On Sun, 07 Jan 2007 01:26:37 -0000, "trainfinder22" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Railroads are not always the fastest way. New York State is about >the size of Great Britain and for a boxcar to cross the state can >take 5 days. A canal boat can cross the state in the same amount of >time. The reason it takes 5 Days is that the railroad car has to be >switched and sorted to a yard.... [..] > >In Europe the resaon that most freight does not move by rail is the >short distances that freight has to go and the fact that slow moving >freight trains get in the way of high speed rail. I fear you are a little out of date with your view of UK rail. We stopped using the trip system years ago and now substantial amounts of freight does go by rail, but sadly only a relatively small percentage. As it's off topic - this is not the place for a detailed reply, but let me quote a couple of examples Yes 600 miles is not much compared to the US - but we have a lot of supermarket traffic - for example Asda move many containers a day between southern central England - up to Central and Northern Scotland, and Tesco and others do likewise and in increasing amounts. It takes less than twelve hours. Much of our coal is imported and even locally produced coal moves by train - typically less than a 10 hour journey port to power station. Also quite a large quantity of cars / automobiles are moved between factories on continental Europe via the channel tunnel and come up to Scotland - from Germany and Spain - distances of many hundreds of miles. Large container trains carry goods to and from the docks and move them the length and breadth of the country. Yes - freight has to fit in with high speed expresses - and some lines are getting close to capacity, but the above mentioned supermarket traffic travels at 75 mph. We still have some mail trains, not nearly as many as we once did - but they move mail between Scotland and London at 100 mph, fitting in with normal passenger traffic. To get back on topic - yes I would like more freight on canals but sadly many were built too small and are not cost effective, and there aren't always waterways near to power stations, coal fields or ports. -- Malcolm
