There's some pretty smart people in this newsgroup.

Maybe someone can clear up this puzzler;

CSX ( railroad ) has been running TV ads that claim;

"We can move one ton of freight 486 miles
on ONE GALLON of fuel........."

I'm sure it's not an outright lie,
so how could they get these numbers ?

Maybe cars of the future should run on rails ??

RJ wrote:
There's some pretty smart people in this newsgroup.

Maybe someone can clear up this puzzler;

CSX ( railroad ) has been running TV ads that claim;

"We can move one ton of freight 486 miles
on ONE GALLON of fuel........."

I'm sure it's not an outright lie,
so how could they get these numbers ?

Maybe cars of the future should run on rails ??




That's probably for a fully loaded train running on flat ground. A ton
is nothing, those things are immense.

And yes, rail is a lot more efficient than even a semi-truck. Could be
more efficient if/when they incorporate regen braking.

nate

--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

On Jun 4, 5:46*pm, "RJ" wrote:

"We can move one ton of freight 486 miles
on ONE GALLON of fuel........."

I'm sure it's not an outright lie,
so how could they get these numbers ?

Train has 100 cars, each with 100 tons of cargo. Starts at
Alphaville, travels 486 miles to Bravotown, burns 10000 gallons of
diesel. Result is 486 ton-miles/gallon.

3000-5000 gallon tanks are (were?) pretty standard on big (3000+ hp)
GM & GE diesels. 2-3 units on the headend (depending on geography),
top up at each end, seems reasonable at a glance.

Steel wheel on steel rail is incredibly more efficient than rubber on
asphalt. And they pay for their own roadway maintenance vs taxpayers
paying for highway maintenance.


Maybe cars of the future should run on rails ??

Well maybe if we all had our own track construction crews to lay rails
to grandma's house.

Red
(third generation railroader)

RJ wrote:
There's some pretty smart people in this newsgroup.

Maybe someone can clear up this puzzler;

CSX ( railroad ) has been running TV ads that claim;

"We can move one ton of freight 486 miles
on ONE GALLON of fuel........."

I'm sure it's not an outright lie,
so how could they get these numbers ?

Maybe cars of the future should run on rails ??

AAR (Assoc American RR's) says the industry average in '07 was 436
miles/gallon overall based on mileage and consumption. The answer is as
another poster already pointed out--high payload makes the divisor quite
large/mile. Same effect as the miles/passenger mile in large commercial
aircraft--when divide by 300+ passengers, the hourly consumption goes
down on an individually basis quite rapidly as compared to an automobile.

The effect is most dramatically demonstrated if consider a 30 mpg car is
60 mi/passenger-mile when two are riding as opposed to only one.

--

I suspect trains (even cargo trains) also have a huge aerodynamic
advantage over cars due to having very small frontal area relative to
weight.

Larry The Snake Guy wrote:
I suspect trains (even cargo trains) also have a huge aerodynamic
advantage over cars due to having very small frontal area relative to
weight.


They also tend to have less steep hills.

On Jun 4, 8:21*pm, "Bob F" wrote:
Larry The Snake Guy wrote:

I suspect trains (even cargo trains) also have a huge aerodynamic
advantage over cars due to having very small frontal area relative to
weight.

They also tend to have less steep hills.

It is incredibly difficult to make complex arguments about some things
-- this being one.

For example, not only do they have less steep hills, but they don't
stop at road crossings -- but cars do. So if you are tootling along
in your jalopy, and a train comes by, you must stop for it. You wait,
then keep going. They lowers YOUR gas mileage. But it isn't YOUR
fault. One could argue that YOUR wasted gas was an externality of the
train and YOUR gas waste should really be added to the train's fuel
usage, not yours. Therefore your real gas mileage should be higher
and the train's should be lower. Think of the mileage a train would
get it it had to stop for cars at every crossing.

RJ wrote:
There's some pretty smart people in this newsgroup.

Maybe someone can clear up this puzzler;

CSX ( railroad ) has been running TV ads that claim;

"We can move one ton of freight 486 miles
on ONE GALLON of fuel........."

I'm sure it's not an outright lie,
so how could they get these numbers ?

Maybe cars of the future should run on rails ??




http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009...g-greenest.php

On Jun 4, 7:06*pm, "
wrote:
RJ wrote:
snip

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009...g-greenest.php

"Perhaps most importantly, trucks don't require their own
infrastructure, and are therefore capable of reaching any destination
without advance notice."

Aren't the interstates and local roads the trucks' infrastructure? I
don't know if having your business massively subsidized by the
government really counts as a plus.

