Maglev Don-- I enjoyed the coach lounge on a 747 from Honolulu to Boston in 1974. And of course you are aware that 14 hours is a century-old time for New York to Chicago. Every time I have been on a train with a lounge car, the tables are used by passengers for socializing and enjoying their trip. I have not been on an airplane for a few years, but I hope congregating is still not allowed because I also know a lot about details of airplane construction... As for travel times, anyone who needs to go from New York to Chicago and back in a day needs the ability to take a plane in the absence of futuristic trains. But look at the New York to Pittsburgh section. How about the friend or relative, who is not in a hurry, and wants to go from Trenton, NJ, to Greeensburg, PA? Orbitz shows me flights taking two hours for $200, round trip. But it takes hours to get to the airports, and what if the traveler sweats a lot and needs more than three ounces of deodorant?
Don--
I enjoyed the coach lounge on a 747 from Honolulu to Boston in 1974. And of course you are aware that 14 hours is a century-old time for New York to Chicago.
Every time I have been on a train with a lounge car, the tables are used by passengers for socializing and enjoying their trip. I have not been on an airplane for a few years, but I hope congregating is still not allowed because I also know a lot about details of airplane construction...
As for travel times, anyone who needs to go from New York to Chicago and back in a day needs the ability to take a plane in the absence of futuristic trains. But look at the New York to Pittsburgh section. How about the friend or relative, who is not in a hurry, and wants to go from Trenton, NJ, to Greeensburg, PA? Orbitz shows me flights taking two hours for $200, round trip. But it takes hours to get to the airports, and what if the traveler sweats a lot and needs more than three ounces of deodorant?
But, you can already do Trenton to Greensburg on the train, in fact, PA and Amtrak just finished up getting Philly to Harrisburg up to 110 mph. Harrisburg to Huntingdon is not too bad a trip - there are a few stretches of 75 and 80 mph where the curves are broad. West of there, lots and lots of curves and slow running. But, if that's not good enough, you can drive it in about 5 hours.
P.S. best NYC to Chicago times were 16 hours for the Broadway and 20th Century. They flirted with sub 16 hr times in around 1950, but reverted to 16 again shortly thereafter. NYC was 90 mph on the west end, PRR was 80 but there was much cheating to keep on the 16hrs. There was a nice story in Trains a while back about a crew on the Ft. Wayne Div burying the speed indicator of T1 on the 120 mph peg trying to shave a few minutes off a late train. (Truth was they didn't know if they would ever get assigned a T1 again and they wanted to see what it would do!) Getting to 14 hr even with 120 mph running where the route is straight enough would be some trick!
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Maglev Regarding hydro, additional dams would be very unpopular. TIME LINE OF INACTION: 50 years ago -- global warming is proved Trains begin their precipitous decline. 40 years ago -- Pennsylnania Station torn down. Pollution is rampant, Cuyahoga river catches fire. Passenger trains at low point. 30 years ago -- Energy crisis. Amtrak gets some new cars. 20 years ago -- climate change is still debated. Amtrak continues to cut routes rather than expand service 10 years ago -- nothing done about climate change or Penn Station. US fights wars over oil. Amtrak gets 50 new sleepers but no diners, a few locomotives, and struggles for 70 mph. schedule times on NEC. Now: still debating climate change and Penn Station. Some US states and cities developing rail projects, but no there is no clear future vision of a sustainable future. Wars over oil continues. Without an agressive vision that we have a sustainable future, I do not see a clear future course of action.
Regarding hydro, additional dams would be very unpopular.
TIME LINE OF INACTION:
50 years ago -- global warming is proved Trains begin their precipitous decline.
40 years ago -- Pennsylnania Station torn down. Pollution is rampant, Cuyahoga river catches fire. Passenger trains at low point.
30 years ago -- Energy crisis. Amtrak gets some new cars.
20 years ago -- climate change is still debated. Amtrak continues to cut routes rather than expand service
10 years ago -- nothing done about climate change or Penn Station. US fights wars over oil. Amtrak gets 50 new sleepers but no diners, a few locomotives, and struggles for 70 mph. schedule times on NEC.
Now: still debating climate change and Penn Station. Some US states and cities developing rail projects, but no there is no clear future vision of a sustainable future. Wars over oil continues.
