Rail Nationalization and transport infrastructure funding discussion

[allanorn]

Opinions only.

Full nationalization of railway operations is infeasible here in the US. Not only would it be ridiculously expensive, it would be antithetical to a competitive market which includes road freight transport. At the level of funding required I'd almost see other national priorities in place over a nationalized rail system.

Nationalized infrastructure (e.g., Network Rail) would be less expensive but still an eye-watering money pit due to deferred maintenance. Maybe there's a model where railroads pay for trackage use that makes it viable and we tweak other Federal funding/regulation to prioritize rail over long-distance truck shipping, but I can't see the required legislation coming out of Congress to make it happen.

Nationalized dispatch in isolation sounds like a good idea, but I think it just shifts the blame to a third party. PSR and exceptionally long trains operating on track with insufficient sidings is causing more of today's issues. Some places would operate better but I don't think it would overcome the problem of handling dispatch logistics for the railroads.

I think a "rail bank" of unused rail property is useful for a government to run. If we want to bring back higher-speed and regional rail those unused parts can form part of the network, plus it would mean less cost to the railroads (primarily taxes but probably some maintenance) to hold on to property "just in case". If it's an alignment with little future economic use for railroading then they can be converted to easements for use as rails-to-trails or as part of bicycle networks.

 

[GDRRiley]

The Executive Director of SANDAG (SAN's association of local governments) really wanted to do a VMT but the mere proposal of such was shot down and almost got him fired. It was so unpopular it would have probably caused a revolt in rural areas.

The state will likely end up doing VMT including factoring a modifier based on weight. A few studies in CA and Oregon have shown it to be fairly popular.

Full nationalization of railway operations is infeasible here in the US. Not only would it be ridiculously expensive, it would be antithetical to a competitive market which includes road freight transport. At the level of funding required I'd almost see other national priorities in place over a nationalized rail system.

It required a huge amount of capital once and then never again, Even if we go back to an OR around 75% (most are trying to hit 60%) and massively increase the amount of investements there still should be excess profits. Rail never competes against itself and we've given road every advantage it can have including trucks paying pennies for every dollar of road damage they do.

I think a "rail bank" of unused rail property is useful for a government to run. If we want to bring back higher-speed and regional rail those unused parts can form part of the network, plus it would mean less cost to the railroads (primarily taxes but probably some maintenance) to hold on to property "just in case". If it's an alignment with little future economic use for railroading then they can be converted to easements for use as rails-to-trails or as part of bicycle networks.

A mix of state and local governments already rail bank most routes that could have some use.

 

[MarkInAustin]

A little economic history is offered for background.

There have been two distinct capitalist viewpoints on natural monopolies (a rail line is a natural monopoly).

Capitalist theory is based on the competitive mechanism and abhors monopoly whether privately or publicly held - public monopoly of a business that could otherwise be run competitively is state socialism, and proves as inefficient and costly as private monopoly for the public benefit, usually. So capitalist nations adopt anti-trust law with varying degrees of success.

But natural monopolies cannot be broken - imagine 30 parallel railroad tracks, or utility transmission lines, or telephone poles.

There are two choices apparent for dealing with them. The American choice, essentially invented by TR, is government regulation of natural monopolies. The Stockholm School [yes they are capitalist, not socialist] took the position that government should OWN natural monopolies, an exception to the rule they respected that government should not own businesses.

Comparisons of the Euro model and the US model have been made over and over for the last 100 years.
The greatest advantage posted by the American model in the twentieth century was that regulated telephone monopolies (Bell and General, now ATT and Verizon) worked much better than any Euro nationalized phone system. There are probably examples of the Euro model working better, and rail may be one of them.

The regulation of rail in America has not been consistent with existing law and it has been a political yoyo. As has been alluded to above, long distance freight rail is incredibly more efficient than long distance trucking. Yet long distance trucking survives. This is because government regulators since the 1940s have bought the trucking lobby's argument that short haul trucking [essential to delivery to small communities everywhere] would die if long haul trucking were not subsidized by the federal government. That subsidy has largely been in the form of rate setting for rail cargo that is artificially higher so that trucking rates, which must be higher than natural rail rates, can compete.

So instead of encouraging short haul trucking to become a severable entity from long haul trucking and surviving on its own while long haul trucking died a natural death, long haul trucking was given an artificial life at the expense of rail, in general.

This is not the entirety of the regulation problem - but if the old ICC in the fifties had blown off the complaints of long haul truckers and regulated rail independently of trucking I believe the USA would have high speed rail today and dual tracking that would allow passenger and freight rail to coexist, all less expensive to users than rail is now.

