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This is an unpublished letter to a libertarian magazine, with a copy of the equipment list from a 1967 GN timetable enclosed: To the editor, Liberty: Has Randal O'Toole the railfan emerged from his car culture closet? ("Can Trains Be Saved?" Liberty, April 2006) Not completely; let me indulge my "foamer" (rail industry term for trivia obsessed railfans) proclivities by pointing out the 1950s Empire Builder did not open all non-revenue space to all passengers; the full-length "Great Dome" was reserved for Pullman passengers. For more non-revenue space in Amtrak's double-deck Superliners, let's put glassed-in observation lounges in the "transition" cars (to single-deck level), allowing a view over the top of the train as on beloved but now almost by-gone Vista-Domes. Long-distance travel was marketed as entertainment as far back as the late 1940s California Zephyr of glorious memory. Not so trivial is citing some unnamed government source alleging negligible subsidies for air and highway travel, as if they were creations of a near free market. Nor is asking the wrong question. Can highways and airlines be saved? See what happens when the cheap oil runs out in James Howard Kunstler, The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century, Although it does not cite a single Austrian School source, it is surprisingly insightful on currency matters and concludes that suburban sprawl is the greatest misallocation of resources in human history, which will not go on much longer. Nor is expecting freight railroads to handle passenger trains, as if rising traffic and shrinking plant had not obviated the rail overcapacity problem a decade ago. The December 1975 TRAINS said the traffic on the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac could be handled on parallel I-95 without anyone noticing. In the November 2001 issue the same author said truck congestion on the Interstates was the chief source of complaints to the Virginia governor's office and the U.S. Secretary of Transportation wondered if coastwise shipping was the answer to rail and highway congestion. Nor is expecting an antiquated technology, even of such blessed memory, to meet future needs. The thumbnail area of contact between wheel and rail might be a hallmark of efficiency for hauling coal and grain. For passenger vehicles, however, it requires large, rigid masses in constant impact, concentrated stresses, complicated, expensive suspension and braking systems, and tank-like structures with million pound buff and draft capability for safety on the main line. For much higher speeds it requires entirely new, prohibitively expensive and disruptive rights-of-way. There is little more to a linear induction motor, however, than the grade school science experiment in which the kid wraps a wire around a nail and makes an electromagnet. Long used to move metals from powders to ingots directly, without intervening machinery, under a steel beam it can generate magnetic force both along the line of travel and about ten times as much perpendicular to it. Thus it can both propel and suspend a vehicle, to 1/10 g acceleration, before knocking standingpassengers off their feet. Not pure maglev just yet, the linear motor still needs caster (training?) wheels to maintain a 3/8" gap between motor and beam. The overhead steel beam need only be supported by columns every eighty feet or so. Thus the structure does not need another swath through city or countryside. It need not disrupt near-by activity. Thus it might go over the Interstates of the past half-century, much straighter and more direct than rail routes of a century ago. Making as much noise as an elevator, the vehicle can go as fast as passengers can handle. Swinging like a pendulum around curves, it might get away with the 1/8 g allowed for elevators. It might even be a simple carriage for trucks and buses, making the system a sort of High-Speed High-Occupancy Lane. Thus truckers need on pick up and deliver, not take it over the road. Divide 150 or 200 mph into a travel distance and see if the result competes with air travel. Linear induction motors might even launch satellites. Mechanical Engineering, Feb. 2000. Figure you have several rotary induction motors around the house in your blenders, fans, hot water pumps, old-fashioned clocks, etc., just in case the linear version still seems a bit exotic. Unlike highly if sometimes subtly subsidized forms of transportation, they should survive a transition to a truly free market. William F. Wendt, Jr. O'Toole had a previous article on everyone in New Orleans with a car getting out. They did publish my letter reminding him of Houston, Rita, and the 100 mile traffic jam, January 2006. I do have my complaints about libertarians who do not properly follow through on their own philosophy, in particular,descendi ng into socialistic car culture.
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