Without an agressive vision that we have a sustainable future, I do not see a clear future course of action.
I would put it this way:
50 years ago - conventional passenger railroading given up on by private enterprise. Can't compete for business travel with airlines that grew on the back of aviation advances and supply of planes, pilots and airports from WWII. Leisure travellers abandon trains to drive improved cars on improved roads. Driving is so much fun, people do it just for the sake of doing it. Middle class abandons cities for the suburbs.
40 years ago - Metroliner appears with small gov't investment. Saves intercity passenger railroading. Amtrak formed shortly thereafter. Gets funding for all new or rebuilt equipment just before energy crisis hits in 1973.
30 years ago - second energy crisis. Large pruning of Amtrak network by Carter Admin. NEC upgraded.
20 years ago - rebuilt equipment replaced by new during Reagan Admin. Second round of new locomotives purchased. Funding for upper half of NEC pushed through. Penn Station gets moderized.
10 years ago - upper half of NEC complete. Bottom half starts to crumble. A decade of really bad mgt at Amtrak. (Downs and Warrington) Lots of planning and legislation about emerging high speed corridors at Federal level, but no funding. Penn Station still handles the load, but growth of commuter traffic makes things tight. NJT builds their own concource at Penn.
Now. - Some funding for expansion looks likely. Lets see how it turns out.
All the time - Intercity passenger railroading almost completely irrelevent to global warming. Not enough there there. Now, if you want to talk about frt railroading or transit or commuter rail or plug in hybrid cars, or the re-urbanization of America - things that can really make a difference - I'm listening!
Juniperhouse How much should we charge for gasoline? How much should we charge for roads? How do we charge for roads, especially if alternative fuels or energy sources arrive, and you have vehicles such as electric cars that do not burn gasoline (no gas tax, but use road capacity)? If we charged as much as we should for roads, what difference would it make not only for passenger trains, but for local transit such as trolley lines?
How much should we charge for gasoline? How much should we charge for roads? How do we charge for roads, especially if alternative fuels or energy sources arrive, and you have vehicles such as electric cars that do not burn gasoline (no gas tax, but use road capacity)? If we charged as much as we should for roads, what difference would it make not only for passenger trains, but for local transit such as trolley lines?
Clearly, fuel taxes do not cover the total cost of driving. Accordingly, motorists don't know how much it really costs them. If they did they would probably modify their behavior, i.e. drive more fuel efficient vehicles, use public transport, etc., where the cost of expanding the highways and airways is prohibitive or the hassles associated with driving to work are too great.
Your numbers are reasonably accurate. For example, in 2007 $34.5 billion was transferred from the General Fund to the Highway Trust Fund. But on a per mile basis the federal subsidy received by motorists was approximately .0138 cents per mile compared to 24.45 cents per mile for Amtrak's passengers. The numbers were even worse for commuter and light rail. The key is cost per mile, which is an indictor of utility, as opposed to gross figures, which are useless for comparison purposes.
In Texas, where I live, state fuel taxes pay for most of the state highway system, although in a convoluted way. The country roads, as well as 90 per cent of the cost of most city streets, are funded by property taxes, which are paid by practically all of the state's motorists. In addition, over the past decade, the state has turned increasingly to toll roads because the gasoline tax has not been sufficient to cover the cost of building the roadways the state needs.
According to the late Texas Transportation Commissioner, Texas would have to increase the gasoline tax to $1.40 per gallon to meet Texas' road needs without resorting to toll roads. This translates into 6.2 cents per mile for a typical personal vehicle in Texas. When added to the federal gasoline tax, plus the federal subsidy, the fuel tax for the feds and state would be 7.0338 cents per mile. Assuming that the per mile cost of county roads and city streets doubles the per mile cost, the total would be 14.0676 per mile, which is considerably below the per mile subsidy for Amtrak.
Translated back to gallons, the fuel tax in Texas would be approximately $3.17 per gallon. Adding it to the current price of a gallon of regular gasoline in Texas would bring the total to approximately $4.87 cents, which is well short of $6 to $8 per gallon.
Many supporters of expanded rail (intercity, commuter, and light), including yours truly where practicable, argue that rail would be more viable if the true cost of gasoline was passed on to motorists in the price of fuel at the pump. However, the argument misses two key important points.
