stp via train?

[georgejas]

Wondering why the train is so much more than driving. For one person, it's about $70 one way, round trip $140, and it takes five hours, plus the cost of transportation to the train station on both ends (if any... Probably negligible.). To drive there and back is about a tank and a half of gas max, about $50, and takes about 2 hours less each

Comments

[angelbob]

I'm not entirely sure, but the train that I have data on uses *huge* amounts of fossil fuels. The only reason they run it (this is the "skunk train" in north-ish coastal CA, in the Redwoods) is because they run it on tons and tons (literally) of used motor oil, which isn't good for much.

If that's common, then the train's probably less efficient than a car. Coal was pretty cheap for handling that, but these days you don't want to burn a lot of coal for a train... It's very smokey.

[talldean]

Trains, at least in other countries, are massively more efficient than a car. Freight trains started getting 400 ton-miles per gallon of diesel in America in 2003; that's moving eight hundred thousand pounds a mile per every gallon burned. A fully loaded tractor trailer gets around 200 ton-miles (40 tons at 5 mpg), and a 4000 pound car at 25 mpg is 50 ton-miles.

That said, passenger trains don't pack together as well as freight.

[angelbob]

That makes sense. The Skunk Train is more of an old historical curiosity, so it makes a great deal of sense that modern freight trains would beat the stuffings out of it for fuel efficiency.

[talldean]

I'm wondering what it's pollution footprint is, if it's burning used motor oil.

Then again, with a decent enough filter on the exhaust, that's probably the best way to get rid of it?

[pauldf]

WSDOT says that Amtrak Cascades uses about 56.5 times as much energy as a typical automobile per mile. (I'm in the middle of reading their long-term plan for that corridor.)