Support for expanded Electrification?

[Murjax]

Things like raising our fuel tax to bring it in line with most industrialized countries and working to move towards lower energy forms of transportation and urban planning. Of course, the fact of the matter is oil is just going to continue to increase in price over time - we can either pay that money to oil companies in the form of higher profits, or tax fuel to reduce demand and utilize those funds to build a 21st century transportation infrastructure.

That's not the situation. Oil prices aren't increasing because oil companies are taking higher profits--in fact their marginal profits have been decreasing!--so it's not a choice between paying more for oil or paying the same amount and then more for taxes. Oil prices will continue to rise, and increasing taxes will increase the cost of fuel... thus harming the economy and making it harder to support infrastructure spending needed for rail. The right solution is to simply tax fuel as needed to pay for the infrastructure that it naturally uses, e.g. tax gas enough to pay for highways and no more. Then, tax everyone else through normal governmental taxation routes to pay for the rail infrastructure that will benefit everyone. The natural and fairly predictable increase in oil prices over time will have people chooses appropriately whether they want to travel by rail or road.

The point is, taxing fuel won't really work to pay for HSR the way you think it will because the oil companies aren't the profiteering evil corporations they're portrayed as.

Well I what I was getting at by saying a European or Japanese system wouldn't work here is mainly the financing part of it. I think we can must get high speed rail that can achieve speeds in excess of 150 or 200 MPH. If we can get the cost down in infrastructure a bit though it would help greatly. That's why I'm wondering if we can develop the technology of the "plug in locomotive" more. If we don't have to build a long distance catenary system, that's half the battle.

You start to run into problems with fundamental laws of physics at that point. There are limits as to how much energy can be stored in a given volume, and that energy can only be shoved in so fast. Having batteries (or whatever) store more and more energy and making them absorb energy more quickly not only increases difficulties of engineering, but also issues of safety. Just think, it's no big deal to short out a low-powered nine volt battery, but what happens when there's a short in a cell holding a million times the energy? You have to start armoring the storage compartments to guard against even unintentional piercing. These fundamental physical problems are why progress in battery capacity has been so slow over the decades: throw all the money you want at it, the gains remain marginal.

You do have a point there. I still think that finding a way to cut the cost will give HSR a better chance of success though. If catenary is a must, then maybe its power source can be changed. I was thinking solar energy could be an option for power in some areas, but I'm not an expert there and I don't know if the costs of building an energy plant that could produce an unlimited amount of energy very cheaply and then connecting it to a HSR system would be any cheaper than just connecting it to a regular plant.

It was interesting to note that electrifying 1 mile of track is abput 1.5 million dollars while widening a freeway can be 10+ times that amount.

It's interesting that you mention that, because now that I remember, I read an article a few years ago that building an entire HSR system would be significantly cheaper than constructing a new runway at O'Hare airport.

 

[PRR 60]

...It was interesting to note that electrifying 1 mile of track is abput 1.5 million dollars while widening a freeway can be 10+ times that amount.

$1.5 million a mile is pretty optimistic. The Amtrak New Haven to Boston project ran nearly twice that ten years ago. My reasonably educated guess is $5 million per track mile (based on double-track): more if utility infrastructure needs to be upgraded.

 

[PRR 60]

...It's interesting that you mention that, because now that I remember, I read an article a few years ago that building an entire HSR system would be significantly cheaper than constructing a new runway at O'Hare airport.

New runway 27R at ORD, and a new control tower, cost $457 million. That would buy about five to ten miles of new-build high-speed rail.

 

[Murjax]

...It was interesting to note that electrifying 1 mile of track is abput 1.5 million dollars while widening a freeway can be 10+ times that amount.

$1.5 million a mile is pretty optimistic. The Amtrak New Haven to Boston project ran nearly twice that ten years ago. My reasonably educated guess is $5 million per track mile (based on double-track): more if utility infrastructure needs to be upgraded.