When gasoline goes above a yet to be fully known threshold, the manufactures will rush to alternative fuel vehicles, and the cost of petroleum will become less important. We are seeing the makings of that move now as a result of $4 gas this summer. The other point is more subjective, but very import to consider. The average American, except for those in a few of the country's largest cities, will not give up their car to sit on a crowded train, next to a person who bathes once a week and is jabbering on a cell phone while munching on a Twinkie. It is simply not going to happen.
May I ask a few questions? I am serious about a major overhaul instead of stop-gap measures, and I know it is a hard sell. But do any of you have children? Do you want your children to have children? Exactly what is your personal vision of the future, especially regarding transportation?
RE: Trenton to Greenbsburg, isn't there only one train a day now? Just the Pennsylvanian, no Broadway Limited? I know all their routes, the abandoned routes, and have been on almost every one except Minneapolis to Sandpoint and (now abandoned) Floridian, Pioneer, and Desert Wind My point is that the train should be available as an alternative, but it barely is viable. The reason this thread exists is that we all know Amtrak is very limited. Do we kill it or expand it? .
--Thank you for the correction on the best Chicago - New York schedules. Also, a century is probably a couple decades off in the dating.
--I read the Nature "News Feature" about electric cars last night. This quote sounds the same as my opinion on trains: "Don't worry about charging electric cars from some perfect grid of the future - just get the cars out there" (Mark Duvall, Program Manager of Electric Transportation at the Electric Power Research Institute).
Profit comes from burning fuel. Without that, humans on their own are modestly able to survive. We need fuel for cars, airplanes, trains, fertilizer, manufacturing windmills, etc. Unfortunately, a corollary is that the more fuel you burn, the more profit you earn. That is why government is necessary: to mandate efficiency, because the fuel is causing pollution. Public surface transportation is an important part of this. Most other developed nations know this.
High speed electric trains powered by nuclear fusion power plants -- I am realistic to know that my fusion idea may only pay off in Hawaii, Africa, India, and Iceland. But still, I am optimistic that thermal (as opposed to catalyzed) fusion is on the horizon. Someday, maybe, New York City will need to move out of it's "rat hole" (Trains "NEC" video) train station. But by then it will be too late to correct a mistake made in 1964, so we need to take some leaps forward in transportation policy or we will always be catching up.
So, my vision of the future is that we will be able to use public high speed surface transportation for much of that portion of trips now taken by airplane. Amtrak needs to go from 0.1% to 10% -- I think these are the correct figures from another post. I contend that we need to start now.
Thanks,
Phil
"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood." Daniel Burnham
The reason this thread exists is that we all know Amtrak is very limited. Do we kill it or expand it?
Owing to the political, financial, and environmental situation, it looks like a high likelihood that Amtrak will get a modest expansion in the next few years. This money spent on Amtrak will be only a tiny amount compared to the 150 billion proposed by the incoming administration on things energy, although it will be interesting to see how that 150 billion will fare given the financial situation and given the implosion of the price of oil.
If that modest expansion is successful, it could be the seed of something much larger. If unsuccessful, that is a little bit more of Amtrak in the manner it is muddling through right now, it could spell the end of Amtrak, especially as we go through another one of those cycles where oil gets cheap again.
The passenger train advocacy community is in a unique position to exert influence, especially when there is a modest amount of money to expand Amtrak, there are choices to be made on what to do. The question is what are we, collectively, in the advocacy community going to ask for, how much influence will we have, and if we have influence, what is the eventual outcome of that for which we are advocating?
Are we going to be in a huff if LD trains are discontinued and the new resources are put into corridors? Are we going to be in a snit that we are not getting trans-continental HSR (the source of this thread) out of it? Are we going to be calling our democratically-elected leaders and representatives dumb and the people who voted for them even dumber when we don't get the entirety of what we are advocating in one go-around. Are we going to call our fellow citizens "cowards" for not agreeing 100 percent with the program we are advancing? Are we going to make our advocacy agenda one of calling "shame" on our country for not being up to the standards of South Korea in going ahead with HSR? Are we going to engage in wholesale criticism of the entire U.S. financial and political establishment if the expansion of Amtrak does not take place fast enough?
