John WR The vast majority of our roads are for rubber tired vehicles but some of our roads are for flanged steel wheeled vehicles. But doesn't it make sense to treat all roads the same? After all we would never fund concrete roads differently than we would fund tarred roads. So why make a special exception for steel rail roads?
The vast majority of our roads are for rubber tired vehicles but some of our roads are for flanged steel wheeled vehicles. But doesn't it make sense to treat all roads the same? After all we would never fund concrete roads differently than we would fund tarred roads. So why make a special exception for steel rail roads?
Great way to condense many arguments into a single paragraph
blue streak 1 John WR The vast majority of our roads are for rubber tired vehicles but some of our roads are for flanged steel wheeled vehicles. But doesn't it make sense to treat all roads the same? After all we would never fund concrete roads differently than we would fund tarred roads. So why make a special exception for steel rail roads? Great way to condense many arguments into a single paragraph
Funding should be a function of market demand. One size fits all is not a good strategy. The problem for passenger rail lies in the fact that there is little demand for it. I wish it were otherwise. It isn't! And it is not likely to be in the near future outside of a few high density corridors.
Just to compare, Deutsche Bahn in Germany carried 1.981 billion passengers in 2011, according to their official 2011 report.
30 million passengers are certainly not enough to sustain even a modest operation in a country of the size of the US.
Sir Madog Just to compare, Deutsche Bahn in Germany carried 1.981 billion passengers in 2011, according to their official 2011 report.
I suspect this includes Regio and S-bahn riders...
I would also argue that DB's mission isn't "run yesterday's trains again today and beg for subsidy". This may not be what Amtrak says their mission is, but it is derivable from watching what they do.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Okay, then if we go with V. Payne's analysis, Amtrak should get about 5 cents per passenger mile - about $500M per year.
It would be a good goal to get their subsidy rate down to that level. Then we could argue for Amtrak based on value rather than all the tired, old, erroneous Red Herrings.
John WR Sam1My main point is to eliminate all subsidies or reduce them to the lowest amount possible. The users (highway, airway, waterway, railway) should pay the cost of what they use through the pricing mechanism I completely agree with you, Sam. But when it comes to roads that is not remotely what we do. What individuals pay for roads has no relationship to the benefits of roads to individuals. All vehicle owners pay Federal motor fuel tax that goes toward our Interstate highways but some use the interstates a lot and others use them hardly at all. The same is true for state highways; all must pay the motor fuel state tax without regard to actual use of the highways. And property taxes, which fund local and country roads, have no relationship what so ever to actual road usage. Also, as you point out, when excise taxes are not enough government dips into whatever tax is easiest. If, as you suggest, "the pricing mechanism" were used to fund roads we would put tolls on all roads. We could do this with current intelligence technology. But we all know that isn't about to happen. We are just not going to charge road users based on their actual use of the roads. Some of us will pay extra and others of us will get an extra benefit. The vast majority of our roads are for rubber tired vehicles but some of our roads are for flanged steel wheeled vehicles. But doesn't it make sense to treat all roads the same? After all we would never fund concrete roads differently than we would fund tarred roads. So why make a special exception for steel rail roads?
Sam1My main point is to eliminate all subsidies or reduce them to the lowest amount possible. The users (highway, airway, waterway, railway) should pay the cost of what they use through the pricing mechanism
I completely agree with you, Sam. But when it comes to roads that is not remotely what we do. What individuals pay for roads has no relationship to the benefits of roads to individuals.
All vehicle owners pay Federal motor fuel tax that goes toward our Interstate highways but some use the interstates a lot and others use them hardly at all. The same is true for state highways; all must pay the motor fuel state tax without regard to actual use of the highways. And property taxes, which fund local and country roads, have no relationship what so ever to actual road usage. Also, as you point out, when excise taxes are not enough government dips into whatever tax is easiest.
