Would an American Higher Speed Railroad Network - Up to 110 mph - Contirbute to Productivity and Competitiveness? As our railroad system is a freight railroad system, additional passenger service in many instances impedes freight operations due to diefferences in freight and passneger speeds. If both operated at 110 mph max, they would then be speed compatible. Would higher freight speeds create more competiveness and productivity for the American economy? Would higher speed compatibility attract passener business both now bound to the road and the air? Would a higher speed railroad (HrSR) system relieve / lessen truck / auto congestion and passenger air congestion? These thoughts from "The Economics and Politics of High-Speed Rail" by Albalate and Gel.
In all probability going to 'one-speed' at a somewhat lower speed would give you most of the practical 'benefits'. Many attempts have been made to accelerate the speed of intermodal service, but most of them founder on how to 'monetize' the gains from additional speed, and there are relatively few pieces of cost-effective freight equipment that could run at 110mph technically, let alone 'legally'. To get the one-speed high speed benefit you would need extensive and expensive rebuilding of equipment in the 'general system of transportation' and that money could be spent in many better places than arranging high sustained speed ... or outside the rail industry entirely, since payback for the added freight speed would be so paltry.
On top of this, 110mph passenger ops need long runs of high continuous speed for the time gains to mean anything. If we accomplish HrSR by the usual gradualism (see Charlie hebdo's recent post about German practice) you will be spending an enormous amount for what starts as 5 to 10 minutes quicker corridor speed ... most riders won't give much of a crap but the much more vast non-riding taxpayer base subsiding such 'improvement' certainly will, in ways unlikely to be positive.
Note that there is a serious increase in fuel burn and required suspension and guiding engineering when going from, say, 90mph peak to 110. It is not nearly as pronounced as what's needed for 125mph, but it is nontrivial and some people here may know specific cost numbers for the differential. It would be possible to address some of this with well-designed catenary, but don't expect private money to provide that.
To answer the question posed in your title- not really. Speed of delivering goods is not high on the list of what affects the competitiveness of most goods. It's the relative cost of the delivered goods that’s the deciding factor in whether a product is cost competitive.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
I can't really address the productive component, but...competitive? Against what? Trucks? Ships? Other economies?
Actually, a good question! There are high hurdles to get over to get 110 mph freight trains operation. Heck, 90 mph would be tough. The freight cars just don't have the suspension or braking of that kind of speed. Also, piling on enough HP to get to 110 mph would be a tough task, as well.
You'd probably need to electrify and get ECP braking everywhere and trash the 3 piece freight truck. While you're at it, might as well build lighter, cheaper and less strong freight cars and go very heavy with DPU.
The economic side of it revolves around the carrying cost of inventory. Is the stuff on the train worth enough to pay for the higher speed?
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Careful there Don, you know the OP has been hanging around some of those so-called "transportation planners" who have been out in the back-alleys smoking dope and spending other people's money.
The basic problem with rail passenger service is that the tracks have to be where your are, and go where you need to go.
For most Americans that is the basic problem, most of us don't live in cities, nor do we want to, nor is our typical destination a big city.
I will use my classic example of a car vs air travel. We live in the northern rural suburbs of Baltimore. We have relatives in the Detroit suburbs. I can get in my car and drive to my relatives door in about 8-1/2 hours for a cost of $50-$75 in fuel and food.
But if I want to fly (or take a train) I have to drive my car in the wrong direction for nearly one hour to get to BWI airport. Park it in a place of questionable security (you may drive an old junker but I don't), then wait around the airport for two hours of security checks, etc. Get on the plane (driving I am in Ohio by now), fly to Detroit, rent a car, drive to my relatives home about 1 hour from the airport.
Elapsed time portal to portal - 8-9 hours.......
Expense - a whole bunch more even with some discount air fare, that may have got me "bumped" from the flight.......
Some will say driving is stressfull and tiring - so is anything having to do with an airport.........
So, unless I'm going to Chicago, or LA, or Las Vegas from Baltimore, driving is better and cheaper. 500 miles is the earliest tipping point in favor of other forms of travel.
Now, if you live in city "A", and your work or your pleasure takes you to the heart of city "B", well than OK. But what percentage of the population does that apply to? Pretty small I suspect.
And so as mentioned above why should the rest of us subsidize that?
