Phoebe Vet How many tanks and Bradley's can you transport from the midwest to the coast on a cargo plane? You can move 100 of them on one train. If FEMA kept their supplies, mobile emergency rooms, and mobile command posts in standard size containers, 200 of them could be rapidly deployed by rail on ONE train. If Amtrak had more equipment, evacuations could be made much faster.
How many tanks and Bradley's can you transport from the midwest to the coast on a cargo plane?
You can move 100 of them on one train.
If FEMA kept their supplies, mobile emergency rooms, and mobile command posts in standard size containers, 200 of them could be rapidly deployed by rail on ONE train. If Amtrak had more equipment, evacuations could be made much faster.
If decades in the future a country or group of countries had the capability to launch a massive sea and land assault against the U.S., they would presumably only do so if they have sea and air superiority. One of their first targets, as was the case in Operation Sea Lord, would be to knock out the railroads and roadways as soon as possible. The trains, as the Germans learned during WW II, would be irrelevant.
According to yesterday's New York Times, Gov. Schwarzenegger is asking the state legislature for a $4.4 billion tax increase to balance the California budget. If his proposal is adopted, California will have the highest sales tax and one of the highest income tax rates of any state in the U.S. This just might cause a few of those who voted for HSR to wish that they could take back their vote. On the other hand, it probably would not. Most of the people who voted for the HSR proposal probably have little if any idea how the project will be funded or the total cost of it.
My retirement community north of Austin, Texas, is heavily populated by former Californians. They fled for a variety of reasons. One of them was a crushing tax burden.
I think it was John Kneiling that made the point 20-30 years ago similar to Sam's about how many times a plane could fly back and forth in the time it would take a train. That said, aircraft availability should be sufficient for a few thousand Abrahms, Bradleys, and Humvee's.
As for troop trains, Amtrak has little reserve capacity. In an emergency, most if not all long-distance services would be embargoed and additional time would be needed to position equipment for troop transport. Overseas deployment would still require aircraft; and rail moves would not shorten air transit time appreciably to significantly reduce aircraft requirements.
Germany's use of railroads for logistical support in the Franco-Prussian War and WWI was not susceptible to the kind of air power available beginning in WWII and modern missiles and drones.
Sabotage of the railroads within the United States is unlikely to be significant with protection of key bridges and tunnels; but this removes forces from the primary battle theater. The Viet Nam Railroad was virtually inactive during the war. Air transport has a clear advantage.
The US no longer is laced with railroads facilitating access to any domestic tactical theater.
That's the point exactly. Nothwithstanding the Cassandras saying there is a crisis of the freight railroads, the freight railroad network in the U.S. is second-to-none -- it certainly has a much larger share of freight than in Europe.
Those Bradleys and M1s would move on freight trains. The troops can be moved by "drafting" civilian jumbo jets (the CRAF Program).
Suppose Amtrak has 1000 cars, 60 passengers per car, average speed in service of 50 MPH, zero passengers on backhaul if you are doing an evacuation, and how for do you need to take them to get out of harms way and to places that can accomodate them, 400 miles (as in out to the next major city not affected by the hurricane)?
The Amtrak fleet can evacuate 100,000 people in 24 hours, 200,000 in 48 hours. The need for a New Orleans is 10 times as many. OK, let's spend 20 billion dollars on a reserve fleet of passenger cars for these evacuations.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
blue streak 1 Sam1: You have no idea the state of the US airlift capacity as of election day. A source in the DOD who I obviously cannot name says that they need 200 new C-130s, The C-141s are almost all parked because of wing problems that would take time to fix. Almost all the C-5s are down for wing problems as well as the C-5As, The C-17s are the only freighter that hasn't gotten any wear problems but they are being used at nearly 3 times their planned useage because of Iraq.
Sam1: You have no idea the state of the US airlift capacity as of election day. A source in the DOD who I obviously cannot name says that they need 200 new C-130s, The C-141s are almost all parked because of wing problems that would take time to fix. Almost all the C-5s are down for wing problems as well as the C-5As, The C-17s are the only freighter that hasn't gotten any wear problems but they are being used at nearly 3 times their planned useage because of Iraq.
The number of C-130s, C-141s, and C-5As in the Air Force inventory is available on line. You are correct, however, about one point. I don't know the operational readiness of the Air Force's airlift capability at a point in time. My guess is that you don't either.
As a former pilot in command and flight instructor, with thousands of hours of flight experience, I know that airplanes that may be parked in peace time because of a variety of problems can be made available in an emergency.
I have always been suspect of people who claim to know an unamed source for a point of view. Who is this person? Is he or she an executive with a macro view of the situation? Or is it a back office clerk?
