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DrumBeat: April 12, 2008
Posted by Leanan on April 12, 2008 - 8:00am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Gas is only the starter fluid: As cost of driving jumps, car-buying, vacation plans take a hit
PRINCETON, N.J. (MarketWatch) -- Owning a car is more expensive than ever. Record prices at the pump for gasoline -- and its main ingredient crude oil -- will lift the cost of driving to 54 cents per mile this year or an annual average of $8,121, according to a new report from the motorist group AAA."While the cost of some driving expenses declined since the start of 2007, higher gasoline prices have more than offset these savings and pushed the overall cost of vehicle ownership and operation higher this year," said John Nielson, director of AAA's Approved Auto Repair network
Gas prices set record, oil moves higher
NEW YORK - Gas and diesel pump prices jumped to yet another record Friday, piling on the costs for motorists as well as consumers reliant on trucks, trains and ships that deliver goods to market.
Kuwait's new refinery cost rises to $19b
(MENAFN - The Peninsula) Kuwait's giant new Al Zour refinery could cost as much as $19bn, $5bn more than previously budgeted, as the country considers adding more units to the plant, a company official said yesterday.Rapidly rising costs in the energy industry have hit projects worldwide and already delayed the start-up date for the 615,000 barrels per day Kuwait refinery by more than a year.
Oil firm, foes strike major deal
A Houston oil company has agreed to shut down its offshore oil production off Santa Barbara County decades early in exchange for approval this year to drill into untapped undersea reserves and cash in on the nation's record oil prices.
High diesel prices squeeze truckers
Gary, Ind. - Bob Campbell no longer idles his truck while he sleeps to keep the heat or air conditioning on: The fuel it burns is too valuable. "You either freeze or you burn up," he says with a shrug.Still, he's getting by, which is more than Richard Wood, who's eating fried chicken near Mr. Campbell at the Flying J Truck Stop in Gary, Ind., can say.
Mr. Wood lost his truck last month when he could no longer afford the payments due to the spike in diesel prices. Now he's back to driving for a company.
Russian oil supply takes a dip
Russian oil supply in the first quarter of the year averaged 10 million barrels per day, a 90,000 bpd drop on the same period in 2007 and the first year-on-year fall this decade, the International Energy Aagency (IEA) said today.
Kudrin Says Russia's Economy Will Grow Faster on Oil
(Bloomberg) -- Russia's economy will expand faster than initially forecast this year, even as growth in the U.S. slows in the next two quarters, said Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin.The Russian economy probably will grow 7.1 percent this year, compared with an earlier forecast of 6.5 percent, helped by high prices for oil, Russia's major export, Kudrin told reporters in Washington D.C., where he is attending meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Oil refining surplus may bring UK, US plant closure
DUBAI: Older oil refineries in Britain and the United States could soon face the threat of closure as a wave of new plants start up in Asia and the Middle East and flood the market with gasoline.
Clinton and Obama shade the truth as each claims to be tougher on oil companies than the other.
New Zealand: Increasing pain on the forecourt
Along with sunshine wages, higher transport and travel costs and community facilities that compare less than favourably with some other centres, the high cost of fuel in far-flung parts of the region is another debit on the ledger. Looked at pragmatically, the difference between $1.99 and $2 a litre petrol is, well, minimal adding less than $1 to the cost of filling even a large fuel tank. But symbolically, it's a biggie.
Govt policy shielding Kuwait economy from ‘swaying’ oil
KUWAIT CITY (KUNA): The conservative policy of the Kuwaiti government in dealing with the oil prices swinging, from 1992 to 2007, protected the state’s economy from the negative impact of such fluctuation, an economist said. Speaking on the findings of his PhD research, economy specialist Dr Anwar Al-Shryaan told KUNA that the Kuwaiti government’s policy was successful because it stabilized the oil price at $30 per barrel when estimating the state’s public expenses and incomes.
Mr. Gore you are robbing Peter, paying Paul
More people are expected to die of famine in Africa than imprinting a larger CO2 footprint. 'Al Gore Environmental policies' are aimed at 'Robbing Peter paying Paul.' Green based priorities are creating severe food shortages.
Monbiot piqued by peak oil planning
George Monbiot last night declared recent environmental developments as cause for great concern. In over twenty years of activism, he said that he had fought against becoming too pessimistic and had always thought that although Government rarely did much to tackle problems directly, he was comforted by the thought that should a ‘serious problem’ arise then the Government would work out what needed to be done and do it. No longer.What appears to have pushed Monbiot over the edge is the Government’s lack of planning for the end of oil.