Freight - I would love to see fewer long haul trucks on the highway and see them instead on flat cars - all you have to do is improve loading/unloading times and train scheduling - AND convince some industries that "just in time" deliveries are actually costing more than they save.
Freight does not have to move fast, it just has to move....not sit around in freight yards for days.......
I know this is spilt milk, but if the government had gotten out of the way of piggyback in 1950 instead of 1983, a whole lot more freight would be on flat cars by now.......
And if we were really interested in highway safety, we would have never allowed the trucks to get this big and heavy......which would have been another incentive for piggyback (or intermodal as we say today).
Sheldon
Murphy Siding To answer the question posed in your title- not really. Speed of delivering goods is not high on the list of what affects the competitiveness of most goods. It's the relative cost of the delivered goods that’s the deciding factor in whether a product is cost competitive.
Fully Agree! Very little freight is that time-sensitive. Reliability, which was a major issue in the "dark days" of the 1970's, is a far-better measure of performance here.
What I do believe would pay large dividends would be to upgrade present-day communter lines to "exurban" status via higher speeds; this would vastly increase he radius around our major cities at which rail passenger services would be competitive.
The private sector won't touch this for reasons which should be obvious; but there ought to be a means via which the benefits of the investment (not only in revenues, but in the increased value of property served) could be determined; but it also should be noted that the development of exurban intermodal terminals, some at a considerable distance from the anchor city would act as a mitigating factor.
The investment, particularly in signaling and dispatching (and as wih the inception of Metroink in Southern California) would be subsantial, so cost-benefit ratios need to reflect this more accurately.
La Poste (French Postal Service) used five "half" TGV trainsets painted bright yellow for 31 years.
However, two years ago they retired them for more "standard" rail transport.
http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/freight/last-post-for-french-high-speed-freight-as-postal-tgvs-bow-out.html
In a word, no.
I worked in intermodal marketing and I'll tell you that if you give me a 40 MPH schedule between Chicago and Memphis (500 miles), the railroad will dominate the lane. Ship it on Monday afternoon and get it reliably delivered Tuesday morning, that's the key. Reasonably fast and reliable.
Faster service cost more and therefor reduces the railroad's advantage over trucking. You're never going to beat a truck's time, so sell reasonable time schedules, reliability, and savings. Yes, a truck can go from door to door on the Chicago - Memphis run in eight hours. So what? The vast majority of customers don't need a few hours savings. As long as your service is reliable
It is not about the top speed but eliminating the slow sections.. If all the NEC NYPS - WASH was 125 MPH capable then enroute time would be just over 2 hours. The 150 MPH improvements /trenton - Newark would give that 2 hours.
blue streak 1 It is not about the top speed but eliminating the slow sections.
It is not about the top speed but eliminating the slow sections.
True enough. Bring many buckets of money for each one.
Mac
PNWRMNM blue streak 1 It is not about the top speed but eliminating the slow sections. True enough. Bring many buckets of money for each one. Mac
Yes, like the replacement of the Susquehanna Rivier bridge on the Northeast corridor........
SAMUEL C WALKERWould an American Higher Speed Railroad Network - Up to 110 mph - Contirbute to Productivity and Competitiveness? As our railroad system is a freight railroad system, additional passenger service in many instances impedes freight operations due to diefferences in freight and passneger speeds. If both operated at 110 mph max, they would then be speed compatible. Would higher freight speeds create more competiveness and productivity for the American economy? Would higher speed compatibility attract passener business both now bound to the road and the air? Would a higher speed railroad (HrSR) system relieve / lessen truck / auto congestion and passenger air congestion? These thoughts from "The Economics and Politics of High-Speed Rail" by Albalate and Gel.
Well first let me be the first to tell you that your in the wrong forum if your going to discuss Finance or Economic theory as both topics are well beyond most of the posters here and so you will probably not get the answers your looking for. There is a Economic theory on velocity that says faster velocity is better and produces tangible positive GDP results. That is if everything being equal in your transportation choices and a additional rail choice that did not exist before gets you between point A and point B faster than existing transportation choices then your transportation between A and B no longer takes the time it did which frees you up to produce more and be more productive. Thats how it basically applies to rail passenger service.
