Except to interface with legacy equipment (read everything that exists today) I don't see why we would string HVAC rather than HVDC even on a branch line.
One major interface is the electric train on the ROW.
3 kV DC is used in some trains (Belgium, Italy, older Russian from memory) but one cannot transform HV DC down to 3 kV DC (only AC works that way). AC to DC and DC to AC power electronics are expensive, and one cannot afford them (unless the price has dropped a LOT in the last 4 years) every 30 miles. Even HV to 25 or 50 kV AC transformers are not cheap, but not as pricy as DC > AC power electronics.
AFAIK, no new systems are being installed with DC (some add-ons are of course). Russia went away from 3 kV DC and to AC (25 kV AC from memory).
The most likely solution when overhead wire just will not fit (New Orleans Huey Long double track bridge will be tight at spots) is to fit a 3rd rail. Eurostar trains can switch from 25 kV AC to 1.5 kV DC third rail when they get close to London (no longer needed as of a year ago).
The beauty of rail is that innumerable issues have already been resolved somewhere in the world in the last century.
Alan,
With a certain amount of digging, you can lower the track within the tunnel to get the overhead wire to fit. This has been done in North London to get Eurostar trains from the Acton depot to St Pancras through the Hampstead tunnel (built in the late 1850s).
BobE
Or put in a third rail. A large Steel rail is much cheaper than a copper wire and can carry more electricity. And you don't have as many height clearance problems.
It reads well; a great proposal! I have no technical criticism...so much for the TOD meat grinder. Do you want grammatical/punctuation corrections as well?
No, AC is still cheaper than DC for a substation every 30 miles. I just worry as electronics get cheaper, AC is going to become a dinosaur. But not yet. Say the railroad puts wind and solar along the way. Than it will be easier to interface to DC. But one humungous project at a time I guess.
I just worry as electronics get cheaper, AC is going to become a dinosaur.
Alas, "we" have no way of knowing if the doomer predictions of 'no IC's' will be the way things go, copper becomes expensive due to mass electrification, or some break-through with super-conductors make them truly room-temp - picking AC or DC might be seen as a bad move with the lens of history. (Great IC's should make DC 'better', no copper and no superconductors ruins the tradition of AC step up/step down transformers as 2 examples)
I'd worry more about government mandates being made not due to being the 'best' choice but because some quid crossed the right palms.
Perhaps Alan can toss into the mix suggestions about Open Records so if there is corruption, the parties can be fingered in the future or perhaps get lucky in preventing the public funds being used for private benefit.
Why would 110VAC become a dinosaur, compared to 110VDC?
After all, we won't be connecting houses to the grid at 12VDC, the line losses are too large at low voltages.
For long hauls, HVDC makes a lot of sense ... both because of the line losses and because the conversion to AC to feed into a regional grid eliminates the problem of synchronizing AC over long distances ...
... but what pressure does that place on the local grid to change over?
One explanation I've seen is that more and more appliances don't need AC. Computers, TV:s and such would work just fine with DC; they have chopper power supplies since that's cheaper than a transformer, and such devices can work with DC input as well (meaning that nowadays you can cheaply and efficiently convert one DC voltage to another without an AC transformer in between). I've heard of other appliances like fridges and washing machines that have variable frequency drives in order to run at the optimal frequency rather than the usual stop-start with the 50/60 Hz from the grid.
That being said, the potential savings from switching to a DC local grid are almost certainly not worth the hassle.
One place where we might see more DC equipment in the future is data centers. Nowadays it's quite wasteful that input AC is first rectified to DC for the UPS:es, then it's inverted back to AC since all the machines have AC input, and the the power supply in each machine rectifies it back to DC.
Also, the power feed line for 25kVAC is lighter, along with all associated support structure, than for 1.5kVDC - 3kVDC ... and the substations are not only more costly, but have to be put at closer intervals.
On the Sydney forum of the Australian railpage, bemoaning the failure to start the conversion from DC to AC is a recurrent theme. Its one of the big obstacles for electrification from the regional center of Newcastle to Maitland, the country town an hour rail commute up the line.
Alan, all I can say is "go ahead knock yourself out", continue the rhetoric, dream on and further encourage the cornucopians.
But, you had better get it done before the people start to move, before any economic collapse.
As usual assume BAU for the future. Even be so bold as to assume business growth.
Assume if capital is pulled from somewhere that no other department will suffer, and
Assume costs won't rise, assume construction, steel, copper and fuel costs remain steady while the job gets done. Assume a constant supply.
