Traveling

[scooterbird]

I think I'm much like most folks in that I "know", from my perch atop the barstool, what's best for my city/country/world/whaddevah, and I do pontificate about it in this journal quite a bit to you, my long-suffering captive audience. I think I'm unlike most in at least two respects: first, I don't necessarily happen to be drunk when I do so -

Comments

[simonator]

Well one of the difficulties is simply that the rails are full up with freight. I'm under the impression that in Europe a larger percentage of freight is moved by truck rather than by rail. Long distances in the U.S. make passenger rail less competetive versus air, they make rail MORE competetive versus trucks. I would guess that most imports that are shipped more than, say 1200 miles (oops, say 2Mm) from the port of embarcation are on railroads for part of the journey. And heavy freight IS inconsistant with high speed passenger use. You can't easily mix high and low speed on the same track, and the freights wear down the roadbed to an extant that is inconsistant with high speed operation.

I suspect that the only real way to have high speed passenger rail is to build dedicated right of way from scratch. This would be dauntingly expensive in the sort of densely populated areas where there would be sufficient demand to justify it. I suspect that it might be possible to put it in the medians of the interstates, but I suspect that the right of way designed for autos might not work as well with trains. (steeper grades and what-not) Of course if you WERE designing high speed rail with blank sheet of paper, you could go broad-gauge which might improve the ride and possible speed some. Or MAGLEV. Hmm....But probably too blue sky to EVER happen.
(Reply to this)

[starfyrone]

A few months ago I was reading about ocean shipping, according to the article I was reading shipments arrive from asia on the west coast, and sit in harbour or warehouse for months, because the overland frieght transportation network is saturated. The ships are big enough that the can't use the canal, and it is currently moreeconomical to let non-perisables wait however long than take the ship round the horn. I was curious about the opposite route, from east to west coast ( are the trains and trucks deadheading?) but the article didn't mention that.

[scooterbird]

And the nation is losing truckers, at least the independent ones, due to high gas prices. I would suspect the large trucking companies are feeling the pinch as well.