Wasn't the New Haven-Boston project mostly an electrification project? If electrification cost $5 million per mile, then how much would it have been if track were laid too? :blink:

 

[Murjax]

...It's interesting that you mention that, because now that I remember, I read an article a few years ago that building an entire HSR system would be significantly cheaper than constructing a new runway at O'Hare airport.

New runway 27R at ORD, and a new control tower, cost $457 million. That would buy about five to ten miles of new-build high-speed rail.

Well as I said, I read this a few years ago. I forget the source.

 

[volkris]

Fortunately we do have a well understood, mature, and common medium for storing huge amounts of energy in a safe, usable form: petroleum

Er, no. Unless there's some method that you'd discovered to turn energy into petroleum, there's no comparing it to other methods for storing energy.

Of course there is. We use petroleum as a way of storing and transporting energy. Sure we didn't put the energy into petroleum in the first place, but that doesn't matter too much since the main point in moving a vehicle is moving it, not making the fuel.

Using numbers from wikipedia, a lithium ion battery can hold 0.46 MJ/kg while gasoline holds 49 MJ/kg. That's quite a lot more energy per weight, and is not even considering the ease with which we can put the energy from petroleum to use.

In the end the train has to carry its energy with it while it's not running from catenary, and carrying fossil fuels means carrying a lot more energy more efficiently. The right solution, I'd say, is electrifying where electrification makes sense and continuing to rely on fossil fuels in between electrified stretches.

 

[Ryan]

Sure we didn't put the energy into petroleum in the first place, but that doesn't matter too much since the main point in moving a vehicle is moving it, not making the fuel.

The fact that there is a finite supply of it and it's impossible to make more, certainly matters. Ignoring that fact is rather short sighted.

 

[volkris]

That's not the situation. Oil prices aren't increasing because oil companies are taking higher profits--in fact their marginal profits have been decreasing!--

I'd hardly call Exxon's $45.8 Billion in profit for 2008 marginal.

A financial analyst would. Or, at least, would recognize the meaning of the term I used, "marginal profit."

Fact is the oil companies are making more money, sure, but they're producing even more oil. They're actually making significantly LESS on each gallon of gas that they're delivering than they had before; it's just that Americans, like the rest of the world, keep using more, and competition is alive and well for those dollars.

The point is, taxing fuel won't really work to pay for HSR the way you think it will because the oil companies aren't the profiteering evil corporations they're portrayed as.

This model has worked quite well for Europe for many years. No reason to expect that it won't work here. Not saying that there aren't other ways to get it done, including what you've suggested. Just saying that we should be considering all models.

No, I mean it won't work in the revenue neutral way described. What was described was a simple redirection of money out of the pockets of oil companies into the government's coffers. Well, things aren't going to work like that since the oil companies aren't just setting their prices artificially high so as to bring in insane amounts of cash. We'll be paying a tax in addition to the profits, not instead of, just as in Europe.

It's been a year or two since I've seen academic literature on this, but I think a $1 increase will result in fuel prices rising 60-70 cents due to the underlying commodity price decreasing as a result of slackening demand.

I've seen studies like that before, and as a person who deals with such numbers professionally, I don't buy them. The numbers don't seem to add up, and they're filled with weird assumptions almost as if they're trying to massage that conclusion from the data. Also, more and more price pressure is coming from overseas demand which is certainly not going to diminish just because domestic demand decreases.

And after all, intuitively one should find the claim questionable: a $1 increase in price meaning a $0.70 increase? That's a clear contradiction, no matter how the math works. Clearly there's some feedback and time evolution involved in the model, and in any such dynamic situation the conclusion has to be far more complicated than "this will mean a 70 cent increase." In reality, it will at least cause the system to swing back and forth searching for an equilibrium that very well won't exist.

A gas tax should cover the full expenses occurred by society due to the operation of an automobile. Part of that is infrastructure. But there a lot of other negatives that drivers don't pay for, but are assessed against society as a whole. Pollution, congestion, unnecessary consumption of a limited resource, car based urban planning and deaths of cyclists and pedestrians are only a few.

