A serious proposal on economic recovery, transportation and energy

[Fovea]

National high speed rail.

It will require the recent SCOTUS decision on EDomain, will employ a million or more, save fuel, move more Americans cheaper, and will never be rammed into a skyscraper.
It will move us closer to Kyoto compliance, it would free up the current freight owned rail for more freight traffic.

Yes, I will require airlines to re-think their market and missions.
Yes, it will reduce the need for Americans to own automobiles.
Yes, it will encourage a new host of services and goods for such a system.

Good.

[GliderGuider]

1. One small refinement:

National high speed electric rail.

It's one technical proposal I can support without reservation.

[Fovea]

2. Certainly

and that is the beauty of rail. It is energy agnostic.

I think that in places it might be solar electric, in others pebble bed reactors.

[GliderGuider]

3. Pebble bed reactors, or perhaps...

Wind power from the frantic beating of faerie wings...

I'd settle for any old electricity that happens to be hanging around. I'm energy agnostic too.

Alan Drake has a lot to say about electric rail.

[phantom power]

5. Or...

[Fovea]

8. In some places that might even make sense

but then you have the problem of not having enough traction stock or people who can drive a horse or mule.

But I'd ride one, assuming I was not in a hurry.

[Howzit]

4. I know freight trains are wonderfully efficient when fully laden, but

how efficient are passenger trains? Peolpe are not very heavy and don't stack very well, so the loading density cannot compare with freight.

How many joules per passenger per mile do trains use on *average*, considering that trains run on schedule whether they carry a full load or no one at all? Personal cars do not use energy when the owner is not going somewhere, and that is most of the time. This is tue, no matter if cars are electric, hybrid or fossil fuel powered, and improves their average effective efficiency, compared to trains.

[Howzit]

6. Transportation in a nut-shell

http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch8en/conc8en/ch8c2en.html

I forgot to add to the above post that most commuters would use cars to get to the train stations anyway... So, trains are good where population density is very high and people don't all own cars, such as New York city.

[Fovea]

7. passenger trains are not very heavy either

and are extensively employed in parts of the world not well supplied with oil resources.
Personal automobilies are inefficient when used compared to passenger rail, and when you lay out your entire nation based on cheap plentiful oil for transportation, the car makes perfect sense.
Those days are over. Vehicles not burning petroleum or natural gas will not be as convenient to operate and maintain. personal vehicles also have far higher road upkeep costs over rail. That is also part of the equation, and road building sucks energy like mad.

For long distance travel, air is a big loser, efficiency (which is not watts per hour but watts per hour per passenger).
Also note that energy efficiency is only one factor. Mass transit would save tens of thousands of lives per year.
We kill one 9-11's worth of Americans a month, and no one notices.

Mass transit encourages denser populations, which further reduce commute times and fuel expenditure. America will re urbanize and re rusticate in response to peak oil. The areas claimed by exurbia will be worth more growing food, and often these areas were prime farmland for regional metropolii. That pattern is fated to return, IMO, as petro-agriculture loses the feedstocks and must replace it with intensive agriculture.

Transportation is an interlocking series of systems to move people and goods. We lack a functional passenger rail system, and we are paying for it.

[Dead_Parrot]

9. In other news...

Tornado: the first steam train in Britain for 50 years



The first new steam train to run on Britain's railway since 1960 has completed its first trial run without a hitch.

Dozens of enthusiasts lined the platform to see the Peppercorn class A1 Pacific steam locomotive begin its return journey on Tuesday evening.

The train, called Tornado, left its home at the National Railway Museum in York at 6.04pm and left York station 14 minutes later.
...
The train will then be repainted in its original livery of apple green and is intended to begin carrying its load of up to 600 passengers in January of next year on the York-Newcastle route.

Sigh...