If, as you suggest, "the pricing mechanism" were used to fund roads we would put tolls on all roads. We could do this with current intelligence technology. But we all know that isn't about to happen. We are just not going to charge road users based on their actual use of the roads. Some of us will pay extra and others of us will get an extra benefit.
Owing to all of the legacy, history, and water-under-the-bridge, the predominant mode of intercity transportation is the private automobile. This is even true in Europe, where considerable effort has been made to maintain and even improve a passenger train network. This is even true in Japan, where trains play an even bigger role, but there is if not a majority then a plurality market share for cars. People like cars when societies become wealthy enough to afford them, despite the best efforts to offer common carrier alternatives.
The argument V Payne is making and now John WR is supporting is that a car trip requires multiple stages, starting in your driveway, driving down the block, connecting to the city and county roads, merging on to the Interstate, and reversing the process to get to your final destination. What is so special about the Interstate/freeway/superhighway portion of the journey when a steel highway could provide the middle portion of the trip? Especially since the Amtrak subsidy (per passenger mile) is now established to be only twice as much as the subsidy to rural Interstate highways instead of the factor of 10-20 claimed by others.
If we had a market system where all of the costs are borne by users of each mode, people would vote with their dollars on whether the preferred mode is to stay in their car or to park the car, take the train, and then make some arrangement for transportation at the far end. But we don't have such a market system, and even if we did, the temptations are great to mess with it. I mean people pay top dollar for tickets to football games and you would think that people wealthy enough to afford not only football tickets but luxury boxes and the like should pay coin, but there are all manners of city and county taxes to pay for the latest deluxe football stadium that is supposed to bring all manners of intangible economic benefit.
So if we don't have a market system, we have a political system where people vote, and the people we vote into office are particularly sensitive to what the people want because most office holders like keeping their jobs. And the outcome of the political system is that by and large, people prefer to stay in their cars rather than switch to trains for the intercity leg of the trip, so that is what we pretty much have, only we set some money aside to have a minimal national train service in the form of Amtrak.
Also, the remark "we would never fund concrete roads differently than we would fund (asphalt) roads" is, what is the correct 10-dollar word, disingenuous? A flanged-steeled-wheel road is different in kind from a concrete or asphalt road. For starters, the steel-wheel road requires a modal change for the central part of the trip whereas the other two kinds of roads do not. For some of us, that modal change is the best part of the trip because we get to ride a train and trains are kewl. For many of us, that modal change is a serious inconvenience that costs more than out-of-pocket car costs, even with high gas prices, and how do we get around at the far end of our trip?
I mean we are all passenger train enthusiasts around here, but what are we going to do to get more trains, which means persuading people who are not enthusiasts to part with more tax dollars to pay for trains?
Whatever approach we take, it is going to take a new approach with new thinking instead of the NARP party-line same-old same-old, that has allowed us to hang on to long-distance trains by the skin of our teeth, build a semi-decent Northeast Corridor, functional if not up to world standards, a few corridors with multi-train-per-day service, and some languishing corridors with indifferent time keeping and patronage.
Are we going to "sell" trains to the electorate by saying, "You know, your car is polluting the environment and the highway it is using is wrecking the land, we are going to tax gas to double the price like the do in Europe, and we are going to use the money to pay for a train, just like they do in Europe, for which you can also pay a fare that is higher than your out-of-pocket gas cost, especially if you drive a small car? You also think you like the privacy of your car better, but if you ride a train you will meet interesting strangers and have engaging conversations with them to while away the journey time?"
Or do we say, "I know you like your car and everything. But there are a lot of elderly, disabled, youth, and others who rely on others for rides who would really like a train, and we would like you to pay for this in the interest of social justice"?
