Comments on: Do Passenger Trains Save Energy? Another Look

By: Bill Sell

Bill Sell — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:30:25 +0000

O’Toole has several disconnects in his argument. He surmises that management of buses will not change when a rail is added to the transit mix. This of course could happen in a less than brilliant management system, but if rail is added, it makes sense to look at bus route and tweak them to serve the new configuration. The big claim of bus-over-rail advocates is that rubber tire service is more flexible; O’Toole would like to ignore this claim when it is inconvenient to his argument.

Rail is not locked-in technology. The rails are, yes in the ground, but the engines will continue to improve, or electricity might as well be added, constantly improving rail efficiency. O’Toole assumes cars efficiencies will improve and assumes rail efficiency will not improve.

His favorite org, Center for Clean Air Policy, is a market-based advocacy group, and by that commitment to that mission, will argue against public investment, as does O’Toole’s Cato which has faith in market solutions, and is well funded by industries that stand to gain from the status quo.

By: Bill Sell

Bill Sell — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 17:33:53 +0000

Andrew, you don’t have to take down the highways and rebuild the whole transportation infrastructure. But rail would alleviate the need to constantly expand the highways, and thereby generate more congesting traffic, driving up the need to widen the highways. Some cities have taken down freeways and found less congestion, because that old grid is quite efficient. Efficiencies in locomotion will expand to fill the need in any transport engine. There is no way they can or will be limited to the automobile.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:02:21 +0000

The solution there is in fact to eliminate the public highway system, not to introduce MORE public transportation (Dang that Eisenhower!)

By: BCassidy

BCassidy — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 04:46:29 +0000

Andrew – We have more or less already had our personal choice taken away from us. We have public highways, interstates, ect. The government has made the option of taking a car much better than taking a train. I have ridden a train from Texas to Florida on a few occasions, and the experience (personaly) was a little worse than driving. However, if I was sitting on a train doing 200+ I think I would much prefer it. If we had a better public rail system, then our tax dollars would at least give us a ‘choice’.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 02:42:50 +0000

BCassidy-Unless I’m mistaken, the point of the post is that there is nothing wrong with rail as a personal choice-if people want to use it, they can. But that is very different either mandatory rail travel or public rail systems (the latter choice is essentially the same as the former-everyone is paying for it, so there personal choice is taken from them).

By: BCassidy

BCassidy — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:21:50 +0000

I accidently posted on your old post comparing trains.

But I’d like a rail system. Not for energy saving purposes, but just to reduce the time I have to drive. If we had 200+ mph rail system, making it from Houston to Dallas or Baton Rouge would be much quicker, less stressful, and less deadly.

By: Tom Tanton

Tom Tanton — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:02:30 +0000

Nice piece Randal. I’d add that “ensuring full costs of energy consumption are included in energy prices”–i.e. internalizing externalities–is at least as much a case of impossibility as is life cycle analysis (and the two are certainly related.) I also agree with your assessment of vintage-of-technology issues, but find that one true irony is the gerneral failure to recognize that new fossil fired power plants approach/exceed 55% thermal efficiency compared to the average (>30 years old) system average of “about a third.” The replacement of old plants with new plants across the board would do more than any law or regulation to reduce fuel use in all things electric, including electric trains, but the laws and regulations hold back any such grace, and instead push silly non-solutions that can’t power a train anyway.