Before the pandemic, two people commuted from Podunk, Michigan to Detroit, a drive of about one hour. If someone built them a high-speed rail line, they could save nearly half an hour, assuming they don’t decide to work at home. Of course, the fares they pay would never come close to covering the $6 billion cost of building the rail line, but who cares about the cost per rider?
“Who cares?” seems to be the attitude of the Northeast Corridor Commission, which consists of Amtrak and the commuter rail agencies that run trains on part of the Boston-to-Washington rail system. Where its 2010 master plan called for spending $52 billion in the corridor, the 2021 plan demands $117 billion to keep running trains in the corridor. But who cares about the increased cost?
A very small part of that $117 billion would be spent increasing speeds in the corridor. Currently, trains can go as fast as 150 mph on 32 miles of the 457-mile corridor. After spending $117 billion, the commission promises Amtrak will be able to run trains as fast as 160 mph on 132 miles of the corridor, saving Boston-New York travelers 28 minutes and New York-DC travelers 26 minutes. That’s “almost an hour” for the whole length, not that many people ever go the entire length when a plane can do the same trip in 97 minutes compared with 6 to 7 hours by train. But who cares about the trivial time savings?
Looking over the list of expenses on pages 183 and 184 of the plan, I can only find about $1.5 billion that would clearly be spent speeding up the rail line. Around $67 billion would be spent replacing or rehabilitating worn-out stations, bridges, tunnels, and rail yards. Another $39 billion is dedicated to other “capital renewal,” which would include new train cars and locomotives. Finally, $10 billion is for “other projects,” only some of which will benefit intercity travelers. That means that the $52 billion state-of-good-repair backlog reported in 2010 has more than doubled since then. But who cares about the cost?
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The only mention of the pandemic in the report is a claim that the commuter railroads provided a vital service in transporting “essential workers” to their jobs. But ridership on some of these railroads dropped to as little as 5 percent of pre-pandemic numbers, meaning there must not be too many essential workers who depended on the rail lines. Now both the commuter agencies and Amtrak are struggling to attract back even half of the riders they lost during the pandemic. Is it still worth spending $117 billion if the Northeast Corridor carries only half as many trips per day? But who cares if anyone rides the trains?
Democrats in Congress and the president certainly don’t seem to care about costs, ridership, or other issues. President Biden’s original infrastructure plan called for spending $80 billion on Amtrak, expecting that most of it would go to cover that $52 billion backlog reported in 2010. Now Amtrak has upped the ante by claiming the backlog has increased to well over $100 billion.
It clearly makes no sense to spend $6 billion so two Podunk commuters can save 25 minutes a trip getting to Detroit. But does it make sense to spend $117 billion to keep running Amtrak and other trains in the Northeast Corridor? Where do we draw the line between sense and nonsense?
There’s a clear demarcation between “able to cover capital and operating costs” and “unprofitable.” If we aren’t willing to use that as a rule for spending on transportation, we will get bureaucrats who opportunistically double their cost estimates as soon as a friendly party takes power. Does anyone care if that friendly party spends our grandchildren’s money on projects that we no longer really need?
It has become evident that not many care. We keep extending the envelope on what constitutes the mother of all boondoggles and nobody seems to care.
It’s 1.85 tons of CO2 per ton of steel
It’s 0.9 tons per ton of concrete
A concrete railroad tie weighs 200 lbs average (1/10th of a short ton) with an average distance of 19 inches, requires 264,000 per 100 miles (33,000 tons of concrete) producing just shy of 30,000 tons of CO2 or 264 tons per mile. Steel rail weigh 115 lbs per yard, or 101 tons per mile or 374 tons of co2 per mile for the steel track. In other words 638 tons per mile (NOT including welding, transport, etc) average it 1000 tons per mile.
Aluminum (Planes) 11.5 tons per ton of aluminum with an airplane weighing 80 tons mostly aluminum, Boeing having delivered over 15,000 737’s.
The global aviation industry produces around 2% of all human-induced carbon dioxide.Rail transportation emits about 0.2 pounds of greenhouse gases per passenger mile.
On average, a plane produces a little over 53 pounds per mile.