My point is simple. I am reasonable sure that the U.S. military is not looking to the nation's passenger railroads to move troops and equipment in a national emergency.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as well as other scientific bodies, airplanes contribute between two and three per cent of the emissions associated with global warming. This includes an adjustment for the so called high altitude impact.
I flew recently from Austin to Pittsburgh. My flights were quick, comfortable, and on-time. The cost was less than $300. Had I taken the train it would have cost me more than $1,100 for a sleeper. And it would have taken me nearly two days to complete the trip.
No serious military planner believes that passenger rail is important for the defense of the U.S. A small number of C-5As and C-141s could airlift more troops in one day over 500 miles than a troop train, i.e. flying back and forth multiple times to pick-up the troops as opposed to having them spend all day on a train. Moreover, it is relatively easy to knock out a rail line. Just ask the Germans who fought in WW II. Also, the C-141 as well as the C-130 can operate off a grass field if necessary.
Passenger trains make sense in high density corridors where building addition road capacity or expanding the airways is impracticable. And this is the only place that they make sense.
With respect to Great Britian, improvements where made to squeeze as much speed as possible out of their existing 19th Century railways. This should serve us as a sober and realistic model of what can be done.
The "Bullet Trains" started out with more frequencies than the Northeast Corridor's Acelas, Regionals, and long-distance trains combined which is why a new line was a viable proposition. Similarly, the TGVs acheived commercially viable volume by bundling services to many destinations over high-speed trunkline core routes.
Given the economy, I agree that we would be fortunate to get all of Lott-Lautenburg. However "inadequate," this is better than the states going alone. Perhaps additional funds will come through for positive train control and not come down as an unfunded mandate.
cogloadreturns The people have spoken. In California of all places. To build a high speed line. You guys will be electing an "African American" as president next.......(I hate that term, to me you are all Americans as I am a Brit - I am NOT an english-brit or scottish-brit; Just a Brit please) . I look forward to having a ride.
The people have spoken. In California of all places. To build a high speed line.
You guys will be electing an "African American" as president next.......(I hate that term, to me you are all Americans as I am a Brit - I am NOT an english-brit or scottish-brit; Just a Brit please) .
I look forward to having a ride.
If you moved here, we would call you a "Johnny Bull"!
We are not just passing down "dollar debt" to future generations. Most of the environmental and social costs of our transportation mess are simply being ignored. For example, there are serious, unanswered questions about how airplanes affect the atmosphere (I follow scientific studies of climate change very closely...) As for social costs, automobiles are the source of drive-by shootings, drive-through restaurants with low quality food; and airplanes offer little comfort, dignity, or sense of the beauty of our countryside.
Granted, it will be very difficult to rebuild the NEC for true high-speed rail (Acela barely averages 70 mph). This presents a strong case for starting to work on other corridors now, before rights-of-way are lost to other types of development.
One more point -- we should look at passenger rail as important to our civil and military defense. America needs to maintain at least a core network for evacuation and troop transport, in the event natural or military conditions prevent airplanes from flying.
"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood." Daniel Burnham
Paul, you are right. No other country has done as much as the United States to enable and encourage use of the private automobile, not even Canada. And no other industrialized country has done so little to enable and encourage passenger train travel, not even Canada.
I suspect the HSR in California will get built if Gov. Schwarzenegger gets on board (sorry for pun) with the proponents of the project. It would be a great symbol that the state gov't isn't ruled by the whims of NIMBY's. And Californians as a whole, I'd guess, would like their state to shine in the eyes of the rest of the country, as it did in the 1960s.
Sometimes we tend to forget that the original 1964 bullet train in Japan had the status of a national priority, was government funded, and had vast rights of condemnation (eminent domain), as well as something of a money-be-darned attitude. Consider the tunnels. This may sound strange to us because our national priority in the Sixties was getting men to the moon and back. But there is one maxim that Japanese and Americans can agree on: "Nothing succeeds like success," and the bullet trains have certainly been a huge success. As they have also become in Germany. - al
I agree that the U.S. has a national transportation policy. It is built around cars and airplanes. And it works better than many people think.
The U.S. should promote passenger trains in high density corridors where they make sense, i.e. there is a market for them. Do they need to be high speed corridors. Not necessarily. They need to be better, in many instances, than what they are now, but they don't necessarily have to be high speed, i.e. TGV to attract customers.
Californians should rank order their priorities and determine whether they can afford high speed rail. Hopefully, when they went to the polls, they kept the following in mind.