Calif. OKs think tank on global warming
LOS ANGELES - California will create a $600 million think tank to fight global warming, funded by a 25- or 30-cent surcharge on customers' electrical and gas bills, the state Public Utilities Commission has decided.
Market alone can't halt CO2 emissions: British climate official
PARIS (AFP) - A top British climate change official backed an embattled European Union scheme Friday to tax industrial carbon emissions, but also allowed for exceptions in highly competitive sectors.Adair Turner, the newly-appointed head of Britain's Climate Change Committee, also expressed skepticism toward the reliance on industry-wide agreements and new technology favoured by the United States for reducing the greenhouse gases that drive global warning.
What is required to displace Heavy Trucks (and some Air Freight) in the USA ?
Ton-mile capacity is one issue, but speed and reliability is as important to get shippers to switch from road to rail. Until almost every shipper relocates to a rail spur, local and regional inter-modal service will allow "last mile" delivery by trucks.
ATM, I am looking at electrifying 65,000 of the 178,000 miles of US railroads, upgrading 25,000 miles with better signals, double tracks (or much enhanced single tracks) plus the almost 8,500 miles illustrated below.
CSX Railroad has proposed an upgrade on their East Coast Line, from Washington DC to Miami. Grade separated for 1,200 miles with 3 tracks (4 tracks from Richmond to DC).
Two tracks for regular freight operating at 60 to 79 mph, and one track (2 DC-Richmond) for passengers and express freight (low and medium density) at 100 to 110 mph.
This appeals to me for relative cost effectiveness and the ability to beat trucking for speed and reliability and even take some air modal share. At speeds above 125 mph, the ability to operate medium density freight and passenger trains on the same tracks diminishes.
I would open up and upgrade Amtrak's NorthEast Corridor (Washington DC to Boston) so it is not on the map of new tracks.
I have looked for what corridors in the USA could support enough traffic to justify "CSX" single tracks of semi-High Speed Rail. Passengers, freight or a combination. Vegetables and fruit would be major sources of freight for these lines.
Another 25,000 miles of railroads would be upgraded with double tracks, better signals and comparable upgrades, so express freight should operate at 50 to 60 mph when off one of the red lines.
I did not make a connection between Tuscon AZ and San Antonio TX, despite the heavy shipments of California fruits and vegetables to the East, because a section of 60 to 79 mph will not lead to excessive spoilage (much of this route is across flat desert). Not enough long distance passenger service either. (Most people will, IMHO, pay 2.5x as much to travel by air for distances of 1,000+ miles. And those that prefer rail will accept a stretch at lower speeds).
I would like constructive criticism on my choices, both those routes missed and "Why do you have one there ?"
Again, this is for both passengers and freight at 100 to 110 mph as a part of a roughly $400 billion electrified railroad upgrade (electrify 65,000 of 178,000 miles, 25,000 miles of double track or much enhanced single track and the below "CSX" type track).
I see speeds above 125 mph for passenger & package only service as a luxury that the USA should build "later".
If the economy of the USA alters as the system outlined is being built, adjustments can be made (I wonder about the two rail lines to Detroit myself, but they are also a connection to Ontario). And although I recognize the value of local production, I also see no practical way of supplying 5 different locally grown fruits and vegetables (dietary recommendation) to Northeast residents in February. And the fruit and vegetable capacity of California and Florida far exceeds local needs.
One of the roles of transportation is to transfer goods from areas of surplus to areas of shortage.
Once built, they should require relatively little maintenance for a half century or so.
Best Hopes for Non-Oil Transportation,
Alan
Alan, have you got any idea of where the trade-off points between diesel trains and electrifying the track come in?
Obviously it is a moving target, depending on the price of diesel or synfuel or whatever vs the cost of the electric and installation, but there must be indicators of how dense traffic needs to be to make electrification worthwhile for any given traffic level.
Even though it is relatively inefficient I am wondering if non-electric trains running on synfuel of some sort might not be a better option than electrification for remote rural areas - I know that on some lines in the UK which are lightly used it is actually more fuel efficient to travel by car with a couple of people in it than to catch the train, so it is obviously horses for courses.