Assume there will be plenty of business for goods and personnel traffic to pay maintenance and wages.
Assume power generation will be continuous and low cost.
Assume we can engineer and buy our way out of any mess we get into.
We should expend all the energy we want now to build a better future for.........well who? Us, or future generations?
We should assume we know best for future generations, just as past generations knew and cared about what was best for us.
Of course, as the reality of our plight hits well and truly home, all kinds of desperate engineering feats will be posed and attempted.
Electrifying railways will be one of them.
While the cost of fuel and energy keeps rising but availability manageable the populace will continue to battle with what they have and can afford.
When shortages bite and hoarding begins, a new type of economy and political climate will emerge.
It's anyone's guess as to what life will be like then.
I assume it won't be BAU. We won't be moving billions of tons of freight around the country.
Unless it's coal.
Or as I have read before its because we'll have electric railways to be able to go on vacation, visit grandma and Disneyland.
The schedule will change as the economy shrinks, but the job of 100% electrification can, and will, be finished in a world quite different from today. We can get a lot done in the next few years.
As for the doomers, the organization required to keep the rails going (useful even during social collapse in Liberia & Cambodia) may be one of the fundamental organizing principles in what is left.
And no, taking tourists to Disneyland is not the ultimate goal of electrified rail. You just applied your prejudices without reading or understanding my article.
Alan
Sorry, but behind on answering comments. Try to catch up tonight.
guys, this is all great stuff but you have a big challenge I don't see addressed: where are you going to go to get the investment capital for all this? I'd say maybe you could get Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers to look into ponying up some dough but . . .
(Better call Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan while you can as it looks like they'll be the last one standing the way things are going.)
Remember, both World War II and the Marshall Plan required HUGE amounts of borrowed/invested capital. Without those you can't even buy brass BBs at the local Big-5. And right now the whole country is being sold off at fire-sale rates because we are - at every level - in debt up to our eyeballs.
In all honestly, I'm really curious how you could write something up like this without at least addressing who and/or where we're going to borrow the money from to finance these things? I don't have to tell you - at least I hope not - that the financial situation of the country is already dire and is going to almost certainly being getting a lot worse for a long time coming. Heck, according to that UK indpedent article, 10% of the U.S. is already on food stamps and this while food/fuel are still relatively cheap all things considered.
Meeting the U.S. DOT’s forecast demand will require the Class I freight railroads
to increase their investment in infrastructure expansion. The AAR estimates that
between 2005 and 2007, Class I freight railroad capital expenditures for infrastructure
expansion averaged $1.5 billion per year. To meet the U.S. DOT’s forecast
demand for 2035, the Class I freight railroads must invest $135 billion over
the next 28 years or about $4.8 billion per year."
One alternative is Industrial Revenue bonds - a lower cost to the railroads and a higher cost to the US Treasury. However, a series of delays are endemic in issuing these bonds. A policy decision is needed to determine whether we should encourage these or not.
Another alternative is an US Treasury guarantees for railroad or electric utility bonds issued to support electrification and improvements to electrified rail lines. Such guarantees would use the rail lines as collateral. These bonds could be issued quickly, in volume and at reduced cost to the railroads or utilities
It would be a stretch, but Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet's firm, could finance the electrification by themselves.
These are long lived and valuable investments. Retirement funds should find these better investments than many on their books. Or the Sovereign Investment funds (30% to Norway, 25% to Kuwait, 10% to Qatar, 35% to Dubai ?) should be an easy sale.
The sums involved over the time required are not outrageous. I would be pleased to take a 0.001% commission.
$200+ billion per year by getting out of Iraq, $500 billion per year by eliminating subsidies to the fossil fuel industries, billions more from carbon taxes...you could build a lot of rail for that kind of money.
Right and we should have done it while we could. Soon "we" won't be able to afford Iraq, or ff subsidies, or much of anything else for that matter. It's all dependent on a continued influx of massive amounts of borrowed money and smoothly functioning (if corrupted) financial markets. Those days are almost over and soon they won't even be in the rear-view mirror.
There is AT LEAST $200B of military spending per year being spent on advanced aircraft (1 generation better those that "won" the cold war), a 2nd new class of nuclear attack submarines (Virginia class) better than the LA Class which was (and still is) superior to any other nation's submarines, that is next to militarily useless (or really useless) for anything except political purposes (i.e. political clout in certain key electoral districts). Much of US military spending is of NO military use. NOTE that this does NOT include the spending on Iraq. The US spends MORE on military spending than the REST of the World put together. We could half our military spending and redirect it to your electric rail idea (and still reduce the deficit). What about $100B-$200B PER YEAR? Would that help?? If we could convince the US electorate that military spending on militarily useless advanced weapon's systems is MUCH LESS important than spending on building infrastructure that we need, we have a chance to mitigate some of the cataclysm from Peak Oil.
