Image transcript:
Calvin (from Calvin & Hobbes) sitting at a lemonade stand, smiling, with a sign that reads, "Trains and micromobility are inevitably the future of urban transportation, whether society wants it or not. CHANGE MY MIND."
this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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I'm going to make the argument against trains for everything, despite being a huge fanatic for trains.
Trains are the most efficient transport method per tonne-km over land, yes. However from certain operational standpoints trains can make less sense than existing solutions.
When distance between stops for heavy rail becomes too short, you lose quite a bit of efficiency. Trains themselves aren't a one-size fits all solution as there are various types that each need their own form of investment (which is a lot $), when roads are compatible with both personal transport and large trucks with little investment by the transporter (govt pays for road maintenance).
Rail companies right now are chasing profits and neglecting operational improvements. In the US, hauling a long, LONG, old and slow train loaded with bulk aggregate, oil, grain, chemicals is more profitable than aiming for JIT capability that is more feasible with trucks. A complete change in societal incentives is necessary to bring back the usefulness of railway in all types of transport. Second, the North American way of railroad companies owning the tracks dissuades a lot of innovation and new firms from entering the market, unlike the "open road" where there are many competing OTR freight companies. None of the Big Six would like my idea of a nationally controlled rail/track system.
Electric motors are now capable of >90% regen, so the braking energy argument against short stops doesn't work anymore (and the energy during motion strictly less than a rubber tired vehicle with a worse aspect ratio so long as the trip is no longer).
The amount of rail needed for short distance distribution networks could still be prohibitive in regions designed for road though. Even then one could still argue that the total infrastructure costs are lower by moving the destinations slightly given how much roads cost to maintain.
Well, streetcars could be an option for high density corridors but they will lose money in low density, low ridership areas.
Roads always lose money, so that's still a win. Travel speed and coverage may be a limiting factor though.
Roads and cars lose money constantly.
You have to hire streetcar drivers and pay to maintain the vehicles and run a transit agency.
Yes. Well done. You identified the things that cost less than running a road network. Very nice good faith addition to the conversation.
Just to pick on one point, as a tangent, the government paying for roads with little cost to the freight carriers is a major, major problem. If the cost of transport is not factored into the cost of goods, it breaks the feedback mechanism of prices in the market affecting the supply of road transport, both per se, and in relation to other, possibly more efficient, means of transport. I came up with a reductio ad absurdum scenario to illustrate better: Imagine the government provided free air freight across oceans, without limit.
It’s pretty obvious what would happen: The logistics companies would abandon cargo ships, which cost them money, for the free air service. It would be horribly inefficient and wasteful, but that would not be their concern. We’d end up in the same situation that we are today with roads; our governments are going broke trying to pay for it. (In that world, I also imagine that people consider the service the normal baseline that they’ve structured their lives and businesses around, and can’t fathom ending it, just like roads in our world.
Anyway, passenger rail service has never been profitable. Railroads just operated passenger trains as a condition of being allowed to operate freight routes, which the government had subsidized with land giveaways. The question is whether passenger is more sustainable fiscally than roads for personal vehicles, and the survival of rail freight against massively subsidized road freight suggests that it would be. At least for longer, intercity routes.
Yes you've got a point. Part of this was an exercise to argue against something I really love and passionate about for the sake of "Change my Mind".
But that's part of the thing. If an organization paid for unlimited free air passenger and freight transport system, converting to better alternatives (on monetary cost, the environment and other bases) would be difficult to convince from people and logistics companies alike. If left alone, this sort of system would be unlikely to change until some devastating consequence made it unfeasible to switch at that point anyway. And in such a universe maybe we'd see more blimps in the sky.
So either road has to be regulated fairly and costs that were externalized get properly accounted for and renumerated, or railroad track has to be managed nationally, and provide fair access to communities large and small, in order for rail and wheeled vehicles to be on equal footing. Neither of these things I would expect to happen naturally, it must come from an organized effort somewhere.
Trains(international and intercity), metro(across the city) and trams(across the city) - all of them use same wheels. They are not that different.
*(here personal transport excludes everything that is not a car)
Maintanance is most expensive part of car infrastructure. At least between those that directly paid.
Wheels are 100% different on Heavy Rail, Metros and Light Rails.
In addition to that all 3 have different requirements for curves, runout and grades.
Source: my employer makes all 3.
Wheels mostly not. Though bogies for LR and everything else are very different.
And by wheel I mean steel disc, not breaking system, not suspension, not everything else.
A lot of light rail uses resilient wheels and heavy rail does not.
Wheel profiles (the shape of the part that actually touches the rail) are also very different between different categories.
Huh. Today I learned.
Metrolink in California does really well though, even with everything you described above.
Metrolink, and the subway system in Los Angeles, shows that it is doable and within cost.
The railroads in a region have actually been removing rail so that many of the main lines are now single track instead of double or triple.