Not to mention the lining of politicans' pockets, paying for their reelection campaigns, and paying for the therapy for a person suffering from depression who claims it somehow involves living near an interstate highway... No, only direct costs should be factored in, including infrastructure and, if one can absolutely, positively nail down a scientifically rigorous number, the cost due to pollution. Everything else is politicized and equivalent to outright corruption--politicians making up numbers that they portray as costs when in reality they're just attempts at behavioral control.

 

[AlanB]

That's not the situation. Oil prices aren't increasing because oil companies are taking higher profits--in fact their marginal profits have been decreasing!--

I'd hardly call Exxon's $45.8 Billion in profit for 2008 marginal.

A financial analyst would. Or, at least, would recognize the meaning of the term I used, "marginal profit."

Fact is the oil companies are making more money, sure, but they're producing even more oil. They're actually making significantly LESS on each gallon of gas that they're delivering than they had before; it's just that Americans, like the rest of the world, keep using more, and competition is alive and well for those dollars.

While I will admit that I misread what you were saying there, it's still not true. Keep in mind the fact that Exxon set a record in 2008 for profit, beating the old record by $4.6 Billion. And they did that despite the fact that the amount of fuel consumed decreased in 2008 from 2007. The only way to accomplish that would be for them to have increased their margin, not decreased it. Can't have profit going up, if you're selling less product, unless you've increased the profit margin on the product, or you've made huge cuts in expenses. or some combination of cuts in expenses and an increase in margin. And I'm not aware of any huge cuts in expenses, as that usually means laying off thousands.

Fuel consumed in 2007: 142,349,298,000 gallons

Fuel consumed in 2008: 137,800,488,000 gallons

Now if you told me that the local gas station's marginal profits have decreased, that's something that I would believe and would agree with.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

I think what we should do is, we tax fuel at a reasonable but progressive rate. The more you consume, the more you pay. And you understand that this is going to cost the average American, who despite all there complaints about fuel prices, still sit in drive-thru lines in vehicles with no less than six cylinders (the same number of cylinders, incidentally, found in most 18-wheeled rigs) letting their engines idle as they "save time" waiting in line for their cheeseburgers.

Unlike most developed countries, most of our engines still burn gasoline. I still see people commuting to work in a car designed to seat 6 or 7 people. In minivans. In trucks. In so-called crossovers. I drive an old car, and I know a newer one might be more fuel efficient. But I don't whine about my fuel bills, and I advocate higher gas prices.

A Hyundai Accent can carry mom, dad, and 3 kids quite comfortably.

I mean, come ON. It might have a temporary brake on the economy, but it will work itself out in time. Also, I've decided that profit distributions from corporations should be capped at $1 billion, and that includes bonuses to employees. Everything else is straight income tax to be paid half to the IRS and the rest of it to be distributed to the American people.

 

[DET63]

But I don't whine about my fuel bills, and I advocate higher gas prices.

Many do complain about high fuel bills (I wouldn't call it whining, though), and they don't advocate higher gas prices. Most trips made are local trips—or the store, to kids' soccer practice, to church. For the vast majority of those trips for American working families, public transit is not practical or affordable. Small cars don't carry two or three kids and their soccer gear. Small cars don't carry many groceries. People buy large cars, SUVs, minivans and the like because they're more practical, not because they like to spend a lot of money on fuel.

Taxing the price of fuel to get people out of cars and onto buses (whether diesel or trolley), light-rail, HSR or other transportation alternatives that are simply impractical, no matter the cost, will simply put the country into a recession, if not a major depression.

Decisions about electrification, and how to pay for it, are not easily made, no matter how much we may wish otherwise.

 

[AlanB]

Taxing the price of fuel to get people out of cars and onto buses (whether diesel or trolley), light-rail, HSR or other transportation alternatives that are simply impractical, no matter the cost, will simply put the country into a recession, if not a major depression.