So maybe I have it all wrong with a bottom-line subsidy per passenger mile and efficiency of train subsidy of saving the environment compared to subsidizing electric cars. Maybe trains could meet an unmet transportation need for which people will gladly pay the costs, through a mix of fares and subsidy. Kind of like the rah-rah behind why perfectly good football stadiums are abandoned and expensive new ones get built. But what we are doing since 1971 is not working.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
I I started this thread with 4 times the passengers and 4 times the coat as a starting point for discussion. Costs per passenger should improve because of better equipment utilizaiton and the reduction of fixed costs or something is very, very wrong.
II Trains do have some flexibility in that railroads have added and subtracted diners, sleepers and coaches long before Amtrak. A utilization rate of 52% is unacceptable.
III If a goal of a 5 cents per mile subsidy is acceptable lets reward Amtrak management for improved performance. I would give a50% bonus on each years improvement over the prior.
Iv I would have congress appropriate 500 million a year for new engines and passenger cars as long as the five year cost per passenger mile continues to decline or we reach our goal of 5 cents per passenger mile.
V I would change the following laws:
a) sleeping cars would not be required on entire routes
b) Sleeping car service would be contracted out to the private sector. Amtrak would just haul cars.
c) Food service would be required on trips over 4 hours but otherwise totally up to management as far a implementation.
d) Clarify that Amtrak can work with any private venture wanting to attach cars to Amtrak trains. Amtrak would simply be a freight forwarder. I know the amtrak express expansion turned into a mess but the concept is fundemental to improving performance.
V
Dixie Flyer I I started this thread with 4 times the passengers and 4 times the coat as a starting point for discussion. Costs per passenger should improve because of better equipment utilizaiton and the reduction of fixed costs or something is very, very wrong.
Maybe at low levels of service (once per day or tri-weekly long-distance trains), you are getting the use of the tracks for low payments? Perhaps as frequencies increase, you start interfering with the freight traffic to the extent that your freight railroad partner will demand chipping in for major capital improvements? Such as the Union Pacific demanding a billion dollars for double tracking or more sidings to support a daily Sunset Limited?
We tend to believe NARP's thing about a rail line supporting the traffic of 20 lanes of traffic. That may be true for a highly signaled and structured rapid transit lines, but there may not be anything near that level of capacity on heavily used freight lines. It may be way off for a single-track line with sidings with a mix of freight and passenger and a mix of train speeds. So if you go from a daily train where you are threading the passenger train through the other traffic to a serious level of service, there has to be a serious addition of tracks or sidings with accompanying capital expenditure.
There may be some S-curve economics that at very low levels of passenger traffic, the use of the tracks is a byproduct of freight operations, as you increase service the capital costs start to bite, and that at very high levels of service on a dedicated passenger line (think Shinkansen) is only when you start to see cost economies?
I think that Don Oltmann linked some while ago to someone's transportation "big picture" report, and the remark was made that railroads work effectively as "batch mode operations." Maybe in passenger ops, the batches have to be on the traffic level of the New York City subway or the New Tokaido Line that you start seeing economies of scale, the leveling off of the S-curve. Outside of the Northeast Corridor, maybe increasing passenger service is just moving on to the steep part of the S-curve?
That is why Don Oltmann's suggestion of Amtrak having a "railroad liaison officer" is such a good one, of finding out what is possible and not possible on the railroad network is such a good one.
I see that as an advocacy community that we are stuck in a late 60's NARP model of the freight railroads being evil corporations who want to thwart passenger trains. Just as there are laws of thermodynamics and materials and mechanics that determine the cost tradeoffs between steam engines and Diesel locomotives, there are probably laws of traffic constraints and maintenance costs for certain class of track and maintenance requirements to operate passenger trains at anything greater than yard limit speeds that bound the costs of passenger operations. As passenger train advocates, we need to learn about such fundamental limits.