That is why I propose electrifying only 65,000 of 178,000 miles of US railroads. A difficult determination to make exactly without extensive knowledge of specific railroad operations. At $120/barrel, perhaps 4 trains/day might be break even (MANY variables !)
OTOH, there are operating savings to an all electrified railroad. No loco switching, no fuel storage & handling, no diesel maintenance.
After Phase I of electrifying 65,000 miles of main lines and heavy spur lines, I think that regions will switch to 100% electrification. West Coast first IMHO.
Best Hopes,
Alan
And as the discretionary side of the economy continues to implode, we are going to need the jobs.
QUITE true !
And investing in long lived energy efficient infrastructure rather than consumerism has many benefits for us and those that come after us.
Best Hopes for Making a Virtue of Necessity,
Alan
Yes, there will be plenty of work to do, but how will the people be paid?
We're looking at local currencies as the federal dollar likely implodes.
From my profile:
http://www.complementarycurrency.org/materials.php
http://www.communitycurrency.org/resources.html
One interesting new development in locomotive power is the hybrid diesel/electric locomotive. GE has developed a main haul hybrid locomotive and Canadian manufacturer Railpower has a switching hybrid locomotive. Since most conventional diesel/electric locomotives are already essentially series hybrid vehicles without the batteries, the technology is pretty simple to add. Just replace the resistance banks currently used for dynamic braking with batteries. They usually put in smaller diesel generators, since the batteries contribute significantly to the power. Railpower also has developed a hybrid rubber-tired gantry crane for handling large shipping containers.
Hybrid switchers could become essentially the equivalent to a Chevy Volt with overnight battery re-charging stations, further reducing diesel fuel requirements and emissions. Also, by adding electrical overhead pickups, main haul hybrid locomotives could be flex-fuel vehicles, running as pure electric locomotives where electrical distribution allows for overhead lines and switching to their diesel generators where the lines aren’t economic.
Dave, if you get a chance check out an article in the current issue of 'The Railway' magazine in the UK on how "Green are the railways".
All types of railway locomotion are compared via thermal efficiency with some interesting conclusions, ie for passenger transport a diesel loco with coaching stock is deemed the most efficient.
Now I know why when in Berlin last year the DB were running regional services with diesel, double decker coaches, and driving unit on the end. All the advantages of multiple unit operation without a required loco run around at the turn around point but with all the efficiences of single loco operation.
Since living most of my life in the Mid West, I have seen a large number of track systems lay dead (not maintained) from years of back country motorcycle riding, and in every small town thru out the Mid West there are rail lines and sidings not used for decades. The Mid West was built on rail, Chicago a perfect example of underutilized track systems.
My question is, why is there a need to build new systems from scratch, when the ramp up time would be very short taking over the old systems and is the information available from the current rail companies as to where they are?
My grandfather worked as a switchman for 50 years on the Missouri Pacific Line out of Dupo Ill. He told me as a youth, "this country was built on Steel Rail and will always need the Trains".
BZ
With some minor exceptions, the red lines are on operating rail lines .
There are enough abandoned rail lines for the rest. The San Diego-Phoenix section would be built largely on abandoned or unused ROW for example.
I can see the reuse of abandoned rail lines on a large scale as spur lines. OTOH, only a few new main lines are needed.
Ownership and operation of the rail lines is an open question. I would prefer the existing railroads to own these "red lines" but with public trackage rights (just as any licensed airline can operate out of any airport) with regulated fees paid to the owner.#
An underlying theme is to build not "just enough" rail capacity, with frequent bottlenecks, but to overwhelm the demand with capacity. This is, IMHO, needed to beat truck speeds and capacity.
Best Hopes for Speed an Reliability,
Alan
# This is the new model in the EU, and it seems to be working reasonably well. French TGV trains on German tracks, Swiss trains on Italian tracks, etc.
Just read where Norfolk is demanding the US pay for
infrastructure out building, improvements.
When the US does this, then either Big Rail is
cut up into regional or the whole thing is nationalized.
Either/or.
This is similar to my philosophy on mass transit. If the goal is taking vehicles off the road (and reducing car ownership), then having every bus/train full (in order to maximize fares etc) is a failure. In order to be as convenient as a car, you have to run the nearly-empty seats at 3AM. If this requires automation or grade separation or quadruple-tracking or multiple unit cars, so be it, but it has to be available in order to replace cars. And ideally, so long as it's using high-efficiency electric motors, it should ENCOURAGE ridership, by not giving regular riders a per-ride fare to pay. DC Metro does not have a monthly unlimited-ride pass, and that frustrates me.