Doing that right now might well reverse the very slow recovery that we're starting to see on the current recession. However, long term it shouldn't cause that problem. Europe has been following that model for years without a recession occuring.

And just for the record, although we don't do it to the lengths of many of the European countries, we already do tax fuel at this point to benefit transit. Right now a bit over 2 cents per gallon of the Federal fuel tax goes into the Mass Transit Fund. The rest goes into the Highway Trust Fund.

 

[transit54]

But I don't whine about my fuel bills, and I advocate higher gas prices.

Many do complain about high fuel bills (I wouldn't call it whining, though), and they don't advocate higher gas prices. Most trips made are local trips—or the store, to kids' soccer practice, to church. For the vast majority of those trips for American working families, public transit is not practical or affordable. Small cars don't carry two or three kids and their soccer gear. Small cars don't carry many groceries. People buy large cars, SUVs, minivans and the like because they're more practical, not because they like to spend a lot of money on fuel.

Taxing the price of fuel to get people out of cars and onto buses (whether diesel or trolley), light-rail, HSR or other transportation alternatives that are simply impractical, no matter the cost, will simply put the country into a recession, if not a major depression.

Decisions about electrification, and how to pay for it, are not easily made, no matter how much we may wish otherwise.

You are absolutely correct in the short run (though I'd argue the vast majority of trips are for commuting purposes, where transit should be practical and affordable). The problem is that we have structured society around the automobile and to change that will take decades. But we need to start somewhere. The problem is that the rise is fuel costs is absolutely inevitable, but no one acts as if it is. When fuel prices rise, people start buying hybrids and moving near transit. When they fall, people just go back to their old ways. Properly implementing a fuel tax could provide the necessary price signals to slowly shift to a lower energy society. Let's say we created a fuel tax to be phased in over the next 25 years, that would eventually be an inflation adjusted $2 per gallon. Next year, we'll raise the gas tax by 5 cents, which shouldn't have a major impact on any household (and the actual increase in gas will be a bit less due to decreased demand). The follow year, another five cents. And so on for the first five years. Then raise it by 10 cents a year for the next five years. And so on, till you get to a $2 a gallon tax 20 years from now. To prevent it from really being a burden, the legislation could even cap the price of fuel - say $4 a gallon. If oil prices pushed gasoline beyond this, the tax would just diminish.

Now, what will this do? It's not going to bankrupt any family tomorrow, next year, or the following year. But what will these families do the next time they buy a car? They know, without a doubt, gas prices are going to go up. So they will purchase something more efficient. In this scenario, there's no need to legislate efficiency standards for cars, because the demand will be for efficient vehicles and auto makers will respond to market demand. When families or businesses move, they will be more likely to move to areas with decent transit access.

Finally, the money being collected can be used to support additional transit and rail, so that viable systems are created that people can use to get around. The problem is now, transit isn't viable in many places due to lack of infrastructure and funding. We need to change this, and a slowly increasing tax can work to build these systems.

Now, why would we want to do this? It's not because transit is somehow morally superior to driving or something like that. The fact of the matter is, gasoline prices are going up either way. We can defer this price increase for another decade or so without a tax, but the simply reality is that fuel prices are going to continue rising. We can either build solid, alternative infrastructure now or we can wait till fuel prices are high, families have no choice, and that situation, as you said, "will simply put the country into a recession, if not a major depression." If we don't act now to start building a lower energy, more compact society, our economy and everyone here is going to suffer. We can't stop the rise in fuel prices, but we can work to use less energy and move towards more abundant, alternative forms.