Air travel produces 265 times the emissions per mile.
US Airlines alone used 18.27 billion gallons of aviation fuel in 2019 producing 191 Million tons of emissions. Global aviation fuel use was 95 Billion gallons in 2019 producing a Billion tons of co2, That’s FAR greater than the construction co2 deficit of rail construction.
I’m not justifying one or other. I’m simply handling the “Big Math” Construction, The fact is building 10,000 miles of high speed rail would produce 10-15 million tons of CO2. GLOBAL Aviation emissions produce 1 Billion tons a year. Aviation’s fuel use produces 100x more emissions than rail construction, way less than rai utilizations.
An electrically driven freight train which consumes 30 Kilowatt-hours per train-mile at 12¢ per kWh would have a fuel cost of only $3.60. 30 kwh is about the daily electric use of a US home and equals 108 Megajoules or 20.45 kilojoules to go one foot that weighs over 3 Billion grams or 3000 tons. A modern 737 uses two CFM-6 turbine engines each producing 24000 lbs of thrust That’s over 74,000 horsepower. Or 54 Megawatts or 194.4 gigajoules per hour (at cruise speed of 550 mph or 806.66 feet per second) of flying uses 66.9 kilojoules per foot to move a mere 86 tons only about 6-7 tons are passengers and luggage.
To move the same gram One foot of distance, a 737 uses 1200x more energy to move the same unit of mass the same distance. Globally the aviation industry spent 188 BILLION dollars on fuel in 2019; 23% of their operating expenses.
Time is money.
It’s 1.85 tons of CO2 per ton of steel
It’s 0.9 tons per ton of concrete
A concrete railroad tie weighs 200 lbs average (1/10th of a short ton) with an average distance of 19 inches, requires 264,000 per 100 miles (33,000 tons of concrete) producing just shy of 30,000 tons of CO2 or 264 tons per mile. Steel rail weigh 115 lbs per yard, or 101 tons per mile or 374 tons of co2 per mile for the steel track. In other words 638 tons per mile (NOT including welding, transport, etc) average it 1000 tons per mile.
Aluminum (Planes) 11.5 tons per ton of aluminum with an airplane weighing 80 tons mostly aluminum, Boeing having delivered over 15,000 737’s.
The global aviation industry produces around 2% of all human-induced carbon dioxide. Rail transportation emits about 0.2 pounds of greenhouse gases per passenger mile. On average, a plane produces a little over 53 pounds per mile. Air travel produces 265 times the emissions per mile.
US Airlines alone used 18.27 billion gallons of aviation fuel in 2019 producing 191 Million tons of emissions. That’s FAR greater than the construction CO2 deficit of rail construction.
I’m not justifying one or other. I’m simply handling the “Big Math” Construction, The fact is building 10,000 miles of high speed rail would produce 10-15 million tons of CO2; and running it on electricity using otherwise clean energies like nuclear, hydro means little emissions. GLOBAL Aviation emissions produce 1 Billion tons a year. Aviation’s fuel demands; produces 100x more emissions than rail construction.
Basic concept of Physics. Assuming you mean a tonne – ie a metric tonne, 1000kg – the energy required to lift one tonne to a height of one meter is given by the equation ‘mgh’ – mass times the acceleration due to gravity times the height, so that’s 1000 * 9.8 * 1, or 9,800 Joules. Trains are order of magnitude more fuel efficient than planes, even empty.
An electrically driven freight train (even powered by coal) which consumes 30 Kilowatt-hours per train-mile at 12¢ per kWh would have a fuel cost of only $3.60. 30 kwh is about the daily electric use of a US home and equals 108 Megajoules or 20.45 kilojoules to go one foot that weighs over 3000 tons. A modern 737 uses two CFM-6 turbine engines each producing 24000 lbs of thrust That’s over 74,000 horsepower. Or 54 Megawatts or uses 54,000 kilowatt hours or 194.4 gigajoules per hour (at cruise speed of 550 mph or 806.66 feet per second) of flying uses 66.9 kilojoules per foot to move a mere 86 tons only about 6-7 tons are passengers and luggage.
A plane uses over 1000x more energy to move the same unit of mass the same distance.