The U.S. National Debt is $10.5 trillion. But this is only the tip of the debt iceberg. When mortgage, consumer, credit card, state and local and corporate debt is added to the mix, the total comes to nearly $40 trillion. This is what Americans owed as of October 31, 2008. But there is more. Unfunded liabilities, i.e. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Federal Pensions take the number to $86.9 trillion. These are big numbers. What do they say to us as individuals?
The numbers can be sliced and diced in a variety of ways. But here are several examples that should hit home. The debt before unfunded liabilities works out to be $181,781 for every person over age 20 in the U.S. It is $194,765 for every taxpayer, i.e. those who file a federal income tax return. It is even higher when one considers that 41.3 per cent of those filing a federal tax return pay no federal income taxes due to deductions and credits. When the unfunded liabilities are added to the burden per taxpayer, the number rises to $640,482. The debt before unfunded liabilities is accounting data. It is real time. The unfunded liabilities, of course, are best estimates. They are arguable. And they are subject to a variety of changing forces. Nevertheless, they speak to a serious problem.
How much debt can the U.S. afford? And how much are we willing to pass on to future generations?
I wonder how many of the people who advocate spending government monies on high speed rail have considered the debt structure of the U.S.?
Paul: you are right! Take what money is appropriated and use those improvements to get other people wanting the same improvements.
So we are engaged in "races" with other countries to implement HSR, or perhaps it is a "national shame" that we don't have it here. This nation of ours lacks a "transportation policy" and a lack of an alternative to the "white knuckles on the steering wheel" of driving or whatever horror airline travel is reputed to be. And of course there is the matter of "political will" and "tight budgets" (yeah, Don).
We darn-tootin have a national transportation policy. It is to promote airline travel as the primary means of long-distance transport and private autos as the primary means of short-distance transport. It is to rely on trains and boats as the main means of bulk freight transport, highway trucks as the main means of just-in-time transport, and air for first-class mail and express packages. This national transportation policy is not the policy many around here think is the correct policy, but that doesn't mean we don't have one.
As to spending priorities, infrastructure has gotten short-shrift for sure, Defense has seen healthy increases, but the big money has gone into healthcare. Just one of these days, one of these days, I tell you, the next time someone in our advocacy group gets cranked up about how there is no money for trains but there is plenty of money for ______, I am going to say, "Yeah, and think of the billions and even trillions spent in the out years on Medicare D (the Senior Prescription Drug Benefit for those who have not had to deal with this) that could be spent on trains!"
The truth of the matter is that most people like their cars and enjoy driving, even if they have to share congested roads, and the people who regard driving as a white-knuckle experience and "demand that the government provide alternatives" are in the minority. People would find the money -- they seem to find the money for a lot of other things -- if there was a demand for a thing.
There is this palpable frustration in the advocacy community -- we have been telling people they need more trains and especially HSR, and gosh darn it, no one seems to be listening to us. I would like to see the community promote to people what they can get out of trains for the public money proposed to be spent on them. Instead we lapse into "scold mode" about how people don't know what is in their own interest.
That is why I think that the Lautenberg-Lott thing, if it ever gets the funding to go with it, is so crucial, especially how we in the advocacy community attempt to influence it. Whatever money comes our way to improve trains needs to be graciously accepted without castigating people about "underfunding" and "it isn't enough for HSR", and it has to be applied to produce some tangible result we can point to as a justification for getting more money down the line.
Rome wasn't built in a day, and the HSR in Japan, Europe, and elsewhere is the capstone on a rail passenger network along with a solid base of public support.
It is very unlikely that there will be the political will to do a large, clean sheet of paper, high speed rail network in the US for the forseeable future. The budget squeeze is just too great. (This is a pretty enlightening slide show http://perotcharts.com/issues/)
Somehow, I doubt Calif will get done as proposed even if the vote is "yes".
What I think we will see is some progress on some emeging corridors where the states, fed and even the frt roads partner to improve some demographically and geographically feasible corridors along existing alignments. We may actually see the VA-NC project, and some near midwest/Chicago corridor improvements in the next decade or so, but that's about it.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Someone in another thread pointed out that there are lots of smallish improvements to be done that would make the Acela faster, especially around Wilmington, DE. Closing a grade crossing or making it into an underpass is expensive, but not electrification expensive.
We all know that, compared to the rest of the world, we are way behind in the race of high speed rail travel. Lets face it. The only high speed rail that we have is the Northeast Corridor. Is the Acela fast? Yes, but the rest of the world is faster. The only potential for high speed in America depends on California's vote. If they say no, it could be years before another plan could unfold. What do you think? Will California say yes and bring us closer to the rest of the world? If California says no, do you think that there is any other potential, and if there is, then where?
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