Secondly, I have to disagree with you about the need to purchase large vehicles. I grew up in a house in the middle of nowhere in suburban Connecticut in a family of four. We had to drive everywhere. I played sports (and yes, soccer for a number of years!) and my sister was also very active. We had haul all our groceries from 15+ miles away. We never, ever owned a large SUV and got by perfectly fine. We had a station wagon back when I was a kid (Oldsmobile Cutlass Cruiser, if I recall correctly), a Suburu Wagon, followed by a Oldsmobile Intrigue and another, slightly smaller Oldsmobile. My father had a Mitsubishi Mighty Max pickup truck, which served us if we needed to haul anything large or have a 4WD vehicle. Even that got a good 22+ MPG. I understand the need for a large vehicle if you have a 5 or 6 or 7 person family, but that's not the statistical reality in this country.

Secondly, even owning a large SUV is affordable for a family under the fuel tax scenario I described. It doesn't take that much fuel to drive your kids to soccer practice or go around the block to pick up some groceries. Where you're going to burn the most fuel is during a daily commute - during which you're not going to need the size of that vehicle anyway. And commuting, with its routine, regular schedule, is where transit should come in.

As I referenced in my first post in this thread - these are the sort of obstacles that we're going to see moving forward towards any solid improvements in transit infrastructure. I think the debate in this thread is just the tip of the iceberg if you tried to do something like this on a national scale.

 

[jis]

...It was interesting to note that electrifying 1 mile of track is abput 1.5 million dollars while widening a freeway can be 10+ times that amount.

$1.5 million a mile is pretty optimistic. The Amtrak New Haven to Boston project ran nearly twice that ten years ago. My reasonably educated guess is $5 million per track mile (based on double-track): more if utility infrastructure needs to be upgraded.

US always seems to turn out to be a special case

BTW, have you ever come across a breakdown of the costs of various items in the Boston electrification projects? How much of it was for the actual electrification and how much for other crud that was thrown in while they were at it. Incidentally they have still not quite completed the original plan. They are still working on the third track between Readville and Back Bay.

The general figure that is quoted in 2008 currency is about $1.5million per track mile if done in a once off turn-key project. Usually considerably cheaper when done using what is called a rolling program covering multiple long segments in progressive electrification. That is how the Chinese and the Indians keep their electrification costs down. OTOH, they often have to include the cost of transmission lines to take the power to the substations since they are usually out in the boonies where there was no electricity before. Also standardized mass produced equipment used in a standard design and avoidance of special case equipment helps control costs. The cost of electrification per km in the world's top five electrified countries (Russia, China, Germany, India and France) is generally lower than what is quoted in the US. I don't know exactly why that is the case.

 

[George Harris]

The general figure that is quoted in 2008 currency is about $1.5million per track mile if done in a once off turn-key project. Usually considerably cheaper when done using what is called a rolling program covering multiple long segments in progressive electrification. That is how the Chinese and the Indians keep their electrification costs down.

how about they keep their labor costs down by paying extemely low wages, have a 60 hour work week, and house their labor forces in barracks under conditions that are horrendous for the duration of the job. Local made materials are cheap for much of the same reasons. I won't talk about quality control and environmental considerations, and other factors that can significantly affect costs here.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

But I don't whine about my fuel bills, and I advocate higher gas prices.

Many do complain about high fuel bills (I wouldn't call it whining, though), and they don't advocate higher gas prices. Most trips made are local trips—or the store, to kids' soccer practice, to church. For the vast majority of those trips for American working families, public transit is not practical or affordable. Small cars don't carry two or three kids and their soccer gear. Small cars don't carry many groceries. People buy large cars, SUVs, minivans and the like because they're more practical, not because they like to spend a lot of money on fuel.

Taxing the price of fuel to get people out of cars and onto buses (whether diesel or trolley), light-rail, HSR or other transportation alternatives that are simply impractical, no matter the cost, will simply put the country into a recession, if not a major depression.

Decisions about electrification, and how to pay for it, are not easily made, no matter how much we may wish otherwise.

Pfui. Its whining when people complain while doing predictably stupid things that predictably cause the problem they are faced with. When you create your own problem and then complain about it, you're whining.

