Maybe,
But you’d have to have a super yard as the final destination…
Yard space and dwell time in yards is the linch pin to train speed…
You could run trains on todays system at 50 mph, no sweat…but you dont have anywhere to put them, they would back up on the main in a heartbeat.
The TGV and other high speed trains dont have to be taken apart…they go from here to there, stop, the engineer walks back to the other end, and then the entire train goes from there back to here.
The train stays intact the entire time, (maintainance excluded), and if you tack a few boxcars on the end, it only takes a few minutes to have a yard goat pull em off.
Freight trains, on the other hand, are taken apart, rebuilt, switched out, blocked and classified several times over in their run…and that takes time and space.
To run mainline trains any faster than we do now would require more, and bigger yards than exsist today…and the odds of any new ones being built to handle inbounds arriving in the quanity stated are nill, it cost too much.
And, drawing any compairson between any European high speed rail system and the American freight system is silly…both are two completly different systems, designed for different purposes…financed differently, and constructed under completly different legal systems and governments.
Ed
The discussion has been very interesting but what FedEx is looking for is a way to move what amounts to mail point to point and hubbing from the end points. They’re not talking about freight which would require truck transport because of size or weight.
The French postal service already does this with the mail and it happens primarily at night for next day delivery. Some of those TGV’s which are owned by the Post have replaced mail lights between Paris and the south of France.TGV Paris-south coast is about six hours thus beating the highway speeds and making more overnight delivery possible.
A piece could be handed to FedEx in the south of France at 4 PM local time and be delivered the next day here in the US using TGV trains to the airport.
The reason the RRs don’t or haven’t looked at high speed freight is because it’s a moot point. They don’t have the capital to do anything on that magnitude, so why even was a minute considering it. They barely can generate enough capital to keep their heads above water.
However, if and when HSR is considered, it’s an artificial constraint to propose that it be passenger only. Might as well get as much bang for the buck you can.
The freight that would move on HSR probably wouldn’t look like today’s frt trains. Certainly, it wouldn’t be loose car freight - no need to go 100 mph between hump yards only to spend 24 hours there.
If you’re thinking FedEx and UPS, you’re thinking too narrowly. Certainly, they would be interested, but you’d really be creating a new market niche, much like when FedEx originally formed. They didn’t move into an existing niche, they CREATED one - overnight mail.
Maybe the HSR frt niche would be “overnight truckload” service - something like air freight service at truckload prices.
The problem with getting any HSR proposal to consider both frt and passenger is that we’ve slowly been building a wall between frt and passenger operations in this country and the more organizations you have to invite to the table to get something done, the harder it is to do.
Do you even read any of the other threads on this forum. If you had, you’d know that those other modes have had to pay for the infrastructure for the most part provided through user fees. They in turn have to include this cost when they bill their customers. The only difference between railroads and all other modes is that railroads pay property tax on the ROW, and they would rather have i
Dave re “If you had, you’d know that those other modes have had to pay for the infrastructure for the most part provided through user fees”.
I do not beleve you can find any inependant study that shows truckers or water carriers do or do not pay taxes equal to the cost of their government provided ROW. An independent study means a study paid for by someone without a vested interst in the outcome. Studies by the AAR, ATA, AWO, etc. do not count.
If you know of such a study share the citation with the rest of us.
My thoughts exactly. The 23 mph avg is with dwell times included. Start-to-stop trains probably make averages in the proximity 40mph. Even unit trains.
Suppose, that, once upon a time, there were two tranportation modes. Mode A required a HUGE capital investment, but once done, operated for free. Mode B required no capital investment, but cost a few dollars to operate. Lets assume that the fully amoratized cost per trip for mode A worked out to $100, but mode B cost $10 per trip.
Which would you pick?
All this discussion over what is “proper” funding and out of which pocket Uncle Sam pulls the money is irrelevant. The point is “what do we get for our money”.
oltmannd:
Really? Interesting? Out of sheer curiosity - how do these speeds corelate with dwell time then?
For example - if a train goes from point 1, to point 2, where it waits for 4 hours, then from point 2 to point 3 - where it waits for 6 hours and gets power swap and extra cars at the end then proceeds to point 4 - the avg speed is considered when the train moves or as its scheduled origin-dst distance and time? Including all stops and possible alterations?
And I would challenge you to show us a study that backs up your side of the argument, with the same caveats.
In the meantime, go back and read some of the data provided by DSchmidt regarding this issue. He has cited information that gives credence to the argument that truckers DO pay their “fair” share of interstate highway corridors e.g. both the Interstate and U.S. Highway designations. Of course, defining “fair” itself is a subjective arguement, therefore not one that can easily be ascertained even by a so-called independent researcher.
I would also point out evidence that exists in the form of the Highway Trust Fund and the Waterway Trust Fund that gives credence to the argument that such modes pay their way, at least in areas where these user fees are applicable. Again, there is subjectivity in any argument regarding waterways, since most waterways are only a segment of an entire dam project, and they also allow recreational users alongside commercial users through the locks and channels.
