With the price of gas, I’ve decided to add a worse-case scenario to my HO layout-the only gas station in town is selling gas at $10 a gallon! Here’s the picture:
< a href>http://frankodragon.deviantart.com/art/Train-Set-Pic-F-87129887
At that rate it would me over $200 to fill cars tank! Much cheaper to take the train. Where can I hop the next freight?
I think that $10.00 a gallon would shut down most businesses because people couldn’t afford to drive much less take public transit, including trains. Someone has to pay for the fuel and inevitably the cost would be passed on to the consumer in no uncertain terms.
On the other hand, it might just provide th eincentive to remove the hands of the tree huggers from the throat of the country by forcing the development of both alternative fuels and those areas where there are known deposits of petroleum but development hs been prohibited by law.
One of the issues of this upcoming election shuld be energy policy and it is obvious that neither party wants to be the one to tell the truth about what those 538 idiots who we elected to office has been doing over the last 30 years to hurt our econmy in favor of other countries and at our expense. It isn’t for nothing that people say we have the best Coingress that money can buy.
The silver lining is that real-world railroads are doing well. They are actually running pretty close to capacity right now, with bottlenecks at places like Chicago because we’ve got more trains running than tracks to put them on. (Hmmm, sounds familiar.) Mass transit is getting more crowded, too.
We seem to finally have reached the “pain point” where the price of fuel is forcing us to change our behavior. Of course, this has happened before, and in all likelihood the change won’t be permanent this time, either.
Burning these fuels and global warming go hand in hand. We’ve had an almost-free ride for a long time, but the situation has changed. In the long run, we can all be better off when we start to exploit more energy-efficient options like trains.
Raise your solar panels to the sun, and raise your pantographs to the catenary. Maybe it’s time to bring back the GG-1.
Is it possible for a thread on this model railroading board to go without political commentary?
Ah yes. It’s the “tree huggers”.
It has absolutely nothing to do with the virtual elimination of supply from one of the largest oil producers in the middle east.
It has absolutely nothing to do with a dollar value falling like a beveled brick.
It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that 75% of the people in America have traded their cars for giant SUVs.
It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that we have greatly reduced our use of metal, glass, and paper and replaced those products with plastic, which is made from oil.
It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that we use oil to produce most of our electricity.
Yep; It’s the “tree huggers”.
What we NEED to do, is stop INCREASING our use of oil and start DECREASING our use of oil.
It’s not all the tree-huggers. But they have made it impossible to exploit all of the oil resources we have right here in the US. Sure, none of us want to see the environment damaged but I sometimes think we are giving up too much in an effort to avoid even the slightest possibility of environmental damage.
I don’t have an SUV. I don’t see any reason to have one for most of us. But don’t tel that to the marketers for the car companies. After all they might see the reality of the situation where all of us would rather use our cars than public transportation when its available. But even there public transportation either doesn’t go far enough or you need to spend a hour taking trip which shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes.
As for the railroads, well they don’t do short hauls any more. But maybe the time for that has come back. It’s at least worth looking at. Trucks have
Gentlemen,
The forum policy clearly states the following:
- No political discussions or signature messages. We know, railroads are sometimes affected by politics. However, we’ve found that political discussions almost always turn into arguments. We have a common thread of being interested in railroads. Don’t let that common bond be destroyed by political differences.
Please refrain from the political comments when posting on the forum. Thanks for your consideration.
Tom
I’m sorry. I tend to be offended by people who are easily lead with bumper stickers. If the post had said “people who have placed a higher priority on environmental concerns than supply concerns” instead of “tree huggers”, I probably wouldn’t reacted so strongly. Childish name calling is offensive, and seems to be common in people whose political leanings are right of my own.
My point was similar to yours, that it is a multi facetted problem requiring a multi facetted response. We need to stop pointing politically polarized fingers at each other and work on a solution.
Now … back to model railroading.
PV:
We don’t, though. Here’s the breakdown for 2007:
Do people really think we usually burn oil to generate power? Drive along the Ohio river and it’s pretty clear where the juice comes from! But you have a good point too - “find remedies, not blame”, as Henry Ford said. (Hope I’m not drifting too far OT here)
Gee, lookit all those gigawatts. We could be charging up so many flux capacitors.
Frankodragon - Subjecting your poor polymer people to gas inflation! You nasty man! [:)] Of course, most of us send drivers off the edge of the table…$10 gas probably saves them lots of fatal injuries.
Here’s an irony: The poor polymer figures being overcharged for gas on his layout are oil-based!
Lets make the link user friendly [8D]
http://frankodragon.deviantart.com/art/Train-Set-Pic-F-87129887
Guzzler Gas, love it [:D]
Gas on my layout is at the exorbanant rate of .40 cents a gallon, which is 25% higher than in the closest big city, of course the fact that it has to brought in by train in barrels, unloaded by hand and then pumped by hand into the lone gas pump at that small dusty General Goods store never enters the consumers mind…They think it should be free! It is the 1950’s afterall! Not the 19th century, next thing you know they’ll be wanting license plates on the Buckboards![;)]
Just think! You’ll be able to look at that picture in 20 years and say-“I remember when gas was only $10/gallon!”
Back to trains…
This morning I saw a NS train go by with 15 or 16 brand new ethanol tankers.Makes me want to buy some more Athearn ethanol tankers.[tup]
Maybe I should make a motion during the club’s monthly business meeting for adding a ethanol plant?
Well, to get kind of back to the subject, my figurines take the trains because on my Yuba River Sub it’s WWII, there’s gas rationing and trains still kinda/sorta go where you want them to even if people are asked by the government to curtail unneccesary travel due to military priority. So far, I’ve populated 2 of my passenger trains, the “Prospector” and the “Royal Gorge” with plenty of those neat Preiser passengers. Next, I’m starting work on the “Yuba River Express” and the “Scenic Limited.” And I’ve got plenty of passengers waiting at places like Deer Creek, Wagon Wheel Gap and Sierra City to board the next passenger that whizzes by.
Tom [:P]
Dont forget the black market tire sales behind the gas station…[;)]
I was going to say that the citizens of Moose Bay have to take the train because the car doors don’t open, but, well, the train doors don’t open either.
I remember 19 cent gas. I hope to live to see 10 dollar gas and I assume I will find a way to pay for it. I remember ajusting to 89 cent gas when the ecconomists said that would be the breaking point.
I am glad I do not have to fill one of those big BNSF diesels.
The figurines which will eventually populate my layout will take the train for several reasons, the main one being that no one in his right mind would subject self and vehicle to the goat-trail ‘roads’ away from the one main highway - unless the vehicle was a bicycle.
One idea I’ve been kicking around has to do with having a rotating platform where my MU cars terminate. As the train pulls in, there will be a row of folks waiting for it to stop. When it pulls out, the platform will be empty, only to refill, a few figurines at a time, shortly before the next train arrives. 120 degrees of rotation should do it…
There WILL be bicycle racks at the station, along with one, lonely, taxicab.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)