charlie hebdoAlaska was admitted to statehood about 60 years ago. Other than a boomlet during the north slope oil rush, there hasn't been anything of note commercially except tourism and fishing since. Why pour billions into infrastructure? To support what? A land bridge to Russia and the rest of Asia?
How did we get our first transcontinental railroad again? Why did the government spend any money on it?
Did you know the first locomotive over the newly laid Milwaukee and Waukesha railway in Wisconsin was named "Westward Ho!".....why did the people at the time feel the need to name it that? They had plank roads to Waukesha that were sufficient and profitable, why build a railroad? Very expensive and not needed at the time plus it would undoubtedly only compete with the plank road /hotel system already established and make that less profitable.
BTW, historical note: Brookfield preserved it's plank road hotel. When I was a kid growing up it was still a residential home located on Bluemound road but then the last owner of the bloodline died, and they relocated it and moved it about a mile down Pilgrim Road. I believe Fond Du Lac also has preserved it's plank road hotel as well.
CM, I've come around to agree with you.
tree68 ... On top of that, the insurance companies regularly refuse the first billing submission. That way they can hold on to your money (premiums) that much longer.
On top of that, the insurance companies regularly refuse the first billing submission. That way they can hold on to your money (premiums) that much longer.
Same tactic that railroads use when valid contract violation time claims are submitted.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACD tree68 ... On top of that, the insurance companies regularly refuse the first billing submission. That way they can hold on to your money (premiums) that much longer. Same tactic that railroads use when valid contract violation time claims are submitted.
Same tactic that most municipalities use when people submit claims for losses caused by municipal employees.
BaltACDSame tactic that railroads use when valid contract violation time claims are submitted.
Your claim is without merit and therefore denied...
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
Assume the link is made.
Will tour operators be permitted to provide passenger service as a land cruise?
Victrola1Assume the link is made. Will tour operators be permitted to provide passenger service as a land cruise?
If common-carrier rights are assumed, a case could be made that service for passengers could be. I'm not sure how delightful a 'cruise' it would be with a stream of CBTC-controlled stack trains going the other way at over 100mph relative speed, or keeping the cruise train on strict time-and-territory limits as it progresses. On the other hand it should be technically easy to compress traffic into blocks of traffic 'away' from a cruise train given the restricted number of these likely to 'financially survive' on a route that long, across a territory likely devoid of secondary destination attractions (including things like new First Nations casino-style complexes "co-located" with mining operations; should we call one 'Julesburg?) for a considerable and unpredictable time.
If the thing is built either fully or quasi-open access, as I think A2A and G7G are assuming in their financial planning so far, a cruise train would only have to fulfill the company's access provisions: equipment safety documentation, appropriate insurance coverage and passenger support enroute via helicopter or special vehicle, etc. There would be further support needed at points enroute and at endpoints that might involve switching or dwell; these would also be billed for. Expect bonding and escrow requirements above that for regular freight and perhaps more than for most types of hazmat.
I would like to imagine the dawn of new Chateau Lauriers (more specifically like the one at Port-au-Pic) as a kind of 'anchor location' for new town development in the current wilderness. I don't see the likelihood for necessary development remotely occurring from cruise-train traffic levels --pun intended -- but I'd be delighted to be proven wrong.
Victrola1Will tour operators be permitted to provide passenger service as a land cruise?
I would opine that land cruises would be more palatable than scheduled service. The land cruises could be shoehorned into the regular flow of traffic.
There is also the question as to what class of track will be maintained. Class 3 would be sufficient for freight operations (40 MPH), and that would permit 60 MPH passenger operations, when open track was available.
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...
If it is sold as a land cruise, freight speeds would probably be sufficient. Think Rocky Mountaineer.
adkrr64If it is sold as a land cruise, freight speeds would probably be sufficient. Think Rocky Mountaineer.
On the other hand, to get best return out of the very expensive project at least some of the bridge traffic might be fleeted at higher speed, this becoming higher priority if there is a full connection to Asia and Europe across the Strait. The cruise train might have to accommodate this in its operation.
