Re: World's First Fuel Cell-Powered Train Locomotive Slated for 2008

From: Hatunen (hatuunen_at_cox.net)
Date: 08/19/04 

Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 15:14:09 -0600

On 19 Aug 2004 15:15:09 -0500, Scott A Crosby
<scrosby@cs.rice.edu> wrote:

>On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 11:31:05 -0600, Hatunen <hatuunen@cox.net> writes:
>
>> >And why would things be any different now with HSR, except that now
>> >the passenger rail network is in more disrepair, hundreds of miles of
>> >high speed track is needed, and airplanes are the entrenched
>> >technology? IE: Tell me why history wouldn't repeat itself exactly the
>> >same way this time.
>>
>> Going to Europe can be illuminating. High speed trains are effective
>> because they are used for medium distances where six hours is about
>> the longest trip that gives a train an attraction over air travel
>> (which is growing rapidly inside Europe since low-cost airlines have
>> been allowed).
>
>In Europe, the countries are small. Germany is only 360k km^2. France,
>540k km^2. With 200km/h trains virtually anyplace you might want to
>reach within the country is under 5 hours away. That isn't true about
>the US.
>
>Europe also has a much higher population density. Germany and France
>combined have half of the population of the US, but only 8% of the
>land area, implying any nationwide HSR network is going to require
>several times the track milage --- and expense.

Germany and France are not Europe. Considering even just the EU
Europe is a very large place; Europe as a whole, extending
through Belarus and Ukraine into western Russia is a very large
place, indeed, and without a terribly high overall population
density.

I do think the proper comparison is Europe as a whole and states
individually. using France and Germany as examples there should
be no reason that a populated area of the USA like the northeast
corridor shouldn't be able to benefit by HSR (which Acela
certainly is not) But it would require a political unlikelhood:
voters would have to agree to be taxed for such a system, since
it cannot make money without subsidy.

HSR between NY and Chicago would be a more or less valid
comparison.

California is actually in the process of trying to establish HSR
between Sacramento/San Franciso and LA/San Diego. The commission
wants a chunk of sales tax state wide. I predict the voters will
turn it down.

>The distance between San Diego, CA and San Francisco, CA is
>800km. Houston, TX to El Paso, TX is 1300km, and there's not much in
>between. How far apart is Nice, France and Brest, France? Or Kiel,
>Germany and the Austrian border? Europe and the US have very different
>population distributions, both at the large scale --- across the
>continent --- and at the small scale --- within a city.

Taken as a whole the population distributions aren't all that
different. Think of the Boston-NYC-Phil-Washington Corridor as
comparable to Paris-Lille-Koeln-Frankfort-Berlin. Kiel to Munich
is 882 km. Brussels to Vienna is 918 km.

>> Another factor is that European governments consider trains and
>> local transit a social good and necessity and they are willing to
>> subsidize them heavily. One of the reasons for the decline of
>> rail in the 1950s (besides the interstate highways and toll roads
>> making driving attractive) was the rail service was provided by
>> private rail companies that had to make a profit; you can't make
>> a profit on passenger service and the rail companies found ways
>> to kill off passenger service.
>
>Wasn't passenger rail in the US a private and profitable and a
>desireable way to travel before it was outcompeted by airlines? Why
>would the outcome be any different today? With enough subsidies, you
>could bring back horse&buggy carriages for their lack of pollution and
>the valuable horse manure they'd leave on our streets.

Documentaries I've seen indicate that the only thing that saved
rail service in the 1930s and 1940s was the Depression, when many
could not afford to own a car, and WW2 when most were not allowed
to drive one. The rail companies thought passenger service got in
the way of profitable freight operations (which would eventually
be in trouble, too). Of course the airlines hurt: it was far
bettter for businessmen not to spend three days on a train when
half a day on a plane would get them acros the country.

In late 1960 I traveled from my home town in northeast Ohio to
Cleveland by train to be inducted into the Army. That night they
put me in a sleeper compartment to go to Cincinnati, followed by
a rickety train to Louisville and a bus to Fort Knox. The hayday
of the train was just about over. The interstates from Cleveland
to Louisville were more or less daone a few years later. It could
be driven in six or seven hours and no one used the trains, which
died out.

And once the jet entered general airline service, common people
could fly, but the trains were already in their death throes due
to the automobile and the railroads were happy for an excuse to
kill them. America now has its first truly transcontinental
train, the Sunset between Florida and Los Angeles. It takes three
days and although well attended the passengers tend to be
nostalgia buffs. No one takes it as a means of transportation.
Not when a plane takes only six hours. And, unlike typical long
routes in Europe, the Sunset only runs one train three days a
week. HSR, say a TGV, would take 17 hours to do it, plus time for
stops, which means an overnight trip. It would also cost more
than the plane.

As to horses, they were a terrible source of pollution. See if
you can find out how much horse piss flooded the streets of New
York every day. And manure disposal wasn't simple then. Valuable
horse manure? Value depends on demand and supply; manure would be
cheap as *** if horses were used widely. Horses are dangerous,
too; a lot of people were injured or killed by horses.

    ************* DAVE HATUNEN (hatunen@cox.net) *************
    * Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
    * My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

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