Just in case Warren Buffet, the end of the Iraq war, bonds and other investments aren't enough for this plan let's volunteer! Habitat For Humanity volunteers build houses for poor people. Couldn't we even do more to save humanity by building electric street cars, electric trolleys, electric light rail and intercity electric rail? I would love to help humanity and volunteer to get this electric transport system built. Anyone else want to volunteer?
Sure! One of the great things about this proposal is that it is so concrete. The benefits are easy-to-understand and the means is very physical and easy-to-imagine. Often in conversation with others about energy issues, climate issues, and environmental issues I hear people say they would like to be involved in something that has a direct, physical, long-lasting impact on the problem. This qualifies on all accounts.
The volunteer part could be very multi-faceted. Alan already mentioned involving the electric utilities as a way to get more transmission line and wind generation capability, but we could also involve...
* Businesses wanting to get carbon credits, or just some Green marketing cred.
* Environmental groups wanting to promote an actual solution, or maybe even put up some of the "prize money" Alan mentioned.
* Unions wanting to get in on a definite "Made in America" project.
* Trucker associations (unions?) wanting to help their members transistion to a different transportation career.
* Cities along the routes that want to attract manufacturing business, perhaps even by covering the cost of adding a spur to their industrial park zone.
* State Highway departments wanting to decrease the load and damage to their road surfaces could even get in on the act somehow. They definitely have some of the right equipment spread out all along the routes, or could help with access roads to the track or electrification construction areas.
* Politicians who want to stand behind issues like:
"More jobs, better jobs"
"Energy Independence"
"A cleaner environment"
"Safer, less crowded highways"
"Keeping US dollars in the US"
"Fighting global warming" Anybody know how to get Alan and his idea a nice long meeting with the Obama and the McCain policy advisor teams?
How about volunteering our bicycles to local rental programs? Or fat people volunteering to pedal tourists around on rickshaws? We have a lot of bicycles that sit around collecting dust; let's spread those out some instead of importing more from China.
My thoughts exactly. US treasury will go belly up.
Federal USA will break up like the former USSR.
Improved national rail is as likely as single payor health care.
The railroads can collect private investment capital, use their own capital and the U.S. government can provide loans that are not payable until the projects are completed. The government is so far in debt that it must stop tax credits and corporate welfare and use some sound investment strategies.
It doesn't help that these projects become fiendishly complex with overlapping specifications. Everything winds up costing $2 billion.
An alternative is the Highway Trust Fund approach that has the rail trackage nationalized and administered by the states, with the Feds taking upon themselves the bulk of the funding requirements. In today's 'nationalize this, nationalize that ... ' environment, it might not cause a stir. The railroad companies would own and operate their equipment but not the road. Any railroad could operate on any track, and any number of railroads could exist which would dampen the tendency of the 'Big Four' towards monopoly. Even trucking companies with access to capital could get into the rail business, such as Schneider National or UPS.
The Trust Fund would add needed ROW by eminent domain which would allow for more economical routing and expansion as necessary. US railroads are grossly inadequate for anything but trunk cartage of bulk carges; the country has simply outgrown the 1930's era trackage and routes. Even with Alan Drake's plan there is the cost issues associated with real estate acquisition for power substations, access roads, modal yards and non- grade crossings. Don't forget stations. The government's eminent domain power would be the only way to move forward.
A trust fund is one way to fund and build such a system in the current environment. The fund would issue bonds for itself and no other purpose, guaranteed by the Treasury that would have a dedicated funding source, such as a gasoline tax or excise on imported petroleum. Some will complain about the subsidy, but ALL forms of transport are subsidized. The issue is more one of priorities.
The credit system is in terrible shape and more and more government projects -and even many private initiatives- will have to be incorporated into some form of trust. If the trust is initially a government creation, it can over time be taken private when the markets for equities and debt improve. (Which may take years.)
BTW, this country is not insolvent. It has a serious problem with the mis-allocation of capital. Sub- zero interest rates don't help at all! The problem is serious, but not fatal. This railroad project is affordable; a small fraction of the $400b lost to date in suspect mortgages would pay for the entire electrification project and leave a couple of hundred billion left over for all the golf courses.