Nationalizing rail would not solve any of the problems created by poorly conceived regulation, rather obviously. The same bad legislators and regulators, in ownership, would not likely suddenly improve their behavior. But better enforcement of current regulation coupled with an overhaul of regulation to be more favorable to rail [vs trucking, vs SWA in Texas, and more] would be welcomed.

 

[BlackDiamond]

Taking another look at it, if trains Evs and subways all get their power from a coal plant while we shut down our nuclear power plants, it makes me wonder why I wouldn’t want to buy a car.

Currently (Feb 2023 figures) The largest fuel source for power generation is Natural Gas about 40%, Coal is about 20%, Nuclear 20%. The remaining 20% is mostly renewable - wind 10%, hydro 6% solar 3%. The rest is miscellaneous sources like geothermal, biomass, etc, I rounded these values so they may not add up to 100%.

Natural gas is favored by power companies as the current technology of combined cycle - combustion turbines and heat recovery steam generation - is reasonably efficient yet relatively quick to start up/shut down to meet changing loads, whereas coal plants tend to run better as base loads that don't fluctuate as much.

Given the present trends against fossil fuel generation it will be hard to replace that 60% without the use of nuclear, although that has the problems of long lead times and that waste disposal has yet to be solved. I suspect this will be the limiting factor for greater use of EVs or railroad electrification once the reality of recent moves to phase out fossil fuel use sets in.

Living in a fairly rural (and low income) area where the nearest charging station is a 50 mile drive away I suspect it will be a long time before we see many EVs in these parts. Public transportation is also next to nonexistent.

 

[jis]

There is a fundamental blind spot in all the folks who tout getting to fully getting rid of fossil fuel energy sources in 20 or even 40 years. They simply don't have a credible story on base load generation.

Notwithstanding that, the reason that there is a case for railroad electrification is that it takes any energy source transition needs away from what happens in the locomotive to where the power comes from for feeding the catenary. It increases flexibility, as the Germans are discovering as they work towards re-firing up their thermal power plants, to fill the gap left by exorbitantly high priced Natural Gas.

 

[MarkInAustin]

The Canadians are building thorium reactors which have a greatly reduced waste problem.

 

[user 14106]

There is a fundamental blind spot in all the folks who tout getting to fully getting rid of fossil fuel energy sources in 20 or even 40 years. They simply don't have a credible story on base load generation.

Yes it’s especially hard to do as many of the same advocates for getting rid of fossil fuels altogether also oppose nuclear energy as well as building new hydroelectric power which are your best base load alternatives. It leaves one with few options other than turning back to fossil fuels.

 

[BlackDiamond]

The Canadians are building thorium reactors which have a greatly reduced waste problem.

That would be good for India which has the world's largest deposits of Thorium and an aggressive rail electrification program.

 

[MARC Rider]

The Canadians are building thorium reactors which have a greatly reduced waste problem.

Here's the Wikipedia article about thorium based nuclear power. Looks like it could be a good alternative.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power

 

[jis]

That would be good for India which has the world's largest deposits of Thorium and an aggressive rail electrification program.

India has a pretty detailed 3 Phase Nuclear Power Plan originally put together by Dr. Homi Jahangir Bhabha. Thorium Reactor usage is in Phase III and is targeted for around 2050. Nice article in Wikipedia explains the whole thing and why it will be 2050 before Thorium start being used across the board:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India's_three-stage_nuclear_power_programme
Meanwhile Indian Railways is busy installing every Solar Panel that they can lay their hands on on top of its huge stock of platform canopies.

 

[Bob Dylan]

India has a pretty detailed 3 Phase Nuclear Power Plan originally put together by Dr. Homi Jahangir Bhabha. Thorium Reactor usage is in Phase III and is targeted for around 2050. Nice article in Wikipedia explains the whole thing and why it will be 2050 before Thorium start being used across the board:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India's_three-stage_nuclear_power_programme
Meanwhile Indian Railways is busy installing every Solar Panel that they can lay thir hands on on top of its huge stock of platform canopies.

Is India Railways Manufacturing Solar Panels themselves, or do they have to purchase them from others?

 

[jis]

Is India Railways Manufacturing Solar Panels themselves, or do they have to purchase them from others?

They buy it from Solar Panel manufacturers, quite a bit from China as it turns out.

 

[eldomtom2]

This is not the entirety of the regulation problem - but if the old ICC in the fifties had blown off the complaints of long haul truckers and regulated rail independently of trucking I believe the USA would have high speed rail today and dual tracking that would allow passenger and freight rail to coexist, all less expensive to users than rail is now.

Dream on. Passenger traffic would still have been unprofitable and railroads would still have no reason to change their business model of relying on long, infrequent, and usually slow traffic.