Rail Freight service is a somewhat different animal in that your more looking at the increased productivity of rail equipment or the increased utility of getting a transported object from A to B faster......which is a little more complex than a human. Generally, inventories could be tighter if freight train velocity was faster, saving money, equipment utilitization would be more as well and potentially we might see markets expand (say perhaps in the perishable food area) with faster velocity of freight handled by rail. The problem you will run into with faster freight handling is institutional resistance. Since other competing modes that handle bulk freight are not much faster than frieght rail there is not much in the way of motivation to move to a higher speed and pay a higher cost in maintainence........since you can retain the bulk of your existing clients just via the status quo.
I believe there was an experiment not too long ago where the various railroads attempted to run a UPS express intermodal train coast to coast. The railroads involved struggled to do so with their existing infrastruture, signaling and crew change systems in place. The railroads were not willing to fund the improvements necessary to get past these hurdles without increased fees being paid by UPS to help cover or cover all of their increased costs. UPS didn't see the point in paying for marginally improved service and felt the railroads should fund it to retain their buiness or capture more UPS business............and thats where the experiment ended.......an argument over who pays for the better service.
I assume that what the OP refers to is a PPP arrangement in which the government funds the capital upgrade as public infrastructure. So the government will decide whether it is cost-effective. So it seems to me that this would be a nationalized transportation overlay onto existing private freight railroads. It would be kind of like a high speed freight Amtrak.
[quote user="CMStPnP"]
So, CMStPnP says that there is an Economic Theory somewhere, note he did not bother to cite it, that says faster passenger transport increases GDP and effieciency. Lets stipuate that, there is such a theory. The problem is how much increase in GDP and effiency FOR HOW MUCH COST. This is plain old cost/benefit analysis which itself is succeptible to manipulation.
Proponents almost never consider the cost, as you did not, and when a specific project gets beyond the vague idea stage they always under estimate the cost and over estimate the benefit.
For an example of cost underestimates review the history of the California Bullet Train. The benefits are the most difficult to get correct. Consider a project much like your original question, a faster Chicago-St. Louis train with 110 MPH speed. I think end to end time savings was about an hour. What is that worth?
Theory is simple figure total traffic, how many passengers, say 100,000 per year, multiply hours saved by their hourly pay rate, and that is the value of time saved, or benefit. Nice theory but is it real? First, the economic value of time of many passengers is zero. Retired people, kids, and students, those not employed in other words, have no time value. Whether they spend that hour on a slow train or at home makes no difference to GDP. What about the employed? Will they use that saved hour to do more work and add to GDP or will they spend the time with their kids, which while possibly of huge social value, will add nothing to GDP.
My point is that theory is theory, but theory is not reality.
Next those annual benefits must be discounted to bring them to the present so the present value of life cycle benefits can be compared to the present value of life cycle costs.
What interest rate to use? 30 year US government bonds or railroad's Weighted Average Cost of Capital, that is 3% or 12% in round numbers. This will make a huge difference in the present value of future cash flows. Proponents naturally take the US bonds rate on the theory that the Feds will be the source of the funds, which may or not be true in any particular case. The true cost is probably closer to WACC since that will be the true cost to the econonmy, due to Federal borrowing crouding out private intestment that would have otherwise been made. No proponent will ever admit that. They like the unfair advantage of the government's fat hand and unstated assumptions on the scale.
Everybody has a bias. Factor that into whatever claims anybody makes. Follow the money. Consultants love high speed rail projects since they are a honey pot for the consultants whether they get built or not.
Euclid I assume that what the OP refers to is a PPP arrangement in which the government funds the capital upgrade as public infrastructure. So the government will decide whether it is cost-effective. So it seems to me that this would be a nationalized transportation overlay onto existing private freight railroads. It would be kind of like a high speed freight Amtrak.
