What is Digg?13 Comments
- inactive, on 05/26/2008, -1/+9Yeah, that is right. Rail shipping saves tons on carbon emissions. Far more efficient that trucking the cargo.
- SgtAl, on 05/26/2008, -0/+6Unfortunately a lot of rail has fallen into sad shape due to little or no investment or serious maintenance.
- livegreenordie, on 05/26/2008, -0/+5 Good to know & good link. The US has built its society so that we are connected mainly by roads. Europe has been streamlining their rail system for years, linking countries and rely on them heavily. Europeans are way ahead of us and we will probably see the same trends in the US as fossil fuels become more and more expensive.
- life38, on 05/27/2008, -0/+4The best use of resources works best when using a hub system that rail works very well with. Government should only support designated hub areas for development to ensure we protect our resources and are efficient.
- rachelmsearchin, on 05/26/2008, -0/+3Because living near a highway or an airport is so much quieter.
- phunlee, on 05/27/2008, -1/+3It's my guess that until Wal-Mart (et al) all have train stations that come directly to stores and their distribution centers, this isn't feasible. We'll still need the trucks to get to every SuperCenter in B.F. America.
I'm so negative today, I apologize. - aki009, on 05/26/2008, -2/+4It's not helpful to compare Europe and the US when it comes to railroads. Rail works best between single points with large concentrations of industry or people. Europe is ideal for rail for that reason. In the US distances strongly favor air transportation for people and the relatively thin distribution of industry transportation pushes a lot of business to trucks.
Also, there's already a lot of transport of trailers and containers by rail, and presumably the reason there isn't more is related to service points, the time the rail transport takes, and the cost of it in comparison to trucking. The cost and time factors could presumably be improved, for example by projects such as the one by CSX, but in the end there's a limit to how attractive rail can be. - DoctorDiamond, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1Rail in the U.S. is different from rail in Europe, as its role here has largely been industrial. For the U.S., that's probably the best/only role for it outside of densely populated areas rather than for public transit. But relative to its size, U.S. industrial areas are fairly concentrated, particularly in the rust-belt, mid-Atlantic, and midwest; and agriculture dominating in the western and central states. Saying that air transportation and trucking are going to work better in moving goods efficiently between these areas because they're far apart overlooks a few things in rail's favor.
Planes & trucks rely on distribution hubs the same way trains do, but the number of airports that can support heavily laden freight planes is relatively small and the damage to highways from overweight trucks is expensive. But trains can be loaded directly at the nation's ports and won't clog the skies or roads. And given that jet fuel is expensive and that jets aren't exactly paragons of fuel efficiency, there's nothing near a cost savings when moving goods that don't have some dire time-value component. Smaller, more efficient planes and faster, more advanced trains can be used to get time-critical items to distribution centers without the growing financial and environmental costs of using cargo jets and pedal-to-the-metal trucking. Oil prices and the price of pollution will not go down -- using rail will only become more attractive as those costs continue to rise. - RorObSN, on 05/26/2008, -1/+2Trains can only go so many places being bound to tracks, we are still going to need those trucks to move the cargo places, but it would cut down our carbon footprint a bit. Not sure how economically feasible it will be in the end though.
- DoctorDiamond, on 06/05/2008, -0/+1Rail used to be how freight was moved in the US -- you know, back before there were trucks. Or paved roads. Now that fuel prices are making trucking less economical, rail has a great opportunity to be relevant and profitable again.
Investments in restoring the nation's rail infrastructure would be a great for the environment and public safety by getting trucks out of freeway traffic. Trucks will still have a role moving goods from rail depots to stores and smaller towns, but that role would represent a much smaller impact on the environment and smaller, more efficient trucks could be used.
These statistics cited in the article blew me away: "Trains can move a ton of freight 423 miles on a single gallon of fuel," "shifting 10% of long-haul freight from the highway to the railway would reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by more than 12 million tons," and "one train can carry the load of more than 280 trucks." - DrCrankenstein, on 05/28/2008, -0/+0A new golden age for trains! The automobile's heyday is past!
Actually I think we should build a giant, interconnected system of canals through the US. Ships are way more efficient than any land transportation. - blarger, on 05/26/2008, -4/+1Yeah, we are polluting way too much when we transport our gasoline and coal and new Hummers by long haul trucks, let's just put them on trains, Hooray Earth!
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