested as their east-west lines through Spokane, Hinkle, Barstow, etc.
And I wish you luck getting your hands on it. Folks up there may have other ideas.
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