More liberal countries have mass transit systems that we can only dream of, and sometimes even do it free - IMO profit has been a somewhat corrupting influence over here(as compared to the heavily subsidized airports and roads). If a subsidized mass transit system costs 1 billion a year to run, and gets back 200 million in fares from 10 million riders(w/ the balance in subsidies) - we really need to look at what would happen if we reduces fares to zero. If 30 million riders still cost the same 1 billion dollars (no fare-collection inefficiency, much fuller seats, and a few vehicles added to peak times)... Somebody has to ask themselves - is increasing the budget by 25% and reducing the number of cars on the road worthy of attempting that course?
Alan, do you know of any systems that fit this description?
Toll roads (ones which are actually required to pay for themselves) can be quite unpopular. Tokyo has a giant, spectacular bridge/tunnel into the bay that remains little-used all day because of the $30 toll(which was reduced from $50(where the bridge was completely empty) after firing the guy that coordinates income estimates with traffic flow estimates, who made a $12B mistake) - free roads have the opposite effect. I posit that this effect is seen in transit as well, and that maximizing profit is a distinctly different course than trying to reduce traffic & car ownership.
I agree with a lot of what you're saying here -- I can never understand why people in LA constantly complain about traffic while at the same time the MTA has to raise fares because it is so underfunded. Make transit FREE and it could have a lot more impact on traffic.
No. Make transit FREE and it will become so infested with vagrants and gangbangers that no regular citizen will dare to ride it except maybe at the height of the rush hour, and maybe not even then. The Staten Island Railway has had problems of this sort for years, ever since they stopped collecting fares except at the ferry (last, northernmost stop). IIRC we discussed this issue here a week or two ago, in connection with one of the European cities.
What about a system similar to aircraft now?
Economy (near free), and Business (the bulk of the train), so that commuters can buy their way away from most of the vagrants.
The new Dubai Metro will have three car trains.
One for women and children, one "VIP" with leather seats and one Economy car.
AFAIK, the only "class" system Urban Rail.
Alan
It still leaves the problem of intimidation and muggings at the stations. And subsidized buses and railcars are a hellishly expensive way to provide free heat and A/C for the vagrants and gangbangers.
And anyway, with the cost of energy going ever upward, it seems very, very foolish to subsidize energy-intensive services, especially when the subsidized purpose - riding around and around for no reason at all - is no purpose at all.
In Sweden, sometimes the social services pay the bus fare for homeless people so they can ride a bus all night during winter.
Hello PaulS,
We have free buses here in Chapel Hill, NC. It's a college town so if every college student drove it would overwhelm the road system. The bus is free. There are all kinds of people that use the buses: Students and UNC workers, families with children, some homeless, mexican workers...perhaps because this is a small town that it works. Even grade school students use it. There is also a carrier for bikes so you can use your bike and take it with you. We have a good bicycle pathway system which is improving year to year. It works for us.
"...perhaps because this is a small town that it works. Even grade school students use it." Yes indeed.
In bigger places, many parents will not allow their grade school kids to walk anywhere on their own, much less use a city bus on their own, even though IMO the objective risk in the cases I see is much less than it was where and when I grew up doing things like that. But times have changed - these days, putting the kids on a city bus might almost be counted as reckless endangerment. Even if it doesn't earn a hostile visit from Social Services, it will draw the opprobrium of aunts and uncles, of friends and neighbors. So the kids get chauffeured to and from school, or, failing that, a parent (usually the mother, it seems) waits with them every morning at the school bus stop, and waits again every afternoon until the school bus arrives.
This may be a symptom of a larger issue as Mike M downthread posits, but all the same, it is what parents do. And, after all, once in a blue moon something bad does indeed happen. When it does, it's hyped up in scary bright yellow lettering on freeway signs, and retold endlessly in breathless TV reports, all across the entire country. Under those circumstances, and after more than 40 years of the "consumer" movement browbeating people and scaring them out of their wits about even the most utterly insignificant risks, parents will not be handling the issue differently anytime soon.
I lived in Austin Texas when they did a 1 year no fare experiment. generally considered a failure. Homeless rode to get free a/c and heat and napped in the back. Gangs of kids rode just to do something and were rowdy. "Choice" riders (those that owned a car) dropped.
