It doesn't matter what powers the rail, it's much cheaper!To compare the costs
of rail vs truck shipping, consider the movement of a bulk commodity from
Houston, TX to Cleveland, OH. The truck cost in this example lane is
approximately $ 5,159 per load, whereas rail would be $ 6,676 per car. However,
when comparing the costs of rail vs truck shipping, you must apply a ratio of
1:4, since one railcar equates to four truck loads.
Trains are much cheaper than on road trucking and reduce the destruction of
interstate highways due to heavy trucks.
On Saturday, April 10, 2021, 04:29:29 PM EDT, Paul Wallace via EV
<[email protected]> wrote:
I’ve been amused with all this work going into autonomous trucking, but I
wonder if the money and energy wouldn’t be better spent with serious upgrades
to freight rail service, including long haul electrification. Much of what I
hear and see with the vision of trucking is that eventually, the trucks will be
able to run nose to tail in trains on the highway. For regional delivery this
may make sense, but I think that if the freight rail system was seriously
upgraded and electrified, large amounts of material could be moved across the
country relatively quickly. Not as quickly as with planes, but the
environmental cost of jet aircraft is very high. Each rail car can carry at
least 4 freight containers of material whereas now, each semi truck can move at
most one. In addition, there is no competition for right of way on the rails,
no pesky cars making unpredictable maneuvers to try to go faster than the flow.
The Biden proposal is focused on passenger rail as far as I can tell. Is there
any mention of electrification expansion in the proposal, or is it sticking
with diesel electric locomotives except where the line is electrified already?
Electric locomotives should pay back in terms of maintenance costs the same as
EVs. Electric busses, trackless trolleys, I think are a good indicator of
this. Just removing the Diesel engine and supplying the electricity to the
motors from a third rail or catenary overhead has been proven to be reliable.
Paul
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