A major factor in examining whether or not there is a role for passenger rail service in the US is potential demand. Opponents say there is not b/c under the current Amtrak system the market share is so small. This overlooks a major point. The current system outside the NEC (and possibly in one or two other incipient corridors) does not offer real service, but merely 3-7 trains per week, often on legacy long distance routes, perpetuated to curry votes from senators in low population states. Even on shorter routes, offering only a few trains per day does not provide sufficient convenience to cause a decent percentage of drivers to try the train rather than use an auto. In the locations where fast, frequent and convenient services are offered (the NEC) the market share for rail is much higher and reduces the necessity to expand the number of new lanes to be added to the Interstate system at a very high cost, as V. Payne has pointed out.
As Sir Madog pointed out, German Rail carries nearly 2 billion passengers in a country barely more than 1/4 our population. I would hesitate to imagine the gridlock on the roads and Autobahns if they had to pick up even 1/2 that load.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Paul MilenkovicIf we had a market system where all of the costs are borne by users of each mode, people would vote with their dollars on whether the preferred mode is to stay in their car or to park the car, take the train, and then make some arrangement for transportation at the far end. But we don't have such a market system
I completely agree, Paul. And the reason is that our Federal Government built a national highway system in the 1930's and an interstate and defense highway system in the 1950's and 60's where actual use of the highways was free and at the same time regulated railroad passenger service out of existence and failed to give us the public transit we needed.
In the 1930's FDR did try to sell his programs to the electorate. He also started the Works Projects Administration and other programs as well as giving states money for road building. Jobs for unemployed people were a powerful persuader. And Dwight Eisenhower saw the Autobahn and liked what he say. As President, he said the magic word, "defense," and Congress gave him the legislation. And again, there was a lot of money passed out and a lot of jobs. That is the way our political system built all the highways.
But there are problems when the only transportation is private vehicles. What I say and all that I say is that we need a more balanced system and a system where all users including people who use automobiles pay their fair share.
Paul Milenkovic So if we don't have a market system, we have a political system where people vote, and the people we vote into office are particularly sensitive to what the people want because most office holders like keeping their jobs. And the outcome of the political system is that by and large, people prefer to stay in their cars rather than switch to trains for the intercity leg of the trip, so that is what we pretty much have, only we set some money aside to have a minimal national train service in the form of Amtrak. Also, the remark "we would never fund concrete roads differently than we would fund (asphalt) roads" is, what is the correct 10-dollar word, disingenuous? A flanged-steeled-wheel road is different in kind from a concrete or asphalt road. For starters, the steel-wheel road requires a modal change for the central part of the trip whereas the other two kinds of roads do not. For some of us, that modal change is the best part of the trip because we get to ride a train and trains are kewl. For many of us, that modal change is a serious inconvenience that costs more than out-of-pocket car costs, even with high gas prices, and how do we get around at the far end of our trip?
Paul,
That last phrase sums up the problem with rail travel where travel time taking the train is competitive with flying - in most areas outside the NEC, traveling by car will be just as fast, if not faster. One exception is when the ultimate destination is either a short walk from the station or accessible by a transit connection from the station and there is no nearby parking at reasonable rates. This situation is far more likely to be found in commuter rail than LD passenger.
The other downside of modal changes is waits due to rail scheduling not matching the needs of the passenger, especially when the two modes run on poorly coordinated schedules. The same can be true for airlines, but taking the car is almost certainly non-competitive with flying between any points that require changing planes.
- Erik
John WR But we do have two new promising technologies: Wind turbines and solar generation. Neither is a constant source of power. However, at least in the east, wind turbines tend to produce more power in the winter and solar generation tends to produce more power in the summer.
But we do have two new promising technologies: Wind turbines and solar generation. Neither is a constant source of power. However, at least in the east, wind turbines tend to produce more power in the winter and solar generation tends to produce more power in the summer.
The problem with wind turbines and solar cells for generating electricity is that they are not dispatchable as any imbalance between generation and load will create problems for a power system. Sam1 correctly pointed out that utilities need close to a watt of back-up capacity for every watt of wind generation, though Paul Milenkovic's suggestion of using EV charging to absorb variations in generation has some merit (Alec Brooks wrote an interesting paper about using charger/inverter connected to EV's as a means of stabilizing power systems). A related problem with wind is that the generation from wind can drop so fast that the back-up generation can't be brought on-line fast enough to cover for the absent wind power.