Ultimately, The trunk rail corridors should all be four tracks, BTW.
The 'Big Three' automakers in Detroit should get into the street car business. I told a friend of mine that the old Packard factory could be turned into street car plant and it would make money. This was over five years ago. In ten years every middlesx city and town will have streetcars. Streetcars are fun! They are also ironic:
At one time, the major railroads in the Northeast began a complete electrification; this began with the Pennsylvania Railroad and included the B&O, the C&O, the New York Central and the New Haven Railroads. Pennsylvania RR used the famous 'GG1's:
Now, Amtrak uses the old Penn Central system, including the catenaries and substations.
I may be forgetful, but most transit systems such as the NYC subways and DC's Metro use DC voltage for power; easy to reverse the traction motors. The line roads such as Amtrak use AC power.
The U.S. had an interurban electric RR system at one time. It had the Chicago Milwaukee and St. Paul's electric RR over the Rocky Mountains with 14 substations that received 100kVAC from hydropower at Great Falls MT and put out 3000VDC for the engines along the 440 mile route. See http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9F0DE7DC1439E233A... where some of the virtues cited for electric traction are mentioned.
I visited the remains of the eastern terminus, where people got off the steam trains from the east to board the electric line. The tracks are long gone along with the wires but some poles still standing in the yard and the main building remains. Now, here we are in a bind on oil and thinking of things that existed (in basic form) decades ago. What a huge waste to have destroyed it all only to find we'd like to take up the idea again!
The efficiency of diesel-electric engines on the RR that was mentioned...that must be for long distance hauling with relatively steady engine RPM? I look out my window at the Chicago METRA commuter line with those diesel-electrics straining out of stations every few miles (or less) only to brake again. The efficiency on commuter runs must be truly awful. Electrifying the METRA lines might be a good start on electrification...only fitting to do it in Chicago, THE railroad town of them all in days past.
The a note about the efficiency of diesel-electrics stopping here and there..
Thats the whole point! The diesel generator can run on steady constant efficient RPM while charging a fairly large bank of batteries. The electric motor will only take from the battery bank what it needs, when it needs it, at ideal efficiency. There is no difference at efficiency whether the train stops here and there to driving at constant speed!
Old diesel powered engines can be converted to diesel-electric by taking out the often enourmous diesel-engine and transmission in them and replacing it with a nimble electric motor, a smaller and simpler constant speed generator, and fill the rest of the space with wet-NiCd batteries (similar to aviation batteries). Atleast in europe they have successfully converted many slow freight train engines and switch yard tug engines to diesel-electric like this precisely because of the efficiency factor.
Battery diesel-electrics exist, but they are an oddity. Far more common is just electrifying a rail spur.
Battery diesel-electrics are hardly the "wave of the future", except, perhaps in switchyards (switchyards are difficult and expensive to electrify every track).
Can you possibly convert diesel electric engines of today to dual mode operation.... drawing electric power either from wires or from their diesel engines when outside of the grid?
I notice that the Portland trolley line to Lake Oswego tows a diesel generator behind an electric trolley because the overhead wires no longer exist.
The streetcars in Galveston and Whitehorse Yukon do the same thing.
Such hybrid locos do exist, but are rare. Magnus's idea of a small electric "helper" loco when under wire may be a better idea today.
Lots of detailed economics & engineering required, so I look at what other nations do instead of re-inventing the wheel. High oil costs upset old economic calculations, so check in 2 or 3 years and see what is happening in Sweden, India, UK, China, Italy and other nations with mixed fuel rail (most of them).
First, build some electrified rail. THEN worry about mixed fuel operation :-)
Hybrid diesel-electric/electric aren't that difficult. NYNH&H ran Hybrid diesel-electric/electric FL9 out of Grand Central Station. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FL9
All you really need is the pantograms and/or 3rd rail shoes and a converter on a diesel electric engine. In the grand scheme of this plan, converting diesel-electrics to hybrid diesel-electric/electrics is the least of the worries.
Except to interface with legacy equipment (read everything that exists today) I don't see why we would string HVAC rather than HVDC even on a branch line.
One major interface is the electric train on the ROW.
3 kV DC is used in some trains (Belgium, Italy, older Russian from memory) but one cannot transform HV DC down to 3 kV DC (only AC works that way). AC to DC and DC to AC power electronics are expensive, and one cannot afford them (unless the price has dropped a LOT in the last 4 years) every 30 miles. Even HV to 25 or 50 kV AC transformers are not cheap, but not as pricy as DC > AC power electronics.
