6 ms·

US rail freight is the world’s best. High-speed passenger trains could ruin it

78 points by cwan 16y ago

_delirium 16y ago
Most of this article is pretty good, but it mostly isn't about any sort of relationship between high-speed rail and freight trains. That comes in only at the very end of the article, and is quite speculative. They admit that the current batch of high-speed rail lines being built, mainly California's, will run on new lines that won't interfere with freight. The Economist's worry seems to be about the more extensive proposed high-speed rail network that's currently on the drawing board, which is proposed to include extended portions on existing freight rails (at 110mph) to link together the purpose-built higher-speed segments. They seem to be thinking of plans like this one: http://www.fra.dot.gov/Pages/203.shtml http://www.fra.dot.gov/Pages/203.shtml But is that really even a medium-term worry? I'll be surprised if even California's line gets finished by 2020. I would be very surprised if this more extensive national HSR plan that's supposed to follow later gets anywhere anytime soon. The map linked above is the result of a process begun in 1991, which has not been turning into a high-speed-rail network at any particularly great rate of speed. It'll be a miracle if they settle on a final plan by 2020, much less fund it or actually start building anything. I'll eat my hat if that entire network is built in my lifetime!
- Empact 16y ago
  One reason to be a bit more optimistic is Texas (http://www.thsrtc.com/ http://www.thsrtc.com/). Their equivalent plan to California's is loads cheaper thanks to their more agreeable geography (plains, mostly). More importantly, the lighter touch of the state government means rather than do a full-on government build and operate (ala California/Amtrak), they're looking at private build & operations under a long-term lease, with the government providing liability limitations and eminent domain, in return for owning the infrastructure after the lease expires in some decades of operation. This means the builder is subject to market forces: they can only recoup their build costs within the lease window by getting to operations as quickly and efficiently as possible. The incentives are the opposite for government construction: the milk flows during construction, so there's a disincentive to ever finish, and when things go over budget, it almost always means more money, rather than anyone cutting their losses. To get a sense what a difference this makes, consider that the NYC subway system was built by competing private concerns under the long-term lease model (ala Texas), between 1905 and 1940. In 1940 the system was unified under government control (ala California), and basically the system was frozen in time, with no expansion happening in the 70 years since (see: http://www.diametunim.com/shashi/nyc_subways/ http://www.diametunim.com/shashi/nyc_subways/).
  - _delirium 16y ago
    I do think Texas's plan is one of the most promising, but I suppose my guess is that it'll still take a long time, partly because it's been looking promising for a long time now: the first feasibility study was launched in the 1980s. The state actually awarded a contract to a private group to build high-speed rail in the Dallas-San Antonio-Houston triangle, under terms like those you discuss, in 1991, but it was killed, largely by Southwest Airlines lobbying, in 1994. I went to high school in Texas 1996-2000, and a new high-speed rail plan was being discussed that entire time too, but the talk never went anywhere. In the early 2000s, it was revived once more, this time as part of an ambitious Trans-Texas Corridor (which would have had freight rail, high-speed rail, car-only freeways, and truck-only freeways), but that died a few years later as well, partly due to a nativist backlash against its role as the "NAFTA superhighway". Now there's yet another HSR plan, separated back out from the road plans, which might work this time, but I probably wouldn't put any money on this being the year the 20+-year impasse is broken. Honestly I haven't seen any of that supposedly lighter-touch, actually-functioning Texas state government on this issue, just a multi-decade series of special interests and politicking resulting in no rails being built.
    - Empact 16y ago
      Fair enough, the special interest game is no fun[1]. But I'll take a bet on the stars aligning in Texas over California finding efficient building practices any day. In Texas, given all the immigration from other states, the prospect of the population doubling in a few decades and little place left to build freeways, I think there's a growing understanding among policymakers that higher-density transportation will be a necessity going forward. There's a long-term trend of immigration & congestion supporting the eventual adoption of a rail plan, it's just a matter of time. On the other side, I don't see any trends in California pointing towards sane governance, apart from the possibility of a constitutional convention (http://www.repaircalifornia.org/ http://www.repaircalifornia.org/), which is hardly a safe bet. So there's good reason to hope for Texas, I'd say, despite the history. [1] incidentally, I hear that to get the airlines on board, the new Texas HSR plan terminates at the airports specifically, while the earlier plan focused stops at city centers, which might have been better for TOD, but then this makes for inter-modality.