A railine from the lower 48 is highly desirable for strategic military reasons. Russia has been aggressively pushing its claims in the Arctic for many years and expanding its military presence in the region. Railroads are how the bulk of heavy equipment and supplies move.
Finally, there could be a legit train called the North Pole Express. Dreamland though, all passenger services in Alaska are subsidized. I would really be curious in a side by side compare between Alaska railroad passenger services and say Amtrak on a financial basis but thats probably never going to happen. My hunch is Alaska does better in the Summer with the Cruise ships but then in the long winter looses it's shirt.
MJ4562A rail line from the lower 48 is highly desirable for strategic military reasons. Russia has been aggressively pushing its claims in the Arctic for many years and expanding its military presence in the region.
Actually easier to repair a railroad than a highway..
daveklepper Actually easier to repair a railroad than a highway..
Actually? You state that as a fact. Evidence?
OM: You are right. My question would be why in 45 years of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, we had no need for a railroad to defend Alaska. Now Putin is no friend of ours (except with a high level few here), but we are now supposed to be persuaded that a much weaker Russia is such a threat that we need a railroad to Alaska for national security?
Charlie, I don't have time to look this up, but I simply recall it as part of my Army ROTC four years at MIT. Do you have contradicting info?
Meanwhilem a reader that served in the Transportation Corps may wish to comment.
Charlie, administrations during the Cold War period relied omn USA military alliances and ties with allies. Can we rely on thosr two factors alone, now?
daveklepperCharlie, administrations during the Cold War period relied omn USA military alliances and ties with allies. Can we rely on thosr two factors alone, now?
Yes - if we don't make our friends into our enemies. Making Canada an enemy will not benefit the project.
daveklepper Charlie, I don't have time to look this up, but I simply recall it as part of my Army ROTC four years at MIT. Do you have contradicting info? Meanwhilem a reader that served in the Transportation Corps may wish to comment.
Your ROTC training would have been approximately 65 years ago in the mid-50s in the midst of the Cold War, pre-ICBMs as weapons delivery systems, so more of a conventional war mentality. Yet there are no indications that there were any plans back then for the US to build a rail line mostly in Canada for defense purposes.
OvermodAnd you think that this would be defendable in any actual threatened confrontation for how many minutes? Sabotage, including strategically 'convenient' avalanches or landslips, would be far less avidly prosecuted or condemned as an act of war in Canada, I suspect, and United States assistance in getting the damage repaired might be slow to deploy or unwilling to work in what would be guerrilla-war conditions...
It's far easier and far less risky militarily to slip subs into the intercoastal waterway and sink very slow moving sea going rail barges then it is to land troops sabotage a rail line on a countries interior and pickup those same troops without being detected. I believe we discovered this on the East Coast during World War II .......wasn't the carnage so bad that Roosevelt ordered the news stories on the attacks as not to be reported on? He could do that under a Declaration of War and I believe I read somewhere he did with the close into the coast attacks so as to not cause a general panic. Same thing was done with the airborne Japanese fire bombs on the West Coast. They could not report on the resulting fires as it would only serve to assist the Japanese war effort.
So I would agree with the original post. In wartime the rail line is a more secure option from attack just via it being in a wilderness and so far inland in a inhospitable climate for a good portion of the year. Also, Canadian Naval patrol boats are......well nevermind, off in the weeds there, you can Google if interested. :)
1. It's the Intracoastal Waterway.
2. It's pretty shallow in many places for modern shipping. Minimum depth is supposed to be 12 feet, but it's only 6-7 feet in some areas.
3. U-Boots? Doubtful. Let's see your documentation for that whopper. Of course they certainly operated off the Atlantic and Gulf coasts early in the war, sinking many ships in full view of people in cities, especially tankers at night prior to blackout restrictions.
charlie hebdoYour ROTC training would have been approximately 65 years ago in the mid-50s in the midst of the Cold War, pre-ICBMs as weapons delivery systems, so more of a conventional war mentality. Yet there are no indications that there were any plans back then for the US to build a rail line mostly in Canada for defense purposes.