AFAIK, no new systems are being installed with DC (some add-ons are of course). Russia went away from 3 kV DC and to AC (25 kV AC from memory).
Thanks for the Input !
Alan
Vicksburg bridge must be electrified.
KCS Meridian Speedway.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SPlbDzLXIY&feature=related
To take pressure off Memphis, if nothing else.
And/or electric must be able to switch to diesel.
The most likely solution when overhead wire just will not fit (New Orleans Huey Long double track bridge will be tight at spots) is to fit a 3rd rail. Eurostar trains can switch from 25 kV AC to 1.5 kV DC third rail when they get close to London (no longer needed as of a year ago).
The beauty of rail is that innumerable issues have already been resolved somewhere in the world in the last century.
Best Hopes,
'
Alan
go for it, and good luck.
Trains are the future.
James
Alan,
With a certain amount of digging, you can lower the track within the tunnel to get the overhead wire to fit. This has been done in North London to get Eurostar trains from the Acton depot to St Pancras through the Hampstead tunnel (built in the late 1850s).
BobE
This is common approach, just lower the floor of the tunnel. Norfolk Southern is doing this to a East-West line to allow double stack containers.
Bridges can be more complex.
Best Hopes for solutions,
Alan
Or put in a third rail. A large Steel rail is much cheaper than a copper wire and can carry more electricity. And you don't have as many height clearance problems.
Alan,
It reads well; a great proposal! I have no technical criticism...so much for the TOD meat grinder. Do you want grammatical/punctuation corrections as well?
OH GOD NO !!
If you knew how many hours I have looked at this ...
Thanks, but NO thanks :-)
Alan
I understand...but there is a comma in the...
No, AC is still cheaper than DC for a substation every 30 miles. I just worry as electronics get cheaper, AC is going to become a dinosaur. But not yet. Say the railroad puts wind and solar along the way. Than it will be easier to interface to DC. But one humungous project at a time I guess.
I just worry as electronics get cheaper, AC is going to become a dinosaur.
Alas, "we" have no way of knowing if the doomer predictions of 'no IC's' will be the way things go, copper becomes expensive due to mass electrification, or some break-through with super-conductors make them truly room-temp - picking AC or DC might be seen as a bad move with the lens of history. (Great IC's should make DC 'better', no copper and no superconductors ruins the tradition of AC step up/step down transformers as 2 examples)
I'd worry more about government mandates being made not due to being the 'best' choice but because some quid crossed the right palms.
Perhaps Alan can toss into the mix suggestions about Open Records so if there is corruption, the parties can be fingered in the future or perhaps get lucky in preventing the public funds being used for private benefit.
Why would 110VAC become a dinosaur, compared to 110VDC?
After all, we won't be connecting houses to the grid at 12VDC, the line losses are too large at low voltages.
For long hauls, HVDC makes a lot of sense ... both because of the line losses and because the conversion to AC to feed into a regional grid eliminates the problem of synchronizing AC over long distances ...
... but what pressure does that place on the local grid to change over?
One explanation I've seen is that more and more appliances don't need AC. Computers, TV:s and such would work just fine with DC; they have chopper power supplies since that's cheaper than a transformer, and such devices can work with DC input as well (meaning that nowadays you can cheaply and efficiently convert one DC voltage to another without an AC transformer in between). I've heard of other appliances like fridges and washing machines that have variable frequency drives in order to run at the optimal frequency rather than the usual stop-start with the 50/60 Hz from the grid.
That being said, the potential savings from switching to a DC local grid are almost certainly not worth the hassle.
One place where we might see more DC equipment in the future is data centers. Nowadays it's quite wasteful that input AC is first rectified to DC for the UPS:es, then it's inverted back to AC since all the machines have AC input, and the the power supply in each machine rectifies it back to DC.
Also, the power feed line for 25kVAC is lighter, along with all associated support structure, than for 1.5kVDC - 3kVDC ... and the substations are not only more costly, but have to be put at closer intervals.
On the Sydney forum of the Australian railpage, bemoaning the failure to start the conversion from DC to AC is a recurrent theme. Its one of the big obstacles for electrification from the regional center of Newcastle to Maitland, the country town an hour rail commute up the line.
Alan, all I can say is "go ahead knock yourself out", continue the rhetoric, dream on and further encourage the cornucopians.
But, you had better get it done before the people start to move, before any economic collapse.
As usual assume BAU for the future. Even be so bold as to assume business growth.
