On 5/4/2010 1:30 PM, Morris Dovey wrote:
On 5/4/2010 7:02 AM, HeyBub wrote:
Han wrote:
wrote in
m:

to move goods and people we require a lot of oil. Then, too, we do
so because we can. Like medical care, we can afford it, so we do it.

If we had a better, more efficient rail road system, we could move
goods by rail. Electrified, nuclear powered rail. It's a human
choice we made to put roads in, and as so many choices, some were
right, and some were wrong.

You're correct in thinking that nothing is more efficient that steel
wheels
on a steel rail. The problem is, however, that there are very few
railroads
that go to WalMart, the bodega down the street, and none at all that
come to
my house.

True, although at one time our cities (and larger towns) enjoyed
neighborhood rail service in the form of streetcar lines...

In fact, I'd be surprised if more than 10% of the towns in this country
actually HAVE rail service. Also, rail cars are not like the UPS
truck. Each
car's contents go entirely to one destination. Then, too, the
efficiency of
railroads is built on scale. It takes time to load 200 rail cars, get
them
all lined up and ready to go. Several days at least. I don't want to wait
that long for my donuts.

Fair enough, but I remember Railway Express moving packages around the
country without cumbersome delays - and that was before there were
computers to help optimize loading manifests and help train masters make
up trains.

The efficiency is not simply a matter of scale - it has a lot to do with
the ability to organize and plan the movement of goods, and there was a
/lot/ of merchandise moved very efficiently in LCL (less than carload)
quantities.

FWIW, Europe, which railfans hold up as the poster child for rail
service, has trouble getting businesses to use rail for shipping. Their
passenger service is popular, but not their freight service.

In the US, there is no real hope for intercity passenger service, since
passenger trains are required (as part of the deal by which passenger
service was nationalized) to wait for freight trains. There's no way to
fix that except by abrogating the deal with the owners of the
infrastructure, which opens up a huge can of worms, or running the
passenger service on its own infrastructure independent of the freight
carriers, which would involve immense expense.