Are we going to lobby for new equipment for LD trains, perhaps in tradeoff of what could go to corridors? When the new money is spent and there is a somewhat expanded Amtrak, are we going to look critically at what worked and what did not work, or are we going to pronounce all of it good regardless of the outcome and simply demand more money for the next phase of expansion?
Are we going to be happy when a modest expansion of Amtrak takes place, sharing that enthusiasm with the travelling public to play our role in promoting train travel, or are we going to stay angry with the state of affairs being the environment is being ruined and only token efforts are being made to reverse this?
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Paul,
Indeed, in honor of my forefathers, I call SHAME on this country! To fight wars over oil! To hide in ignorance when the rest of the world says cut the carbon! I do not make these statements lightly, I know what I am talking about when I say it doesn't make sense to have an ever-expanding group of "corridors" and no national system.
One thing I wanted to add to my timeline is that Pittsburgh to Greensburg was a proposed mag-lev project about ten years ago. It's still just planned. I had an idea of using a shuttered shopping mall as the terminal; there was a closed "Lazarus" store there and at the time I was working for Federated Department Stores. Greengate Mall is next to the "Broadway" train tracks, so it is on a feasible route. Retail and luxury spending can make surface transportation work!
By the way, was it Kevin Keefe who called Penn Station a "rat hole" in that video? I lent the video to somebody, and never got it back.
As for hydro, it is my impression that is pretty much maxed out. There might be a few more sites...
http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/8442/grandcanyonhydrodw6.jpg
By maui_67photos, shot with Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT at 2008-12-06
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4213223.html
http://www.hydrovolts.com/Refs/Verdant%20River%20Turbines%20report.pdf
New York City actually has a test generator in the water now.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
"New York City actually has a test generator in the water now. "
Yes, there is a plan for a similar tidal system here in the San Juan Islands. I do not put a lot of faith in it or wind for a dramatic breakthrough -- there are more direct ways to harness the energy of the sun. And tidal electricity does not power ferry boats... If tidal turbines will bother the boaters, and the boaters use more energy than the tidal generators produce, why bother with the tidal generators?
Existing high speed rail projects in this country are making slow progress. FRA has $45 million in mag lev grants, but that will disappear in an instant on pilot projects. I suggest we really need a true national plan, involving actively securing corridors and facilities (like the Farley Building...); but something REALLY progressive instead of catch-up; expanding in addition to rebuilding.
I found a reference for how cars changed urban behavior: Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City by Peter D. Norton; MIT Press, 2008; 396 pp ; I read an Opinion" on this book in Nature 7196.
Also, to comment on five-across seating: the train must be 80% full for that seat to be used; and they are nice when occupancy is low. Legroom on trains is better than airplanes (was this the case in Japan?).
Legroom on trains is better than airplanes (was this the case in Japan?).
The Japan trip was 20 years ago -- perhaps comparable to the legroom on planes then, but since then it seems it has gotten tighter on planes.
Legroom on a train or on an airplane or on a bus or on a maglev is whatever you want it to be.
I wish we could get over this notion that trains are intrinsically more spacious, comfortable, or better equipped with non-revenue lounge seating than airplanes or anything else.
The standard of train service -- deep recline overnight coaches, dining cars, lounge cars, dome cars, private-room linen-sheet sleeping accomodations -- that was the offering of the railroad industry post WW-II when they were trying to compete with cars and airlines, something that didn't have to do during WW-II travel restrictions. The late 1940's early 1950's model of name-train Diesel streamliner passenger service is regarded within the advocacy community as to "what trains are like and have to offer in terms of comfort and amenities." That model of train service furnished Amtrak's initial "Heritage Fleet." It was uneconomic then, and the requirement of 24.5 cents/passenger mile subsidy establishes that it is uneconomic today.
If you are getting enough subsidy, you can spend whatever it takes to get ridership, competing on the basis of superior amenities with modes that offer superior end-to-end speed. In other words, you have to offer people all of that legroom along with non-revenue seats so they can get up out of their assigned seat, walk someplace, and sit down somewhere else so people don't get stir crazy parked in sidings for hours on end. But then we turn around and say, "hey, aren't trains great, it may take a little longer to get there, but they offer so much room, they let you walk around and mingle with strangers, and solve the fuel crisis at the same time (well no, not really, not if you are averaging something like 20 occupied revenue seats per train car or whatever the figure is)."