Assume if capital is pulled from somewhere that no other department will suffer, and
Assume costs won't rise, assume construction, steel, copper and fuel costs remain steady while the job gets done. Assume a constant supply.
Assume there will be plenty of business for goods and personnel traffic to pay maintenance and wages.
Assume power generation will be continuous and low cost.
Assume we can engineer and buy our way out of any mess we get into.
We should expend all the energy we want now to build a better future for.........well who? Us, or future generations?
We should assume we know best for future generations, just as past generations knew and cared about what was best for us.
Of course, as the reality of our plight hits well and truly home, all kinds of desperate engineering feats will be posed and attempted.
Electrifying railways will be one of them.
While the cost of fuel and energy keeps rising but availability manageable the populace will continue to battle with what they have and can afford.
When shortages bite and hoarding begins, a new type of economy and political climate will emerge.
It's anyone's guess as to what life will be like then.
I assume it won't be BAU. We won't be moving billions of tons of freight around the country.
Unless it's coal.
Or as I have read before its because we'll have electric railways to be able to go on vacation, visit grandma and Disneyland.
No such assumptions required.
The schedule will change as the economy shrinks, but the job of 100% electrification can, and will, be finished in a world quite different from today. We can get a lot done in the next few years.
As for the doomers, the organization required to keep the rails going (useful even during social collapse in Liberia & Cambodia) may be one of the fundamental organizing principles in what is left.
And no, taking tourists to Disneyland is not the ultimate goal of electrified rail. You just applied your prejudices without reading or understanding my article.
Alan
Sorry, but behind on answering comments. Try to catch up tonight.
guys, this is all great stuff but you have a big challenge I don't see addressed: where are you going to go to get the investment capital for all this? I'd say maybe you could get Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers to look into ponying up some dough but . . .
(Better call Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan while you can as it looks like they'll be the last one standing the way things are going.)
Remember, both World War II and the Marshall Plan required HUGE amounts of borrowed/invested capital. Without those you can't even buy brass BBs at the local Big-5. And right now the whole country is being sold off at fire-sale rates because we are - at every level - in debt up to our eyeballs.
In all honestly, I'm really curious how you could write something up like this without at least addressing who and/or where we're going to borrow the money from to finance these things? I don't have to tell you - at least I hope not - that the financial situation of the country is already dire and is going to almost certainly being getting a lot worse for a long time coming. Heck, according to that UK indpedent article, 10% of the U.S. is already on food stamps and this while food/fuel are still relatively cheap all things considered.
Meeting the U.S. DOT’s forecast demand will require the Class I freight railroads
to increase their investment in infrastructure expansion. The AAR estimates that
between 2005 and 2007, Class I freight railroad capital expenditures for infrastructure
expansion averaged $1.5 billion per year. To meet the U.S. DOT’s forecast
demand for 2035, the Class I freight railroads must invest $135 billion over
the next 28 years or about $4.8 billion per year."
national_rail_freight_infrastructure_capacity_and_investment_study.pdf_
It would be a stretch, but Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet's firm, could finance the electrification by themselves.
These are long lived and valuable investments. Retirement funds should find these better investments than many on their books. Or the Sovereign Investment funds (30% to Norway, 25% to Kuwait, 10% to Qatar, 35% to Dubai ?) should be an easy sale.
The sums involved over the time required are not outrageous. I would be pleased to take a 0.001% commission.
Alan
How about a bake sale?
Impossible. After the last blackout, baking pans will no longer function.
$200+ billion per year by getting out of Iraq, $500 billion per year by eliminating subsidies to the fossil fuel industries, billions more from carbon taxes...you could build a lot of rail for that kind of money.
Right and we should have done it while we could. Soon "we" won't be able to afford Iraq, or ff subsidies, or much of anything else for that matter. It's all dependent on a continued influx of massive amounts of borrowed money and smoothly functioning (if corrupted) financial markets. Those days are almost over and soon they won't even be in the rear-view mirror.
There is AT LEAST $200B of military spending per year being spent on advanced aircraft (1 generation better those that "won" the cold war), a 2nd new class of nuclear attack submarines (Virginia class) better than the LA Class which was (and still is) superior to any other nation's submarines, that is next to militarily useless (or really useless) for anything except political purposes (i.e. political clout in certain key electoral districts). Much of US military spending is of NO military use. NOTE that this does NOT include the spending on Iraq. The US spends MORE on military spending than the REST of the World put together. We could half our military spending and redirect it to your electric rail idea (and still reduce the deficit). What about $100B-$200B PER YEAR? Would that help?? If we could convince the US electorate that military spending on militarily useless advanced weapon's systems is MUCH LESS important than spending on building infrastructure that we need, we have a chance to mitigate some of the cataclysm from Peak Oil.