Now to counteract what you are saying on several levels. First of all, somebody crashed into the back of beloved Mercedes almost a month ago and while waiting for them to repair the thing I have been driving a Kia Rondo. That's a fairly small car right there. It can fit 5 and six tons of luggage, or 7 and still a good deal of luggage on its roof carrier. It has a four cylinder engine and gets livable fuel economy. Mazda makes a comparable vehicle called the Mazda5. Both seat seven people or can haul decent amounts of cargo. Both of them come with 4-cylinder engines (in fact, the Mazda isn't even available with a six).

Our old Pug seated 8 and got decent mileage- it was a station wagon. Ford built a station wagon on the Taurus platform well into this century. None of these are particularly huge cars. By European standards maybe, but not here. Volkswagen and Subaru currently offer wagons, as does Volvo. They don't really seem to sell in large quantity, but the Volkswagen Passat TDi can get 40 mpg. The more expensive Toureg TDi sells more units.

Sure, if you have a family of more than 5 people, you need a larger car then a Honda Accord- one of them, for carrying people around. The other cars you own can be smaller, and you don't need anything more in size than a Volvo V70 or Mazda5. How can a small car be spacious? Consider Toyota's original Scion xB. In that tiny little car, we had more rear-seat legroom than Audi's much larger A6 had FRONT legroom. Plus lots of room for luggage.

People don't need a Ford Explorer or Toyota Highlander or Dodge Caravan. They buy it because they want a large car. Because they like the idea of a large car. Which is fine. I like large cars, too. But if you buy yourself a gazinta car, don't complain about how much it costs to run. You should know that walking in.

As for causing a depression, we wouldn't cause one. We are already neck-deep in the biggest financial crisis since the 1930s, and personally I think that we will surpass it this time. You can chalk that up to conspicuous consumption on borrowed money- such as for huge cars.

 

[DET63]

Sorry, but we are a family of four with a Mitsubishi Montero, and even it is occasionally not big enough for us to do what we need it for. Families will buy the vehicles that meet their biggest customary needs, even if those needs occur only on an occasional basis. Small vehicles may be adequate for short commutes, but if the vehicle is going to be regularly used for something other than short trips to work or the 7-11, a 3- or 4-cylinder putt-putt is not going to cut the mustard.

People who drive on freeways, whether to commute or for other purposes, on a regular basis will want something capable of decent acceleration. They'll probably also want something that's comfortable. If public transit is unavailable or impractical (the rule everywhere but in some of the largest cities), a comfortable car or small truck will be what they use.

 

[MattW]

Wow, lots of good info here thanks! Thanks also for pointing me to that article in Trains, very good read!

From what I can see so far the capital cost is the big prohibitive thing right now as well as lack of technology. Any large-scale electrification won't be able to come near capacity until long after the start date so any operations would have to use a captive fleet which wouldn't make much financial sense short-term.

I'm of course all for the complete electrification of America's railroads, but I also have to be realistic and know what it'll take.

As to the thing about the cars, some people just don't have a choice. I tried sitting in the driver's seat of almost every brand car sold around Metro Atlanta and found one model that I fit in, fortunately, it's a reasonable car, 27 sticker mpg, 30 real if the computer is right.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Sorry, but we are a family of four with a Mitsubishi Montero, and even it is occasionally not big enough for us to do what we need it for. Families will buy the vehicles that meet their biggest customary needs, even if those needs occur only on an occasional basis. Small vehicles may be adequate for short commutes, but if the vehicle is going to be regularly used for something other than short trips to work or the 7-11, a 3- or 4-cylinder putt-putt is not going to cut the mustard.
People who drive on freeways, whether to commute or for other purposes, on a regular basis will want something capable of decent acceleration. They'll probably also want something that's comfortable. If public transit is unavailable or impractical (the rule everywhere but in some of the largest cities), a comfortable car or small truck will be what they use.

Nobody builds putt-putts anymore. The Kia Rondo has a 4-cylinder, and it hits sixty in just under 10 seconds. More then adequate for any real needs. I drive, normally, a Mercedes diesel, which takes about half again as much time to hit sixty, and I can handle the traffic and road just fine. I admit to use it, I needed to learn how to drive. But then, the vast majority of people using excessive horsepower to cover up their incompetence at planning maneuvers isn't a good thing.

