Flights are really terrible in terms of carbon emissions. Really awful. Yes, a roomette is better.
Technically, adding one person to a plane or train which is already running never has any significant emissions. So the only way to figure this is to look at the average: if everyone who was on a flight switched to a train (in roomette!) would that reduce emissions. It would, because flights are awful. Going up in the air, fighting gravity, uses a lot of fuel and generates a lot of emissions.
Whether the roomettes, led by diesel engines, are cleaner than driving electric cars from NY to Chicago... I haven't checked those numbers. Railroad diesel engines are pretty efficient compared to automobile gasoline engines, partly because they're larger and partly because they spend more time running at "optimal speed" (due to the electric transmission, something also present in certain hybrid cars but not in normal gasoline cars); and with lower rolling resistance a train is more efficient than a car; so it is probably still better, but it's not as much of a slam-dunk as vs. flights, which are terrible.
Unless you have hard numbers, I’m in disagreement. Taking Amtrak from NYC to LA is not as efficient as taking an A321 or 737. Regulations prevent the idling that used to occur regularly, and airplanes and engines have changed
You claim taking every passenger on a plane and putting them in a roomette would be more emmission friendly.
Let’s not even address the energy intensive things that go into providing sleeper service like water consumption, traditional dining, linens, and waste. Let’s just look at fuel and emissions.
Newer aircraft, like the Airbus A350 and Boeing 737MAX, consume on average less than 1.2 gallons per 100 passenger miles. This fuel consumption is comparable to that of compact cars, although aircraft travel much further and faster.
Your blanket (and pretty obviously unresearched) statement “Going up in the air, fighting gravity, uses a lot of fuel and generates a lot of emissions,” doesn’t account for the nuance of what we are discussing here.
Airplanes pollute a lot, but they pollute a lot for a short period of time. When a plane descends, pilots throttle back to idle (or close to it). So your talk of fighting gravity is really simplistic.
A old Genesis locomotive (or 2-3 in a consist), pollutes for a minimum of 90 hours when a passenger crosses country by train. A full western LD consist is usually around 300 people, and an eastern LD consist is similar (or less) though most are not traveling to end points on either one.
Based on a report from Dec 2010 a P42 averages between 2.2 and 2.5 gallons per train mile. In the figures we are using for comparison that would be between .4 and .46 miles per gallon.
When United runs triple 7s on their KSFO - KBOS around New Years due to a spike in demand, they manage to carry the same amount (or more) for 2,300nm. If you want I could pull up ForeFlight and do the fuel burn numbers for a B777 just to really get into the nitty gritty of it rather than continued blanket speculations.
The short haul flight market is where this discussion starts to become more obvious. It’s no secret that on flights shorter than 300 miles, an train would win every time.
