Orphan Road - inothercities - Comments

Well, the choices at this

serial catowner — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 08:39:02 -0800

Well, the choices at this point seem to be-

a) Total worldwide depression, leveling cost and revenue estimates alike.

b) Poorly executed 'bailout' that rewards Wall Street paperhangers and leaves the government too indebted to deal with economic crisis.

c) Responsible Keynesian pump-priming with government investment in needed infrastructure improvements.

If we achieve option c, we'll be funding projects with long enough lifespans that, over time, price spikes and revenue shortfalls will average out. That these averages need not be crippling seems to be indicated by the ability of Europe to rebuild after WW II, or the continued growth of economies like Brazil, Argentina, China, and India- all of which, at some point in my lifetime, have been considered total failures.

The real problem is healthcare. We spend 5% more of our GDP, to achieve roughly equivalent outcomes, than western European countries that provide universal coverage. This financial bleeding will, over time, make it impossible for us to sell bonds at moderate rates of interest- and the need to offer high interest on the bonds will, in turn, add about 10% to the cost of the projects the bonds finance.

We need structural reform and repair of our economic picture, or the Keynesian pump-priming will become the equivalent of an old farm-yard hand pump bolted on the deck of the Titanic.

Good catch. Indeed, the

Frank — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 22:59:41 -0800

Good catch. Indeed, the ghost of John Maynard Keynes is very much with us now. He was popular in FDR's time, when the idea was that you'd use public works projects to boost the income of working folks, and thereby grow the overall economy.

Now that "trickle down" Reganomics has finally been shown to be worthless, good old Keynesian economics are being trotted out again.

The economist Brad DeLong

stewartvonstewart — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 22:23:47 -0800

The economist Brad DeLong wrote a post about this eb and flow referring to it as "Keynesian economics" a few days ago... it is well worth a quick read at:

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2008/11/we-were-all-key...

With a good dose of history and well chosen quotations he concludes

..."Everything new is old again, and it's time to rebuild. Given the state of our infrastructure and the state of the economy, both of which have crumbling foundations, it's past time to start these projects. So what are we waiting for?"

That's interesting George,

Frank — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 08:27:47 -0700

That's interesting George, thanks. I wasn't aware that they didn't own the track.

While the passenger

graymond — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 02:42:52 -0700

While the passenger divisions of French National Railways (SNCF) are doing well, the freight division has been losing money for a number of years. To cut these losses, Fret SNCF has been pruning its network, leaving many areas without wagonload service. Since, as is customary in Europe, SNCF doesn't own its track, new rail operators are arriving to fill the gaps, offering unit-train and intermodal services and (potentially) local or shortline services.

George
http://railweb.ch

Cool. But confusingly

SteveM — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:29:26 -0700

Cool. But confusingly named, if you ask me. I read the headline as touting "(super light) rail" rather than "super (light rail)", so I was expecting to read about a smaller, lighter vehicle.

Just wait for California to

BenSchiendelman — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:39:14 -0700

Just wait for California to get started. Even if we don't get 110mph soon, when our people see what's happening there, they'll start paying attention.

While I never visited

BenSchiendelman — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:37:55 -0700

While I never visited Strasbourg before the TGV Est opened between there and Paris last summer, I'm told that the Entzheim airport that serves Strasbourg has seen a significant reduction in passenger load between the two points since last summer. Flying is not cost or time competitive with taking the train - in fact, because there are several services a day directly between Strasbourg and Charles de Gaulle, it's often faster to take a train directly to the Paris airport than to fly there!

If and when Amtrak Cascades

brian.bundridge — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 09:39:39 -0700

If and when Amtrak Cascades increases to 110mph running - the need for regional flights will pretty much be eliminated between Seattle and Portland. 2 hours and 30 minutes from Downtown Seattle to Downtown Portland and it's vast array of light-rail and streetcar connections would kill the need for any taxi from the Airport, etc.

My last plight on Horizon was 3 hours and 15 minutes..the main reason it took so long on Horizon was the delay at the terminal, then delay getting into PDX and the god awful taxi ride to Downtown...currently it's 3 hours and 20 minutes on Amtrak.

Never again - though I will miss the flight attendants... =D

Brian Bundridge
Seattle Transit Blog

I heard that it is worse on

EvergreenRailfan — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 22:13:49 -0700

I heard that it is worse on the Paris-Brussels Corridor, the TGV-like Thalys trains literally wiped it out.

Now a few mornings ago on WNYC/Public Radio International's The Takeaway, a former American Airlines CEO says that there is almost no reason for the New York-Washington Air Service. Although one would ask if they did so, why didn't he do that when he was CEO? The answer was that the ACELA EXPRESS had some problems. On that stretch, it cannot go it's top speed.

Now if we managed to get even 110MPH on the Seattle-Portland Corridor, and on frequencies of every hour, Horizon Air might be looking for what markets they can add service to that there are no fast trains going into.

And to think of the time I

serial catowner — Wed, 28 May 2008 07:56:07 -0700

And to think of the time I wasted yesterday downloading a picture of the Sprinter, to go with a link to a report on the Sprinter.

Agreed with all points

Frank — Wed, 14 May 2008 14:00:29 -0700

Agreed with all points above. We certainly could get our priorities in order and build HSR if we wanted to. It's a matter of having the political (and public) will. But it seems in the short- to medium-term, there's still a tension brewing.

I think the best strategy is

Matt the Engineer — Mon, 12 May 2008 18:11:10 -0700

I think the best strategy is to start small, but build a completely new system. Spending national dollars on heavily travelled corridors that will compete with air travel would give us a high value for our money. For example, high-speed rail from Vancouver to Seattle to Portland should follow high-speed rail from LA and San Diego to SF and Sacramento. As demand increases and fuel costs go up, connect the two lines.

Well, the fact is, pretty

serial catowner — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:34:59 -0700

Well, the fact is, pretty much everything is different about a freight line from a passenger line. Where they go is different, superelevation on curves is different, gradients are different, train lengths and speeds are different, and the stopping ability is different.

Some freight railroads do a lot better than others at getting Amtrak over their rails, but you have some real conflicts with mile long freights running in single track territory with opposing traffic.

As for successfully nationalizing the freight railroads that have rebuilt themselves over the past twenty years, I doubt there'd be much support for that.

Of course, compared with how we actually spend our money ($600 billion defense budget + "off the books" Iraq spending) the cost of building a new high-speed rail line is modest.

It's just a matter of priorities.

It's only going to get

The Overhead Wire — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:39:33 -0700

It's only going to get worse. With the government trying to re-regulate the rail industry, they are going to be even less willing to allow commuter rail on their tracks.

An issue though is, existing ROW for freight usually skips a lot of the places people want to go. A lot of corridors are fairly useless for transit and there needs to be more study as to which lines are and aren't appropriate.