Miami's gadgetbahn, the MetroMover, went fare free a few years ago with minimal problems. Perhaps because it is an elevated system connecting downtown office buildings.
Portland has a "fareless square" that seems to work OK, (some conflict with rowdy kids etc. riding and some related crime).
DC Metro does not have an unlimited ride pass because it would encourage more ridership and they are capacity limited. They want to allocate that capacity to the highest use (off peak fares are cheap, peak expensive).
My priorities would be a well built, well maintained and clean system first, and subsidized fares second. Targeted DEEP discounts for handicapped, elderly (off hours at least), children, disabled, those on food stamps, etc. is a better approach IMHO than broad based cheap to everyone.
New Orleans has free rides to all handicapped residents and school children going to school, and 60% discounts for elderly for example.
Alan
Seniors ride the Seoul subway for free. They go to the ticket window for a free ticket and the start of each ride. Seems like a good idea - driving in Seoul can be tough at any age, and it helps give seniors a little more independence and one less financial worry. It would be good to see the AARP and their non-American equivalents push for this; maybe they already are.
Alan It would seem to me that the issue of "muggings" and "rowdies" is a symptom of a bigger issue than the transportation of a "displaced car using society". I do think that as we move forward we need to seriously re-think why we need to move around so much. The whole notion of "Time is Money" seems to be at the root of much of this issue. I do think that a return to a more intergrated and improved rail system for the transport of required goods and services is needed. When the "Disaster Capitalists" see a way to make more money than they are currently making in places like Iraq, New Orleans, Atlanta, Sri Lanka, etc then you will see a return of the rails courtesy of KBR, Halliburton, CH2M Hill, Lockheed Martin, et al and they will use the same taxpayers money that have been using all along.
Check out the book The shock Doctrine by "Naomi Klein" to get a more complete picture of the way I see it developing.
Vouchers could always be provided to those that are too poor to afford the transport fares that they legitimately need. We do the same thing now with food stamps and other things. The vouchers could be configured to enable people to get where they really need to go, while not being enough to just give people with anti-social behavior issues unlimited free rides.
Alternatively, we could provide free passes to everyone subject to revocation for criminal, rowdy, other anti social behavior, or using the transit vehicle as a way of loitering.
Regardless, there are many people who are just offended by having to share any form of transportation with those who don't rise to their class standards. Taking the bus is just simply beneath most people as it is associated with the transit choice of the poor and non white.
When push comes to shove and people have no choice, lives will be re-arranged to accommodate what the transport industry is capable of offering.
I have heard so many times the refrain, "Oh, but people are not going to be willing to give up their cars."
When having a car is simply no longer viable, they will be given up in spite of the inconvenience of using whatever the locally prevailing best option is.
In 1970, public buses had 4% of commuters in Washington DC,
Last year more people took public transit to work in DC than drove alone in their cars & SUVs. (Cars with 1 or more people still outnumber transit pax).
I use that as proof that people can be lured out of their cars by reasonably good (not great) Urban Rail.
Best Hopes for Better and More Urban Rail,
Alan
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/04/11/when-cheap-housing-...
April 11, 2008, 2:23 pm
When Cheap Housing Isn’t: How Transportation Changes the Equation
Posted by Keith Johnson
Ana Campoy reports:
I've recently noticed that in Asheville NC they have an Emergency Ride Home program.
This program makes wonderfully good sense, and should be a real "winner" when it comes to encouraging people to consider alternatives to driving for their daily commute.
I am so impressed with this idea, I wish I could research it further and develop it into an article for TOD:Local, but I'm afraid I just don't have the time.
Subsidies are bad. The effect here in Sweden from subsidized mass transit and heavily taxed gasoline is that as oil has risen in price, the ticket price for mass transit has risen a lot faster than the gasoline at the pump, due to the leverage.
Assume fuel costs being 33%, wages 33% and capital costs (the buses and stations etc) 33%. Close enough to reality.
If the bus company get 75 SEK for every customer, and 25 SEK from the customer (roughly correct figures) and the price of diesel at the pump increases by 10%, but not the subsidy, then the bus company need to increase the ticket price by 3.3 SEK or 13.2%.
But the driver of a car has costs where fuel is only 20-25% of the total cost of the car per mile. A 10% increase in the cost of diesel (or gasoline) will only increase what he pays per mile by 2%.