Ian
Just in case Warren Buffet, the end of the Iraq war, bonds and other investments aren't enough for this plan let's volunteer! Habitat For Humanity volunteers build houses for poor people. Couldn't we even do more to save humanity by building electric street cars, electric trolleys, electric light rail and intercity electric rail? I would love to help humanity and volunteer to get this electric transport system built. Anyone else want to volunteer?
Anyone else want to volunteer?
Public effort for private benefit?
Naw, I'll pass. Besides, the effective tax rate is 50% - so I have to work plenty hard to keep the tax man happy.
Anyone else want to volunteer?
Sure! One of the great things about this proposal is that it is so concrete. The benefits are easy-to-understand and the means is very physical and easy-to-imagine. Often in conversation with others about energy issues, climate issues, and environmental issues I hear people say they would like to be involved in something that has a direct, physical, long-lasting impact on the problem. This qualifies on all accounts.
The volunteer part could be very multi-faceted. Alan already mentioned involving the electric utilities as a way to get more transmission line and wind generation capability, but we could also involve...
* Businesses wanting to get carbon credits, or just some Green marketing cred.
* Environmental groups wanting to promote an actual solution, or maybe even put up some of the "prize money" Alan mentioned.
* Unions wanting to get in on a definite "Made in America" project.
* Trucker associations (unions?) wanting to help their members transistion to a different transportation career.
* Cities along the routes that want to attract manufacturing business, perhaps even by covering the cost of adding a spur to their industrial park zone.
* State Highway departments wanting to decrease the load and damage to their road surfaces could even get in on the act somehow. They definitely have some of the right equipment spread out all along the routes, or could help with access roads to the track or electrification construction areas.
* Politicians who want to stand behind issues like:
"More jobs, better jobs"
"Energy Independence"
"A cleaner environment"
"Safer, less crowded highways"
"Keeping US dollars in the US"
"Fighting global warming"
Anybody know how to get Alan and his idea a nice long meeting with the Obama and the McCain policy advisor teams?
Greg in MO
How about volunteering our bicycles to local rental programs? Or fat people volunteering to pedal tourists around on rickshaws? We have a lot of bicycles that sit around collecting dust; let's spread those out some instead of importing more from China.
My thoughts exactly. US treasury will go belly up.
Federal USA will break up like the former USSR.
Improved national rail is as likely as single payor health care.
The railroads can collect private investment capital, use their own capital and the U.S. government can provide loans that are not payable until the projects are completed. The government is so far in debt that it must stop tax credits and corporate welfare and use some sound investment strategies.
If it requires subsidies to operate it is not sustainable.
If networks can be expanded with private capital and operated at a profit, the private capital can build them.
It's a capitalization mountain for the private railroads even the states have funding problems for small transit projects:
http://www.dullesmetro.com/info/faqs.cfm
It doesn't help that these projects become fiendishly complex with overlapping specifications. Everything winds up costing $2 billion.
An alternative is the Highway Trust Fund approach that has the rail trackage nationalized and administered by the states, with the Feds taking upon themselves the bulk of the funding requirements. In today's 'nationalize this, nationalize that ... ' environment, it might not cause a stir. The railroad companies would own and operate their equipment but not the road. Any railroad could operate on any track, and any number of railroads could exist which would dampen the tendency of the 'Big Four' towards monopoly. Even trucking companies with access to capital could get into the rail business, such as Schneider National or UPS.
The Trust Fund would add needed ROW by eminent domain which would allow for more economical routing and expansion as necessary. US railroads are grossly inadequate for anything but trunk cartage of bulk carges; the country has simply outgrown the 1930's era trackage and routes. Even with Alan Drake's plan there is the cost issues associated with real estate acquisition for power substations, access roads, modal yards and non- grade crossings. Don't forget stations. The government's eminent domain power would be the only way to move forward.
A trust fund is one way to fund and build such a system in the current environment. The fund would issue bonds for itself and no other purpose, guaranteed by the Treasury that would have a dedicated funding source, such as a gasoline tax or excise on imported petroleum. Some will complain about the subsidy, but ALL forms of transport are subsidized. The issue is more one of priorities.
The credit system is in terrible shape and more and more government projects -and even many private initiatives- will have to be incorporated into some form of trust. If the trust is initially a government creation, it can over time be taken private when the markets for equities and debt improve. (Which may take years.)