You did not respond to my point which was, since you didn't seem to get it, not that Dave was wrong, but that when he served or when you did, there was no DOD plan to build a railroad line through Canada to Alaska for national security. Was there one? That's the question and the point is that even in the depths of the Cold War there was no such plan. So why would you, Mr. Anti-government, want to spend a huge amount of public money now when it's doubtful private enterprise sees any reason to?
Just to be clear, I was not discrediting Dave. The reason I mentioned the time period was because it was in the Cold War and even then there does not appear to have been a plan to build essentially a military railroad. If you simply have some personal vendetta, that's your problem.
daveklepperActually easier to repair a railroad than a highway...
The chief thing that has changed in the last 20 years or so is the development of precision-guided munitions. Repeated strikes even with low-level cruise missiles would make defense in depth of any mountain railway a crapshoot; with the innovation of long-loiter UAVs it becomes an interesting subject of just what even conventional air superiority might mean to a debilitating strike against traffic as well as bridges, tunnels, or areas where strikes might cause landslip or avalanche either above or below grade. While a MIRV or MARV strike is unlikely to me, it is likely there are many locations on the proposed railway where very large land movement, probably associated with radiological contamination, could render the railroad as a practical through route interdicted fir an extended time and perhaps permanently; I would suspect that appropriate nuclear ordnance could be delivered by cruise to similar effect.
This is different from repairing railroads and yards in open country, where access is relatively simple and ordinary 'shoofly' construction easy. We have even a couple of recent examples of severe damage ameliorated in a short time where the repair equipment could be brought in and worked easily. That might be less assured in cold and deep-snow conditions, in areas not amenable to heavy lift, where significant grading or heavy fill might be required even for slow speed.
charlie hebdo... there was no DOD plan to build a railroad line through Canada to Alaska for national security. Was there one?
No one has seriously considered operating forward air support using selective portions of a double-track main line as runways. Nor would it be effective to 'portage' even container traffic across a break in the railway, for a variety of fairly predictable reasons. And it is highly difficult to disguise, let alone hide a railroad of meaningful length from the air or space, even if you could obfuscate its existence (e.g. by pretending the Dease Lake extension was never finished) -- meaning it would be a 1400-mile sitting duck.
1. Much of what you write about rail dangers also applies to heavy-duty highways.
2. The USA and Canada can be depended upon, in my opinion, to maintain air superiority. Regarding missels, the USA and Canada have all the equipment and technology that Israel has, and this keeps pace with what the intelligence operations of these three countries learn of develpments in China, Russia, N. Korea, and Iran. Based on what the Ayatollas seem to keep proclaiming, I would not be sitting at a computer writting this without those defensive capabilities.
I fhink that all English speaking countries will remain allies of the USA, and not just Canada, but some others might be shaky. Turkey and Iran were once allies.
And economic warfair seems upon us already, and that factors into this railway's construction.
daveklepperRegarding missiles...
charlie hebdoand even then there does not appear to have been a plan to build essentially a military railroad.
I'm just curious because you stated you served before, why do you think that is? and why do you think DoD designates Hawaii and Alaska as being "overseas"?
greyhoundsOh, Good Grief! This is so Charlie Hebdo. Since he can’t respond to the discussion, he attacks, seeks to discredit, or otherwise diminish the source.
In Daves Defense, I went through Infantry OSUT in 1982, Followed my Nephew through the course online via a webpage in 2007. Not a huge change in training. Attended a 101st Airborne reunion in 2009 with Veterans and Active Duty troops combined. I was still fully conversant in the MOS, most of the tactics and skillset. Not a whole lot has changed.....even on the Officer end. The new technology like the tap screens for confirming air strike targets, mobile LANs and EMail's between vehicles is all new but it doesn't require huge amounts of new training either, it's very inituitive and blends with the old skills well (that is how it was designed). Pretty sure you could put Dave as an Officer in a unit of today and he could ramp up pretty fast if he was in physical shape for it.
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