Okay, I think this is a new point, but I actually touched on it earlier.
We have trip statistics -- but what about the trips NOT taken? Is it possible our ability to travel has been restricted? What would this country look like if people could make all the trips they want? Discretionary travel is a major consideration.
Here is a calculation that shows all of airline capacity between New York and Washington is discretionary. In the early 1980's, before direct mainland flights, 2.24 million passengers flew annually between Kahului and Honolulu, mostly tourists. This route was second only to New York to Washington, which had 2.25 million passengers in that same year. There, I have shown that the traffic served by airlines on a major route is equal to a purely discretional level of travel.
Americans spend $1 billion just on travel insurance every year. We want to go places, but are not allowed to take a train!
I would take a train to visit my sister in Portland, if it were feasible. I am lucky enough to have two cars, so driving is an option -- but I am a country guy, and don't like navigating congested freeways. I enjoyed the challenge of getting two van loads of tourists from a hotel to the ferry in a foot of snow, but didn't at all enjoy being on a Denver freeway and having the wheel fly off a vehicle. It crashed behind me and several other cars, but we all kept going at 55 mph as the wheel dropped from the sky and bounced next to my window. I have no idea where that wheel finally came down. I have pulled people out of wrecked cars, and seen fatal accidents... Before I visit my sister, I need to RELAX.
Got two teenagers in the house. I believe that intercity transport in the US in 50 years or so won't be a whole lot different than it is now. Mostly highway and air with, hopefully, some rail where it makes sense.
The carbon game isn't going to be won and lost on intercity passenger travel. That's a tempest in a teapot. It's the suburban lifestyle that's the problem. That last mile of transport for people and goods is a killer. I figure when the real cost of carbon gets baked into goods and sevices, economics will push the trend toward high density living arrangements.
We don't have to pull a rabbit out of a hat and there's no silver bullet (train?) (I take full responsibility for pun)
"Got two teenagers in the house."
So you envision expansion of our transportation system? And you believe automobiles and planes can create extra capacity?
I heard our President -elect speak of a plan to "rebuild." I suggest we need a policy to "expand," while at the same time following through on the global mandate to reduce carbon. This must be planned in the context of an increasing population.
_______
Personal stuff below,
My late first wife had grown children, and when I remarried we are too old for kids. But I made a choice to not plan on having children in college; when I talked it over with one of my roommates, all she could do was cry. Because I was the one studying Environmental Sciences, and knew the truth; she was well aware of her choice to opt for utopia and study Art History. Now, I am financially secure, at least in the short term and in the long term my wife will save me: she was once so broke that she spent her last 25 cents on a fish hook. We do not have to worry about children. I am pursuing this idea because of my transportation heritage and discovery of natural cold fusion.
Now why would I think that I have an unique idea about nuclear fusion? Because I have seen how far others have progressed, and we all get to that same point: It's the stuff that bombs are made of, and it becomes too dangerous. Apparently, I have an original concept that a way to prove solar induction of fusion is to watch interplanetary interactions on moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Anyway, the information is only just recently available and the technology is developing. But we are faced with two imperatives right now: our concept of nuclear security needs to change, and we need non-polluting electricity.
Einstein showed that matter and energy are the same thing. A corollary is that it's as easy to manipulate matter as it is to manipulate energy. Now, we all know how intricately energy is manipulated in devices such as your computer -- it is also possible to manipulate atoms in a precise manner. This is the essence of a compact nuclear trigger, and it is simply too late to put the genie back in the bottle. Therefore, arguments against nuclear fusion based on dangers of tritium are moot.
A person really needs to take a look at David Lawyer's Web site on transportation and energy usage.
Back in whatever Golden Age of railroad passenger travel, WW-II era, 1920's, 1880's, the rail share of trips was much larger but the amount of trips people made when trains were king was much, much less. David Lawyer's take is that the autos, airlines, and trains have in rough round numbers about the same energy efficiency and you can follow his reasoning on why this has worked out that way. Autos, when they were introduced, were actually a huge saving in energy usage compared to steam railroads, but we do so much travel in cars compared to what we ever did in trains -- back in the day most people didn't go very many places -- that energy consumption has increased many fold.