Solar does have the advantage of being more predictable than wind, but it is only available a few hours before and after local noon. The California ISO website shows that the late summer power demand peaks at 6PM, where solar production peaks at 12noon. A solar plant would need about 6 hours worth of energy storage to make a good fit with utility needs, keeping in mind that many energy storage technologies haven't limited cycle lifetimes. I've run a few numbers on batteries, flywheels and capacitors, with the lifetime storage costs running $0.50/kW-hr and up (a battery that cost $500/kW-hr of capacity and has a lifetime of 500 cycles will add $1.00/kW-hr to the cost of alternative energy.
It would be a lot cheaper to use natural gas in a high efficiency gas turbine - fuel costs will be on the order of $0.02 to $0.03 per kW-hr.
Dixie Flyer If Amtrak carried 4 times the current 30 million peasengers a year and lost 4 times the current losses (say 6-8 billion per year) how would we feel as the American people, as taxpayers etc. There would be no tri-weekly trains, most routes would have two or more trains each way, corridors would have 6-9 trains each way and there would be more corridors, most of the pre 1979 routes would be back plus a few more giving us a system similar to the ilnterstate highway system. What are your thoughts?
If Amtrak carried 4 times the current 30 million peasengers a year and lost 4 times the current losses (say 6-8 billion per year) how would we feel as the American people, as taxpayers etc. There would be no tri-weekly trains, most routes would have two or more trains each way, corridors would have 6-9 trains each way and there would be more corridors, most of the pre 1979 routes would be back plus a few more giving us a system similar to the ilnterstate highway system.
What are your thoughts?
Here is another thought to muddy the water. In FY11 Amtrak lifted 30.2 million tickets plus or minus a standard accounting error. Amtrak refers to this number as its passengers or riders. But how many customers (individual persons) did Amtrak have in FY11?
Assuming that 75 per cent of Amtrak's passengers traveled roundtrip on the train, i.e. New York to Philadelphia and back to New York, the maximum number of customers would have been approximately 18.9 million. And that assumes each customer made only one trip (one way or roundtrip) during the year, which is probably not true. There are many people in the NEC, unless it has changed dramatically since I lived there, who ride a NEC Amtrak train numerous times throughout the year. I certainly did. Accordingly, the number of Amtrak's customers, as opposed to passengers, may be few than 15 million.
Comparatively, in 2011 there were approximately 210 million licensed motorists in the U.S. Most though not all of them drive. Some are permanently out of action because of age; others are temporarily out of action because of illness, etc. These numbers suggest two key points. Amtrak really is a minor play in intercity passenger transport. And getting to 120 million passengers, riders, ticket holders or whatever you want to call them would be a huge challenge.
With regard to natural gas, Erik, today many people argue that is the solution to our energy problems. But on TV we all see people turning on their water faucets and lighting the gas that comes out. Natural gas also has its problems.
I suggest that if history teaches anything it teaches that we should not rely on any one single source of energy. Relying on coal alone caused horrendous air pollution problems. When we relied on oil we wound up fighting wars, wars where we had funded our opponents by buying oil from them. We need to have diverse sources of energy. We also need to wean ourselves away from both excessive energy use and from paving over massive areas of our whole country. We need multiple energy sources, multiple forms of transportation and we need to use less energy than we do now.
If an electric utility can get a portion of its industrial and commercial customers to agree to interruptible contracts, it can get by with less than a megawatt of back-up generation for every megawatt of installed wind or solar generation. However, our company did not have many interruptible contract takers; they need the juice for a variety of on-going processes.