CMStPnP .......Rail Freight service is a somewhat different animal in that your more looking at the increased productivity of rail equipment or the increased utility of getting a transported object from A to B faster......which is a little more complex than a human. Generally, inventories could be tighter if freight train velocity was faster, saving money, equipment utilitization would be more as well and potentially we might see markets expand (say perhaps in the perishable food area) with faster velocity of freight handled by rail. The problem you will run into with faster freight handling is institutional resistance. Since other competing modes that handle bulk freight are not much faster than frieght rail there is not much in the way of motivation to move to a higher speed and pay a higher cost in maintainence........since you can retain the bulk of your existing clients just via the status quo. I believe there was an experiment not too long ago where the various railroads attempted to run a UPS express intermodal train coast to coast. The railroads involved struggled to do so with their existing infrastruture, signaling and crew change systems in place. The railroads were not willing to fund the improvements necessary to get past these hurdles without increased fees being paid by UPS to help cover or cover all of their increased costs. UPS didn't see the point in paying for marginally improved service and felt the railroads should fund it to retain their buiness or capture more UPS business............and thats where the experiment ended.......an argument over who pays for the better service.
.......Rail Freight service is a somewhat different animal in that your more looking at the increased productivity of rail equipment or the increased utility of getting a transported object from A to B faster......which is a little more complex than a human. Generally, inventories could be tighter if freight train velocity was faster, saving money, equipment utilitization would be more as well and potentially we might see markets expand (say perhaps in the perishable food area) with faster velocity of freight handled by rail. The problem you will run into with faster freight handling is institutional resistance. Since other competing modes that handle bulk freight are not much faster than frieght rail there is not much in the way of motivation to move to a higher speed and pay a higher cost in maintainence........since you can retain the bulk of your existing clients just via the status quo.
I'd say that the overwhelming majority of tonnage hauled on our railroads is not time sensitive. Having that train of grain, lumber, coal or oil show up a few hours or even a few days sooner doesn’t make it worth more. To speed up the whole rail system to get those items that are time sensitive as far as pricing goes would not make economic sense.
Murphy Siding Euclid I assume that what the OP refers to is a PPP arrangement in which the government funds the capital upgrade as public infrastructure. So the government will decide whether it is cost-effective. So it seems to me that this would be a nationalized transportation overlay onto existing private freight railroads. It would be kind of like a high speed freight Amtrak. Why do you get to say what the OP means?
Why do you get to say what the OP means?
I said I assumed what he meant. I assumed he was referring to a PPP arrangement because he said this:
These thoughts from "The Economics and Politics of High-Speed Rail" by Albalate and Gel.
Maybe the OP will come back and confirm what I assumed.
It's evident this is gearing up to be another exercise in pointless semanticism when someone quotes a reference without ... well, not just without reading it, or the Rodrigues or some other review of it, but not even bothering to correct the wretched typo (his name is Bel, not "Gel")
The relevant sources they used for 'American practice' are listed before the formal introduction, and discussion of the 'special' American case begins on p.9, both of which can be read in online preview. I recommend that y'all actually read the material, taking due note of the Fogel quote and the authors' response to it, before getting Euclyrusized in theoretical minutiae unrelated to the OP's question (which, incidentally, I don't see following from what the authors say in the book...)
Euclid Murphy Siding Euclid I assume that what the OP refers to is a PPP arrangement in which the government funds the capital upgrade as public infrastructure. So the government will decide whether it is cost-effective. So it seems to me that this would be a nationalized transportation overlay onto existing private freight railroads. It would be kind of like a high speed freight Amtrak. Why do you get to say what the OP means? I said I assumed what he meant. I assumed he was referring to a PPP arrangement because he said this: These thoughts from "The Economics and Politics of High-Speed Rail" by Albalate and Gel. Maybe the OP will come back and confirm what I assumed.
Oh No! Never Assume anything. You know what happens when you assume something, right?
To the railroad, there are a few things that are time sensitive. Enough that they'll kill off (HOS, not actually murder) crews on other trains to keep the hot ones moving. Think UPS. But in the big picture, the hottest of UPS business doesn't go by rail. For the railroad, reliability would go along way to get more business. Assuming (See, now you have me doing it. And I know what happens when you assume.) they want more business.
Jeff
Overmodgetting Euclyrusized
I'm surprised that gem passed without a comment. That should win the best posting award for January!! Congrats.
jeffhergertTo the railroad, there are a few things that are time sensitive. Enough that they'll kill off (HOS, not actually murder) crews on other trains to keep the hot ones moving. Think UPS. But in the big picture, the hottest of UPS business doesn't go by rail. For the railroad, reliability would go along way to get more business. Assuming (See, now you have me doing it. And I know what happens when you assume.) they want more business.