A realistic model of how trains would reduce energy usage is that 1) we would have many more trains than today so that if you really wanted to travel that way you could get to where you needed to go, 2) auto travel would either be made more difficult (high gas tax, congestion charges, high highway tolls) or become more difficult (peak oil), and 3) as a result, people would take the train when they had to go someplace but would otherwise travel a whole lot less.
Even in Europe with their much more expensive gas, fully 80 percent or more of passenger miles are in cars. Perhaps to truly save the environment, not only would we need to fund train service at the rates they do in Europe (comparable to US Federal highway budget), we would have to boost gas taxes even higher than they are in Europe. In response to expensive gas, the Europeans drive smaller cars, somewhat more fuel efficient but offset in part by driving faster in Europe (you think driving is a white-knuckle experience in the US? You haven't taken to the wheel in Germany or Austria let alone Italy or other places).
I just don't see the argument that we could achieve a one-to-one replacement of current or projected auto travel with seats on fusion-powered levitation trains. Solving the environmental crisis will required either some breakthrough in cars -- workable renewable fuels, plug-in hybrid, hydrogen fuel cell -- or a massive reduction in total passenger miles through gas price increases beyond what anyone is considering or other measures to prevent people from driving.
As to the idea that not having enough trains infringes on our personal freedom, the percent of people who can't/won't/are imposed upon to travel by the other modes along with prefer trains for their own sake that much, that slice of the population is pretty small.
Yes, we all have our white-knuckle driving stories and our airline horror stories, but enough people have tried Amtrak (once) and have Amtrak horror stories too. Your average person will take a train if it meets a transportation need, but your average person is not a railfan-advocacy group "believer" in the intrinsic goodness of trains above everything else. To be more successful at advocacy, and given the state of affairs after 40 years of NARP I claim we need to be more successful, we have to step a little bit aside of our unique understanding of trains and put ourselves in the shoes of the general traveling public, for whom cars and planes may not be quite as bad as we make them out to be and trains are OK if they satisfy a need, but they aren't an end by themselves.
The gripe I have with calling shame in bold, all-caps, on the foreign wars situation or the lack-of-action-on-the-environment situation is that I believe that the advocacy community is falling into the rut of scape goating. We believe our own press releases and op-ed pieces on the inherent goodness of trains, we don't have the trains we want, it couldn't be anything to do with trains themselves, so there has to be some other explanation -- the Concrete and Auto lobbies are evil, the politicians are callow, and the voters are stupid.
We have been at this advocacy business for the better part of 40 years; I have been at this for 40 years -- I was a charter member of NARP back in the day. What we are doing is not working, and blaming everyone in sight is part of the strategy that is not working. After 40 years of this, the large portion under Amtrak, we need to get our own house in order as it will as to what works and what doesn't work. We need to read and understand the arguments put forth by the "Amtrak critics" and the Amtrak reform advocates. Even if we don't agree, we need to understand what they are saying rather than branding them as agents of the Evil Empire of oil and concrete. In addition to understanding what is good about trains, we need to understand the shortcomings of trains (every mode has its shortcomings) to better understand where we are and where we can go.
Perfect, Paul. That saved me lots of typing.
BEIJING - China's ministry of railways is nearing completion of the world's longest-distance high speed rail line, the state-owned Xinhua news agency has reported. Nearly 750 miles, or 91 percent of the total length between Beijing and Shanghai, is now complete, though completion won't come until 2020.
TOPEKA, Kan. - Union Pacific Railroad announced yesterday it will donate $10,000 to Topeka's community food bank feed the hungry. The donation will feed 50,000 meals, enough to fill a boxcar, the railroad says.
1,203 km, or 91%. The bigger numbers are the total rail system, not the high speed rail project.
But it's still more than we are doing.
I thought I cut and pasted the News Wire; I will correct mileage ASAP. I tried to verify with some other source by Google search, and in fact was inundated with news on a wide variety of projects in China, any one of which makes Amtrak look sad.
Now I know this is taking things a little out of perspective, but what do we get in America? One boxcar?
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