BTW, this country is not insolvent. It has a serious problem with the mis-allocation of capital. Sub- zero interest rates don't help at all! The problem is serious, but not fatal. This railroad project is affordable; a small fraction of the $400b lost to date in suspect mortgages would pay for the entire electrification project and leave a couple of hundred billion left over for all the golf courses.
Ultimately, The trunk rail corridors should all be four tracks, BTW.
The 'Big Three' automakers in Detroit should get into the street car business. I told a friend of mine that the old Packard factory could be turned into street car plant and it would make money. This was over five years ago. In ten years every middlesx city and town will have streetcars. Streetcars are fun! They are also ironic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Electric_Railway
The high tension conductors should be placed underground. Ultimately they would be cryogenic superconductors:
http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn11907
At one time, the major railroads in the Northeast began a complete electrification; this began with the Pennsylvania Railroad and included the B&O, the C&O, the New York Central and the New Haven Railroads. Pennsylvania RR used the famous 'GG1's:
http://www.spikesys.com/GG1/
Now, Amtrak uses the old Penn Central system, including the catenaries and substations.
I may be forgetful, but most transit systems such as the NYC subways and DC's Metro use DC voltage for power; easy to reverse the traction motors. The line roads such as Amtrak use AC power.
The U.S. had an interurban electric RR system at one time. It had the Chicago Milwaukee and St. Paul's electric RR over the Rocky Mountains with 14 substations that received 100kVAC from hydropower at Great Falls MT and put out 3000VDC for the engines along the 440 mile route. See http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9F0DE7DC1439E233A... where some of the virtues cited for electric traction are mentioned.
I visited the remains of the eastern terminus, where people got off the steam trains from the east to board the electric line. The tracks are long gone along with the wires but some poles still standing in the yard and the main building remains. Now, here we are in a bind on oil and thinking of things that existed (in basic form) decades ago. What a huge waste to have destroyed it all only to find we'd like to take up the idea again!
The efficiency of diesel-electric engines on the RR that was mentioned...that must be for long distance hauling with relatively steady engine RPM? I look out my window at the Chicago METRA commuter line with those diesel-electrics straining out of stations every few miles (or less) only to brake again. The efficiency on commuter runs must be truly awful. Electrifying the METRA lines might be a good start on electrification...only fitting to do it in Chicago, THE railroad town of them all in days past.
The a note about the efficiency of diesel-electrics stopping here and there..
Thats the whole point! The diesel generator can run on steady constant efficient RPM while charging a fairly large bank of batteries. The electric motor will only take from the battery bank what it needs, when it needs it, at ideal efficiency. There is no difference at efficiency whether the train stops here and there to driving at constant speed!
Old diesel powered engines can be converted to diesel-electric by taking out the often enourmous diesel-engine and transmission in them and replacing it with a nimble electric motor, a smaller and simpler constant speed generator, and fill the rest of the space with wet-NiCd batteries (similar to aviation batteries). Atleast in europe they have successfully converted many slow freight train engines and switch yard tug engines to diesel-electric like this precisely because of the efficiency factor.
Battery diesel-electrics exist, but they are an oddity. Far more common is just electrifying a rail spur.
Battery diesel-electrics are hardly the "wave of the future", except, perhaps in switchyards (switchyards are difficult and expensive to electrify every track).
Best Hopes,
Alan
Can you possibly convert diesel electric engines of today to dual mode operation.... drawing electric power either from wires or from their diesel engines when outside of the grid?
I notice that the Portland trolley line to Lake Oswego tows a diesel generator behind an electric trolley because the overhead wires no longer exist.
The streetcars in Galveston and Whitehorse Yukon do the same thing.
Such hybrid locos do exist, but are rare. Magnus's idea of a small electric "helper" loco when under wire may be a better idea today.
Lots of detailed economics & engineering required, so I look at what other nations do instead of re-inventing the wheel. High oil costs upset old economic calculations, so check in 2 or 3 years and see what is happening in Sweden, India, UK, China, Italy and other nations with mixed fuel rail (most of them).
First, build some electrified rail. THEN worry about mixed fuel operation :-)
Alan
Hybrid diesel-electric/electric aren't that difficult. NYNH&H ran Hybrid diesel-electric/electric FL9 out of Grand Central Station.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FL9
All you really need is the pantograms and/or 3rd rail shoes and a converter on a diesel electric engine. In the grand scheme of this plan, converting diesel-electrics to hybrid diesel-electric/electrics is the least of the worries.