Based on what happened during the UPS experience I agree niether client nor railroad wants to stick it's neck out with a trial unless they have a guarantee the money potentially wasted would not be their own. I seem to remember prior to the UPS transcontinental test there was also the Santa Fe experiment with adding a premium fee, higher speed intermodal train that also didn't do so well. Wasn't it called the "Super Chief"? Clients could not be convinced to pay the higher fee on the Super Chief because the speed improvement was only marginal at best.
At any rate the railroads really do not seem to want to spend a whole lot of money experimenting in this area which I think is a impediment as well. The biggest reason it seems is nobody is really pushing them too and they seem to feel they have enough traffic without adding a new market........they are happy with the traffic niche's they have already carved out for themselves.
Though it will be interesting if the Brightline service proposal spreads beyond Florida. Brightline Executives have hinted that if the service is a success in Florida they would want to expand outside the state as well and I wonder what that would mean for existing Amtrak corridor contracts as well as potentially new corridors or potentially if there would be a bidding war for corridor operations between Amtrak and Brightline.........thats at least 7-10 years in the future though AND only if the Florida service is a success.
As I recall, the Santa Fe's expedited freight service was called the Super C.
Johnny
Higher speed track is one cost element that keeps on spending at a higher level to raise the track to 110 MPH specs and then keep it at that specification. Higher maintenance expenditures are required to keep higher speed tracks safe at their higher speeds.
Secondly, all freight equipment would have to be redesigned and rebuilt to operate at 110 MPH and maintaining that equipment safe for those speeds would require signifigantly more maintenance expenditures.
From a railroad standpoint, the only possible return for all the expenditures would be increased equipment utilization. Today's rail customers expect daily service at agreed upon time windows - improving O-D transit times by anything less than 24 hours has not speeded what the customer sees at all.
Whatever time passenger service is sped up will be noticable to the customer, but will it be enough to include rail transit as their prefered mode of travel?
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
PNWRMNMSo, CMStPnP says that there is an Economic Theory somewhere, note he did not bother to cite it, that says faster passenger transport increases GDP and effieciency. Lets stipuate that, there is such a theory.
At most a 3-5 min search via Google. Your not a data scientist and neither are most of the readers here so to find a non-technical article without complex charts and graphs which you would struggle to understand might take longer both are really beyond the audience of this forum as I stated earlier.
But here is a good starter article for you since your incapable of using the keywords I provided with Google. Still I am willing to bet some of what is dicussed in the below is above your comprehension, hence I was hesistant to post a link since the article will tend to be misread or misquoted.
London School of Economics: From Periphery to Core, Economic Adjustments to High Speed Rail (downloadable *.pdf):
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/29430/
CMStPnP At most a 3-5 min search via Google. Your not a data scientist and neither are most of the readers here so to find a non-technical article without complex charts and graphs which you would struggle to understand might take longer both are really beyond the audience of this forum as I stated earlier. But here is a good starter article for you since your incapable of using the keywords I provided with Google. Still I am willing to bet some of what is dicussed in the below is above your comprehension, hence I was hesistant to post a link since the article will tend to be misread or misquoted. London School of Economics: From Periphery to Core, Economic Adjustments to High Speed Rail (downloadable *.pdf): http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/29430/
Murphy SidingThe above referenced link is based on the densely populated part of Europe that has an entirely different transportation system and transportation financing than in the U.S. Is that a relevent source in light of the old apples/oranges type comaparison? Ad
Thanks for proving my point and commenting on the submission without reading it in it's entirety. This is what I meant with my first post and hopefully the OP reads this and learns from it.
CMStPnP Murphy Siding The above referenced link is based on the densely populated part of Europe that has an entirely different transportation system and transportation financing than in the U.S. Is that a relevent source in light of the old apples/oranges type comaparison? Ad Thanks for proving my point and commenting on the submission without reading it in it's entirety. This is what I meant with my first post and hopefully the OP reads this and learns from it.
Murphy Siding The above referenced link is based on the densely populated part of Europe that has an entirely different transportation system and transportation financing than in the U.S. Is that a relevent source in light of the old apples/oranges type comaparison? Ad
It looks like I'm in good company. You didn't read it either. Oh well. I'm looking forward to how you explain the relevance of a study about congested railroads in a tightly packed, urban, industrial continent verses a railroad system hauling zillions of tons of non-time sensitive, commodities over long distances.
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