Having a megawatt of reserve for every megawatt of wind or solar power does not mean that one can simply mothball it and start it leisurely to cover for a sudden drop in wind generation. The back-up plants have to be staffed, albeit it often with a minimum staff, to maintain the equipment and be prepared to run when called upon. For example, the turbine has to turn slowly to prevent shaft warp.
As far as I know, all major electric utilities have some spinning reserve, which is used in case a fossil or nuclear unit trips, but in most instances addition back-up capability is required to cover for wind and solar. The hard fact of the matter is that these sources of generation are not yet reliable enough for prime time.
If one believes that people would be happy to have their juice cut off for a couple of days, I suggest they study the reaction of the victims of Sandy in New York and New Jersey this past week or so.
I live in New Jersey, Sam. Many of my neighbors here and in New York have lost everything--homes, furniture, vehicles--the things they have worked for a life time to have are gone. To compare this devastation with deliberately foregoing electricity for a measured amount of time leaves me wondering what to think.
Wind is actually a pretty nice chunk of the base load already.
for 2011:
Coal - 42.3%
Gas - 25.0%
nuclear - 19.3%
hydro - 7.8%
wind 4.7%
Wind and gas have likely grown in 2012 and coal has shrunk. As a comparison, coal was 50.1%, gas 18.2% and wind 2.1% in 2002.
Electric consumption was only up 6% from 2002 to 2011.
I'd say we need to keep putting up windmills at the same rate going forward. We also need to keep up the frac-ing and switch to gas from coal and oil as fast as we can go. Local environmental issues aside, natural gas is SOOOO much cleaner than coal and oil, it's a no-brainer. We can figure out the local environment stuff on the fly. Can't let "perfect"get in the way of "good".
John WR I live in New Jersey, Sam. Many of my neighbors here and in New York have lost everything--homes, furniture, vehicles--the things they have worked for a life time to have are gone. To compare this devastation with deliberately foregoing electricity for a measured amount of time leaves me wondering what to think.
NJ did a bad thing letting nearly all the barrier islands get completely covered with dense,residential housing. It's going to be hard to get the "beach house" genie back in the bottle. Hope the state exercises its riparian lands laws to the fullest during the recovery. The next hurricane could be worse! Might be time to stop the Federal subsidy of flood insurance, too.
Related to trains? Yes. With the exception of Cape May, the shore towns on the barrier islands all developed because the railroad was built out onto the islands. The very first was Atlantic City. A fellow bought Absecon Island and then built the RR down from Camden in order to entice developers to buy his land (at a nice profit). It worked! And, the race was on...
A question for V. Payne: What is a typical cost per mile to expand an Interstate one lane in each direction on existing RoW? For Don Oltmann: I wonder how that might compare with cost for using existing interstate RoW (as proposed in FL) to build a dedicated two-track or single track rail line with long sidings for higher speed passenger rail? Shared RoW with freight lines is not going to work in a real passenger system.
My point was to highlight the fact that people will not voluntarily forgo electric energy and, therefore, wind and solar generation must be backed-up with fossil or nuclear generation capability. The people who were harmed by Sandy can attest, I am sure, to the problems associated by being without electric power for even a relatively short period of time.
Those who believe that wind and solar are viable sources of generation without having installed generation to take up the slack when they fail are not being realistic.
schlimm A question for V. Payne: What is a typical cost per mile to expand an Interstate one lane in each direction on existing RoW? For Don Oltmann: I wonder how that might compare with cost for using existing interstate RoW (as proposed in FL) to build a dedicated two-track or single track rail line with long sidings for higher speed passenger rail? Shared RoW with freight lines is not going to work in a real passenger system.
Interstates generally don't make good HSR alignments, either. Curves (vertical and horizontal) are too sharp for high speeds.
Some are, many are not. Curves are more of a problem. Grades can be smoothed, plus dedicated lines should be electric from the beginning.
I drive from Austin to Dallas on I-35 at least two or three times a month. I am familiar with the highway, which by the way is being rebuilt.