But I think the point is well evidenced that other modes do pay for their respective infrastructure costs, e.g. the bulk of their ROW costs are borne via user fees, not from general tax funds. Certainly, there is no evidence to the contrary. It is true that some general funds in the guise of economic development funds are used on those modes, but thos
I CANNOT PUT MY HANDS ON IT BUT ONE OF THE RESPECTED TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH MAGAZINES (MOSTLY UNIVERSITY TYPES) HAD A SURVEY THAT SHOWED THAT OVER 95% OF THE MAINTENANCE COSTS OF INTERSTATE HIGHWAYS WAS FROM TRUCK USE AND 5% FROM PRIVATE AUTOS, BUT THAT THE TRUCKS ACTUALLY PAID LESS THAN HALF OF THE MAINTENANCE COSTS.
BUT POSSIBLY THAT SUBSIDY IS ESSNETIAL TO THE “AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE” (IF YOU HAVE IT A TRUCK BROUGHT IT. EVEN IF YOU ARE A RAILROAD!"
With apologies to DSchmitt, I will plagerize one of his posts in the “Bush Budget Scraps Subsidies for Amtrak” thread and repost it here for the benefit of those who still think highways users don’t pay their own way. I believe this data is from BTS.
DSchmitt - If you request I will delete this or modify it at your behest.
"The Highway subsidy Myth.
Direct user fees pay for only 60% of the road system. However the Federal share of the cost for Highways is 100% user fee.
States pay their share with 80% user fees (including what they get from the Federal government.).
Local roads are only 26% user fee (including what they get from the Feds and State) While the local streets and roads are not paid for by user fees, they are paid for by the people who use/and or benefit them.
<Until well after 1900, farmers in many parts of the country paid all or part of their property tax by building and maintaing the county road system. There were few autos to pay user fees but the roads were still needed.>
<In California new local roads are built by developers at theit expence. Upgrades to existing roads are often done by developers or paid for by developer fees. Some Highway (including Freeway) upgrades are paid for by developers too. This of course increases the developers cost, which they hope to recoup from customers, but it releaves the taxpayer of some of the direct costs for the road system.>
States and locals use some highway user fee revenue for non-highway puropses. They also use other revenue for highway purposes so the overall picture is very complicated
Taking all this into account, the highway subsidy is no where near 40%. It may even be in reality non-exsistent since Highway user fees are also used for non-highway purposes.
The point of this thread is to compare and contrast the advent of time sensitive freight services on a pre-existing HSR dedicated to passenger transport, and how the relative success of this freight service could provide data for constructing a muli-commodity HSR network in the U.S. If we can build a network that allows bulk transport at speeds in excess of nominal highway speeds, it would open up a whole new marketplace, both domestically and internationally.
I would suggest that the Highway and Waterway trust fund be merged into an Intrastructure Trust Fund, and have the diesel fuel tax be applied to all diesel fuel purchases regardless of mode. That means trucks, bargelines, and railroads would all pay a 20 to 30 cents per gallon tax. Each mode would be allowed to retain a high percentage (e.g. 80%) of the revenues for reinvestment in its modal form. The funds created by this user fee would go only to open access ROW’s to ensure that no monopolistic endowment occurs. The flexibility of the funding options will ensure that multimodal projects get equal footing. The rail portion of this trust fund will be prioritized for those HSR projects that initially provide interconnections to the current rail network gaps, and will be designed similar to the Interstate Highway System e.g. elevated crossings, controlled access.
We need to remember that the high speed freight service mentioned at the beginning of this thread does not in any way resemble freight service in the United States at a much higher speed. It would require a right of way dedicated to high speed passenger and freight service only and would probably also require dedicated motive power and rolling stock that would NOT be interchanged with the general freight pool. Also, the horsepower requirements to move this train would be tremendous. For comparison, the power cars of the Acela trainsets are rated at 6000 continuous HP each. Specialized freight service, even at 90 MPH, would also require a lot of horsepower.
Further question: How much of a market would there be for such a service at a rate that would provide a profit?
Acelas are waayyy overpowered - even for such an overweight train it is. Single power car in a push-pull configuration could keep the timetable as well as double power-cars now. Remember that Acela was designed to haul 12-14 coaches.
As for power requirements. If you have the wire above you then power is a minor issue. Russians have 12700 hp locos (single section, they also have triple section 3VL85 with 18600 hp :p) wich runs at 125 mph. With regenerative braking a good deal of power can be sent back to the wire.
The issue is capital cost of electrification. Because frankly - diesels are not so good for speeds above 100 mph.
I seem to remember a blurb in one of my railroad related books that mentions the oringinal E units were geared for 112 mph operation. Again, this is using 1940’s technology. Transportation theorists or the past have said that the upper speed limit for efficient stand alone surface transportation is around 125 mph, after which you need either an outside source of power, or a non-friction based guiding mechanism. We could probably up that to 150 mph or higher with today’s technology. The point is, it is doable without electrification e.g. catenary.