Cars like Honda's Civic or Volkswagen's Jetta are more than adequate for commuting on the highway, and truth be told, on the rare occasions I happen to be out on the highway during rush hour, the main car I find is Honda's Civic.

Fact of the matter is, most V6 family sedans currently on the market blow the doors off a Ferrari Testarossa. That isn't decent. Its bloody overkill. And the fuel consumption that goes with it is likewise overkill.

 

[volkris]

These assertions that nobody "needs" this and that are really irrelevant when it comes right down to it.

I mean, what do people really need? Food, water, air, shelter? Nobody NEEDS a car at all. Nobody NEEDS trains either, for that matter, or TVs, or more than two lamps per house, or computers...

People WANT these things, and there's nothing wrong with that. People want cars and computers and cellphones, and they invest their money in these purchases to fulfill their wants. Who are you to tell them they're wrong? Some people choose to buy big, inefficient cars because that's the direction they want their lives to go, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's the hight of arrogance to make assertions that they don't need the big cars and therefore should go with the smaller ones.

And no, I think people have once again realized that gas prices are going to continue trending up, so they will shop with more of an eye to fuel efficiency than they have lately. The world is changing, as it always does, and the current track it's on means higher gas prices. And in the end, you just have to let people make their choices and suffer the consequences when they fail to take higher gas prices into account when buying a gas guzzler.

Make people pay for the real, legitimate costs of their purchases and habits--make them pay for their gas, liability insurance, and costs of highway infrastructure--but don't be so arrogant as to "show them the way" by taxing them into doing the "correct" thing. These savages don't need taming.

 

[jis]

The general figure that is quoted in 2008 currency is about $1.5million per track mile if done in a once off turn-key project. Usually considerably cheaper when done using what is called a rolling program covering multiple long segments in progressive electrification. That is how the Chinese and the Indians keep their electrification costs down.

how about they keep their labor costs down by paying extemely low wages, have a 60 hour work week, and house their labor forces in barracks under conditions that are horrendous for the duration of the job. Local made materials are cheap for much of the same reasons. I won't talk about quality control and environmental considerations, and other factors that can significantly affect costs here.

And that explains the lower electrification costs in Europe too? OK.

So your argument then is that we have priced ourselves out of the world market and therefore we will never be able to catch up in infrastructure construction with the rest of the world, or at least until they catch up with us in wage levels. I could believe that very sadly - but yes I could believe that.

But I think one significant issue is that the individual electrification projects here have been minuscule compared to the big four and this has prevented the exploitation of advantages of scale. If our auto industry was based on occasional production of 2000 cars at a time, cars and roads would be much more expensive too.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

These assertions that nobody "needs" this and that are really irrelevant when it comes right down to it.
I mean, what do people really need? Food, water, air, shelter? Nobody NEEDS a car at all. Nobody NEEDS trains either, for that matter, or TVs, or more than two lamps per house, or computers...

People WANT these things, and there's nothing wrong with that. People want cars and computers and cellphones, and they invest their money in these purchases to fulfill their wants. Who are you to tell them they're wrong? Some people choose to buy big, inefficient cars because that's the direction they want their lives to go, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's the hight of arrogance to make assertions that they don't need the big cars and therefore should go with the smaller ones.

And no, I think people have once again realized that gas prices are going to continue trending up, so they will shop with more of an eye to fuel efficiency than they have lately. The world is changing, as it always does, and the current track it's on means higher gas prices. And in the end, you just have to let people make their choices and suffer the consequences when they fail to take higher gas prices into account when buying a gas guzzler.

Make people pay for the real, legitimate costs of their purchases and habits--make them pay for their gas, liability insurance, and costs of highway infrastructure--but don't be so arrogant as to "show them the way" by taxing them into doing the "correct" thing. These savages don't need taming.