With a few exceptions the median is not wide enough to accomodate a single track railway line let alone a dual track line. Through Austin, Waco, Hillsboro, Fort Worth, Dallas, and Denton there is essentially no median. Equally important, there is little land on either side of the highway, especially through the aforementioned cities. Given the scaring impact of the interstate highways on our cities, widening the footprint to include rail lines does not seem like a good idea. Even in those rural areas where the median or side right-of-way is wide enough to accomodate a single track railway line, the median is blocked in many locations by bridge supports.
The best bet for improved passenger rail service in the I-35 corridor in Texas is to use the UP line from San Antonio to Round Rock and the former MKT line from there to Fort Worth. It parallels I-35 in many locations, but upgrading it would be very expensive.
I-35 is being widened from six to eight lanes from I-635 in north Dallas to U.S. 380 in Denton. According to the Dallas Morning News, the estimated cost for the two additional lanes, as well as relocating the frontage roads, and rebuilding all the overpasses will be approximately $4 billion. The distance is 28 miles, giving a preliminary estimated cost of $142.9 million per mile. The highway runs through a heavily populated urban area, which increases the upgrade cost significantly.
DART's green line and DTA's railway rights-of-ways parallel I-35. They have taken a few cars off I-35 but not many. Unless the cost of driving becomes unduly prohibitive, Texans are not going to be pulled out of their cars and trucks irrespective of what the planners in Austin and Washington want. There are too many variables to overcome.
Nobody needs to "pull people out of their cars." To paraphrase Field of Dreams, if we build some real passenger service in short to medium corridors, the public will have something to come to. Outside the NEC and maybe 1-2 other emerging corridors, there are no real passenger rail services in the US. And service, as henry6, oltmann, phoebe, bluestreak and others have reminded us is more than 1-2 trains running per day.
John WR With regard to natural gas, Erik, today many people argue that is the solution to our energy problems. But on TV we all see people turning on their water faucets and lighting the gas that comes out. Natural gas also has its problems.
FWIW, my dad told me stories of visiting his aunt and uncle's farm as a teenager and seeing his cousin light the gas coming out of the faucet. Needless to say, there wasn't any frac'ing going on at that time.
Every source of energy has problems of one kind or another. Natural gas has the advantage of being plentiful due to advances in drilling and production technology, as well as being clean. As a source of power for RR electrification, it has the advantage of being available when needed as opposed to only being available when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. Having schedules changing from hour to hour due to vagaries of wind and solar generation will not be a good way to woo people out of their cars.
N.B. Geothermal can provide reliable generation, but the sources are limited and it has some environmental issues as well.
erikem . Natural gas has the advantage of being plentiful due to advances in drilling and production technology, as well as being clean. As a source of power for RR electrification, it has the advantage of being available when needed as opposed to only being available when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. - Erik
. Natural gas has the advantage of being plentiful due to advances in drilling and production technology, as well as being clean. As a source of power for RR electrification, it has the advantage of being available when needed as opposed to only being available when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing.
Pulling people from cars is a market process. As noted, if the cost of driving becomes prohibitive, getting people out of their cars in Texas, especially for commuting, becomes a realistic probability. Otherwise, it is not likely to happen. At least not in significant numbers.
We have built an intensive light rail and commuter rail system in Dallas as well as between Dallas and Fort Worth. Approximately three to five per cent of the Metroplex population use these systems as well as buses. The trains run frequently, including more than 40 trains a day between Dallas and Fort Worth. The average FY11 subsidy for the commuter railway was $5.44 per passenger or 16.3 cents a passenger mile.
Several years ago I ask DART for data regarding ridership on the light rail system, the buses, and the commuter rail system. Surprisingly, they sent me spreadsheets for each route. The load factor on the morning and evening trains is higher than the average load factor. During the rush hours the load factor approaches 83 per cent, but during the off peak hours it falls to as little as 10 per cent, with the daily average being 44.3 per cent.