So what has happened in Sweden as the fuel price has risen, is that the cost of mass transit has risen more than the price of gasoline. If a driver only looks at the cost of fuel, and ignores service, insurance, capital costs etc (which many do), they immediately see that mass transit has risen more than car fuel, so they stick to their cars.
Subsidized mass transit is doomed.
And anyway, the politicians does not want to pay more to mass transit. Sometimes they have "free mass transit day" here in Sweden, but they won't increase the number of busses, so you end up with a full bus and people being left at the bus stop, cursing. If it even stops, might just drive past unless someone is getting off.
I really don't see any solution, unless we see oil in four figures, which I belive we will eventually. But then the solution won't be mass transit, it will be massive unemployment so fewer people will go to work.
Unfortunately once a government subsidized transit system is implemented you are doomed to a high cost monopoly. Now that BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) in San Francisco California, has a strangle hold on the Bay Area the union monopoly wants a total compensation per person of about $125,000 per year. This for train operators whose only job is to prevent the doors from trying to close if someone is standing in it. The trains were designed to run fully automated, but the union insists that thousands of employes are needed to keep it “safe”.
A monopoly by any other name is still a monopoly.
The reason they are striking for that much total compensation is that you need a salary that large to buy a house in Silicon Valley, or to rent an apartment for that matter. My sister ran an apartment complex ten years ago and she simply wouldn't rent to anybody that didn't have a family income of 65 thousand, which means a total compensation of 90 thousand, which is counting taxes and benefits. I understand that this seems high to you, but it really is expensive real estate around here.
The union isn't going to get the raise though. We're broke, we are running very large deficits statewide. Figure on a rollback in salaries as soon as house prices go back to normal.
You have touched on reasons why both government and corporate ownership and operation of toll goods does not work very well. The corporations just want to maximize profits, which means jam-packed mass transit during peak hours and no service at all when and where the riders are few. Governments tend to either pour in subsidies to the systems (resulting in better service when and where riders are few) but creating a black hole in their budgets, or they end up having to starve their systems in order to milk them for revenues to subsidize other projects and programs.
There is a better alternative, but to my knowledge it has rarely if ever been tried anywhere: public ownership of toll goods.
By public ownership, I mean that the toll good (mass transit system in this case) is owned and operated by a board of trustees, directly elected by the population of the service district and NOT appointed by the government. This point is crucial. Only by having the trustees b eing directly elected do you establish an effective feedback loop to assure that the right balance is maintained between fare prices and service extent and quality. If fares are rising too high, people have another alterntive than just driving their cars - they can vote for trustees that will run the system more efficiently and lower fares. If service quality is getting too poor and inconvenient, people have another alternative than just driving their cars - they can vote for trustees that will improve service quality, extend lines out to serve more people, and extend service schedules.
This is the only sure answer I know of to the problems you raise. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to make it happen. Obviously, corporations hate this and want everyone to think it is the most evil thing in the world. Less obviously, governments and politicians also hate this, because it reduces their power a little. The only ones that might like this are the ordinary people that have to continue to suffer, but we all know how much THEY (we) count.
Don't know how familiar you are with the geography of southern California, but the history of rail into San Diego is fraught with problems trying to overcome what I may euphemistically call the elevation challenge. The easiest solution (for E-W) was to go through Mexico, and therein lay an additional challenge, especially if the US ever decides to build a truly secure border wall/fence.
As far as connecting California is concerned I doubt that the port of San Diego is that important (it is primarily a military asset.) Rather, connecting the agricultural output areas of the central valley, and perhaps the "inland empire", to the high speed network should take priority IMO.
Also, wonder if you have considered that one reason to continue the high speed rail from central AZ into west TX would be to handle the product going from the ports of LA/LB eastward? On any given day the string of Evergreen/Cosco containers going east is impressive.
I have limited knowledge of San Diego geography (never been there).
Going from Los Angeles to Phoenix was problematic, and San Diego has enough people to justify a link.
Union Pacific has an unused, but not abandoned, ROW from Yuma (CA border) to Phoenix. There is also (from memory) an abandoned RR ROW just north of the border (it may go south ?) out of San Diego.
Overall, I have budgeted over $100 billion (about $120) for about 8,500 miles. Thus the pressure to cut (a real world issue BTW).
I think that 60 to 79 mph transport through most of the West is doable (even when 10