First of all, the fuel tax doesn't cover the cost of highway construction. It should. That is plain and simple. The motorists, and motorists alone, should pay for the direct costs involved with modifying the world to bow to their choice. Highway construction, auto insurance, road construction, and so on. It is fair, I'd thnk you agree, that a fuel tax, which due to the nature of it, charges people based, atleast with a reasonable correlation, on how much they drive. There is more than just the highways, though. There are highway patrolment, for one.

Now, some of there being there is the responsibility of, and paid for in part, people who break the traffic code. But not all of it. The patrolmen who assist people with broken down cars, changing tires, enterin their car that they locked themselves out of, pushing cars off the road, and so on is part of the cost of operating a highway system. And so should be born, in its entirety, by the fuel tax. People who violate the laws should simply be paying their money into the general fund.

Fair statement that any libererian like you should agree with: Users of a system should pay its full cost, non-users of the system should pay nothing. And when it comes to taxing for the paying of roads, they should at least pay that.

However, here we come to a more murky water. Cars don't just take up space with their roads and their parking lots. They also pollute. They pollute, they damage the enviroment, they create air pollution, noise pollution, etc. Some of that simply costs money to clean up. There is probably a distinct price that could be put on the actual clean up of physical pollution. That too, should be in the fuel tax. I have the right to damage something. I have the right- and responsibility- to pay for that damage. That is, to me, fairly clear.

However, lets go into a water more murky still. Not everyone can drive, Volkris. I'm borderline, my eyes keep getting worse. A hundred years ago, there was public transit every which way. Almo0st everyone used it, and due to its volume, it was even profitable. Due to the increased prevalence of the automobile in this country, that system has all but disappeared. What is left is a system that can't pay for itself, for it isn't used enough. You could argue, with justification, that the increased use by able bodied people of cars has cost those of us who can't use them a safe, simple, and affordable way to get around. Because they deprive those of us who can't drive of our mobility, it seems to me they should pay to restore it. For that too is a damage, and a cost.

By that logic, taxing fuel to cover, at least in part, the operation of a system to give those of us who simply can not drive a car (and while some can't do it for monetary reasons, that isn't all of them) mobility is fair. If you build the system to cover that need, one will find that, in truth, it costs little more to build a system for the benefits of everyone, because increased volume allows for better cost efficiency.

Persuading people who drive large cars into smaller ones is really a side benefit of requiring drivers of motorcars to pay the cost for all of the problems of their existence- roads, enforcement, pollution, and sacrificed mobility for non drivers.

 

[George Harris]

The general figure that is quoted in 2008 currency is about $1.5million per track mile if done in a once off turn-key project. Usually considerably cheaper when done using what is called a rolling program covering multiple long segments in progressive electrification. That is how the Chinese and the Indians keep their electrification costs down.

how about they keep their labor costs down by paying extemely low wages, have a 60 hour work week, and house their labor forces in barracks under conditions that are horrendous for the duration of the job. Local made materials are cheap for much of the same reasons. I won't talk about quality control and environmental considerations, and other factors that can significantly affect costs here.

And that explains the lower electrification costs in Europe too? OK.

Are you sure that they are? Show me the numbers.

 

[jis]

And that explains the lower electrification costs in Europe too? OK.

Are you sure that they are? Show me the numbers.

The $1.5million per track-mile was a figure from UK in 2008. I am told that Boston cost more per track mile a little earlier in the decade, hence my comment.

It is quite possible that the Boston numbers are inflated by other factors.

But notwithstanding all that, piecemeal electrification of a couple of hundred miles at a time is bound to cost more per track-mile than large and continuous electrification projects electrifying thousands of miles over many years. Just like piecemeal purchase of 30 locomotives once in a while is bound to raise unit costs when compared to almost continuous purchase of several hundred standardized locomotives over several years.

 

[TVRM610]

so does anyone actually know what it costs to electrify existing freight ROW?