Loved the bit about trucks pulling 2 or 3 trailers too. Ever see one
of those Australian "road trains" heading across the outback? They'd
look great on the freeways of LA.

wrote:
On Jun 4, 7:06 pm, "
wrote:
RJ wrote:
snip

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009...g-greenest.php

"Perhaps most importantly, trucks don't require their own
infrastructure, and are therefore capable of reaching any destination
without advance notice."

Aren't the interstates and local roads the trucks' infrastructure? I
don't know if having your business massively subsidized by the
government really counts as a plus.

Loved the bit about trucks pulling 2 or 3 trailers too. Ever see one
of those Australian "road trains" heading across the outback? They'd
look great on the freeways of LA.

The cool thing about those Australian road trains is that the tractors
they use are only marginally more powerful than the typical one used
here in the US. About 500 HP. 'Course there's NO hills either.

s

Listening to late night radio, someone called the triple
trailers "wiggle wagons". I can imagine that.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


wrote in message
...

Loved the bit about trucks pulling 2 or 3 trailers too.
Ever see one
of those Australian "road trains" heading across the
outback? They'd
look great on the freeways of LA.

On Jun 4, 9:10*pm, wrote:

Aren't the interstates and local roads the trucks' infrastructure? * I
don't know if having your business massively subsidized by the
government really counts as a plus.

"The grants made between 1850 and 1871 turned over to the railroad
companies about 159 million acres of the public domain, an area
exceeding five states the size of Pennsylvania."
-----

- gpsman

On Jun 5, 1:16*am, gpsman wrote:
On Jun 4, 9:10*pm, wrote:



Aren't the interstates and local roads the trucks' infrastructure? * I
don't know if having your business massively subsidized by the
government really counts as a plus.

"The grants made between 1850 and 1871 turned over to the railroad
companies about 159 million acres of the public domain, an area
exceeding five states the size of Pennsylvania."
*-----

- gpsman

If you agree to spend billions of your own money on this risky
venture, we'll give you a whole bunch of worthless (at the time)
buffalo pasture and desert. Such a deal!

Anyway, that's startup funding in support of social policy, not
ongoing, never-ending maintenance subsidy. Not the same thing.

wrote:
On Jun 5, 1:16 am, gpsman wrote:
On Jun 4, 9:10 pm, wrote:



Aren't the interstates and local roads the trucks' infrastructure? I
don't know if having your business massively subsidized by the
government really counts as a plus.
"The grants made between 1850 and 1871 turned over to the railroad
companies about 159 million acres of the public domain, an area
exceeding five states the size of Pennsylvania."
-----

- gpsman

If you agree to spend billions of your own money on this risky
venture, we'll give you a whole bunch of worthless (at the time)
buffalo pasture and desert. Such a deal!

Anyway, that's startup funding in support of social policy, not
ongoing, never-ending maintenance subsidy. Not the same thing.

A large portion of it was not at all worthless even at the time--it sold
very rapidly as the railroads moved westward.

But, I agree it was social/national expansionist policy of the time and
served the intended purpose.

OTOH, the public roadways also pay a handsome dividend...

--

gpsman wrote:

"The grants made between 1850 and 1871 turned over to the railroad
companies about 159 million acres of the public domain, an area
exceeding five states the size of Pennsylvania."

Um...it's a common misconception that the government simply gifted the
developing railroads these lands. That's not true. The railroads were
required to carry government traffic at reduced rates which more than made
up for the value of the land. This was finally repealed in the 1940's and
by then it had more than compensated for the land.

http://dev.aar.org/AAR/IndustryInformation/
~/media/AAR/BackgroundPapers/144.ashx

On Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:46:30 -0700, RJ wrote:

There's some pretty smart people in this newsgroup.

Maybe someone can clear up this puzzler;

CSX ( railroad ) has been running TV ads that claim;

"We can move one ton of freight 486 miles
on ONE GALLON of fuel........."

I'm sure it's not an outright lie,
so how could they get these numbers ?

Maybe cars of the future should run on rails ??


Its all in how to manipulate the numbers. If I read this site correctly
(http://www.aar.org/~/media/AAR/Files...ity_study.ashx) the
maximum capacity of a RR car is almost 300,000 lbs.(150 tons), including
the weight of the car itself. An average train contains over 80 cars
(eyeball average). That is a lot of weight being towed by a train. This
is average, not maximum load. If you use the maximum load capacity,
multiply the fuel mileage on a full train by the number of tons on the
train could easily yield quite a large number of miles per gallon per ton.