Along with the light rail and commuter rail systems, Dallas Area Rapid Transit invested heavily in HOV lanes on all the major highways leading into Dallas. The average subsidy for the HOV lane is $0.22 per motorist.
There are six trains per day between Charlotte and Raleigh. Their average load factor in FY11 was 46 per cent. There are numerous NEC regional trains per day between Washington and Boston. The average load factor was 46 per cent in FY11. There are approximately 22 trains per day between LA and San Diego. The average load factor was 35.3 per cent in FY11.
The Carolina trains lost $3.5 million before depreciation, interest, and miscellaneous charges. The NEC regionals had an operating profit of $15.2 million before the allocation of the capital expenses, which probably wiped out the operating profits. The LA to San Diego trains lost $33.9 million before the capital expenses.
Building it does not appear to be a magic bullet. It will take more than just building it to get Americans to make greater use of public transit or intercity trains.
Not all passengers should be counted equal.
Until we get away from the number of passengers and go to revenue passenger miles a rational view of what is needed will be impossible.
RRs report carloadings but it is the million revenue ton miles that pay the bills
blue streak 1 Erik; Natural gas generation does have many advantages as the new recuperating generator setups have almost a 50% energy recovery. The natural gas turbines can be started spinning as demand gets close to supply and then fired up with a 10 minutes warm up time. this gives about a 25 - 30% energy recovery. the waste heat is then cycled to a steam generator and in 1 hr gives the 50% energy recovery.
GE is claiming a 60% thermal efficiency for their latest combined cycle plants and 46% for their best simple cycle turbines (and 40% at 50% turndown). A natural gas fueled combustion turbine is likely to have close to zero particulates, minute SO2, reasonably low level of NOx, low CO2 emissions per kW-hr and also light on the cooling water requirements. It certainly would be cleaner running trains off these plants compared to diesel locomotives, once you get past the much higher capital costs and objections from people about the catenary.
One problem with turbines is the efficiency drops when run at less than full output (which is why GE touted the 40% efficiency at 50% turndown), don't like being started overly frequently and thus make a less than optimal back-up for generation that has large, rapid and unexpected changes in generation - (cough) wind (cough). Your comment about the 10 minute warm up time, implies that wind farms should be built with a 10 to 15 minute back-up to allow adequate time for replacement power to come on-line after the wind farm is becalmed.
P.S. To give a concrete example of how turbines are really bad at idling, UP's 4500HP GTEL's consumed 450 gal/hr at full output and 200 gal/hr at idle.
I am in no way as sophisticated in cost/analysis as many of you folks. But I do want to toss something out there for consideration. It is Jevon's Paradox. In 1865 A. Jevon established that the more technological efficiency that is achieved in the usage of a resource (in this case coal), the more the consumption of said resource increases. This paradox has been applied to other commodities and energies. So Obama can strive all he wants to for increased fuel efficiency, but will the increased mpg reduce consumption? It will not unless, and here comes the dreaded "T" word, an increasingly costly tax makes driving automobiles prohibitive to a significant number of people who then will seek another mode of transportation. And, if anyone listened to Obama's campaign rhetoric, increased costs for driving personal autos is not at all troubling to him.
In trying to get a handle on the cost/efficiency highway vs. rail business I investigated some data on US highway accidents and deaths from 1995 to 2009. The fatalities have declined about 25% from 44K per year to 33K per year. Meanwhile the accident rate had a 6% decline in1995 but has remained fairly static to 2009 at 10.8 million per year. I am sure some bean counter has already put a cost to this. All I know is what the last trip to the doctor for an annual physical cost and a what a recent minor fender bender cost. Multiply this over millions and factor in severe medical issues and auto damage and the cost of automoblie usage is very great indeed.
Someone may already have pointed out the cost to our economy for the fatalites and accidents on the highway, so forgive me if I am being redundant concerning this issue.
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