Peak oil, fuel prices, and electric locomotives

robertmacdowell · **Posted:** Tue Jan 03, 2012 5:50 pm

Ron Travis wrote:

What I have referenced above is not a free market economic decision to electrify. Cost reduction would not be the motive. The motive is the reduction of greenhouse gases and the creation of a “non-oil” society. The scope of the project would be transformational and require unutterable cost for new investment in power generation and distribution infrastructure.

Electrification is not where your cost will lie. It will be in the fact that outside the northeast, the freight RR's are already maxed out and looking at doomsday scenarios for future traffic levels even without the new traffic you want to bring.

Meanwhile over there, we have High Speed Rail, which definitely needs a new physical infrastructure. Some say HSR must be no-freight because that's how they do it in Europe; I disagree. I think no one constituency (freight expansion, your highways-to-freight, and HSR) can afford the infrastructure by themselves. Together - yes. But that would require us to take a uniquely American approach to HSR.

Oh, and as for juice -- where do freights need it the most? Mountain passes. Guess what mountain passes have a lot of - in great reliability. Wind. There are 5 designated Wind Resource Areas in California, four of them are mountain passes with big railroads through them. The fifth has a railroad running through it, which is already electrified, though in no shape for double-stacks. That's OK, 10 miles away is the e Cal-P, which hosts 36 Amtraks a day.

Quote:

This would be publicly funded in the national interest. Perhaps this investment would reduce the cost of transportation over time, but surely not at the outset. But, in any event, cost reduction is not the point. To be clear, this proposal is the “compact fluorescent light bulb” of transportation.

BAD choice of metaphor/symbol. The Compact Fluorescent Light has been picked up by conservatives as a symbol of the "nanny state" intruding into personal freedom. Any day now I'm expecting to see a CFL on a black flag.

Well the project certainly won't pay its mortgage. Oh wait, what's the Prime Interest Rate? Maybe it will if they get a 30-year fixed.