lr 16y ago
If US rail freight is so great (which I do believe it is) then get the f*ing trucks off the interstate highways! Let's load up the rail system with the freight it was meant to serve. If not, then make way for the passenger trains, and the tractor trailers can have the roads, which they destroy with every wheel turn they take!
- megablast 16y ago
  This was mentioned in the article. A number of trucking companies are doing this, and just using trucks for move it around locally. This has increased congestion on the railroads, and the new passneger traffic will make this even worse. It really is worth reading the article, very informative. I remember reading some ridiculous statistic about how cheap it is to move a ton of cargo in the US before, now I have a few more details.
  - lr 16y ago
    I did read the article. :-) And absent from it is the fact that the federal government gave the railroads the land in the first place. I love The Economist, but leave it to them to bemoan regulation, but leave out a simple and fundamental fact like that. The article even mentioned how new tracks are being put in for long distance passenger traffic -- which will not impact the freight trains -- but that local traffic has to be on freight lines, and this does impact freight because of freight's erratic schedule. But perhaps with more use freight will be less erratic. Perhaps the best solution is to move freight transfer stations (where rail freight moves to trucks) out from cities, and allow passenger service closer in. This does not help freight that has to go through the city in the first place. But, if we can move off of coal a little faster, then maybe we will have the capacity for increased freight and passenger rail service.
    - olefoo 16y ago
      You know that sounds like a job for some simulation software, especially if you could model things like adding intermodal terminals and adding links to the network constrained by the cost of right of way. Even better if you could figure out how to model the politics and market forces, if you could come up with something that helped railway executives make better decisions about the environment they operate in (apparently they lease rights of way back and forth, and the company running the train is not necessarily the one that owns a given stretch of track), you would have a saleable product.
Zak 16y ago
I feel compelled to point out that high-speed passenger rail isn't likely to be anywhere near as successful in the US as in Europe even if heavily subsidized. One problem is population density. The US is geographically twice the size of the EU, but has three fifths the population. Germany is the size of Montana, but has 90 million people. Typical travel distances are short, and the number of travelers on any given day is high. Fixed costs would be proportionally higher for a US service as a result. Local transport upon arrival is a big issue. Most European cities have public transportation systems that are effective enough for large portions of the population to not own cars. This is only true in a very small number of US cities (probably fewer than 5). For many people, any cost savings from taking a train instead of driving would be offset by the cost and inconvenience of securing transportation at the destination. A final issue is that very long distance train travel still takes a long time compared to air travel. Using a generous estimate of a 100mph average (remember, the trains have to make stops), a high-speed train would take 20 hours to get from LA to Chicago. I think few people would opt for that over a 3 hour flight even given a significant difference in price.
- melling 16y ago
  Rather than pointing out where it won't work, how about finding places where it will work. The northeast, for example, is densely populated and the major cities are close. The real problem is building straight tracks so trains can go 200mph. NYC to Philly - 95 miles NYC to Washington DC - 225 miles NYC to Boston - 220 miles Washington to Bostin - 420 miles
  - mikecarlucci 16y ago
    Exactly. We have airplanes for cross country travel. The train technology that exists in other countries could make even Boston to Toronto doable.
    - riffic 16y ago
      People need to slow their fucking lives down. cross country travel by rail is much more enjoyable than flying, even if it takes 2-3 days. Give me wifi and a sleeper, and leave flying for those who haven't figured this out yet.
jsz0 16y ago
I don't think Americans should make yet another sacrifice to appease big business who would rather use rail capacity for freight instead of passenger traffic. For once the American citizens should be the priority here.
- sigstoat 16y ago
  so we should cause freight prices to go up (which will increase the cost of food, clothing, stuff that literally everybody needs and buys), so that travel prices go down? who has time and money to travel? not the poor. who buys food? everybody, including the poor.
- confuzatron 16y ago
  Is it in Americans' interests that more freight should go by road, at a higher cost, so some Americans can travel by train? It's not a simplistic 'big business bad, passenger trains good' argument.
  - Retric 16y ago
    If it's 1 to 1 then yes. People cost a lot more to transport on roads than bulk freight so it’s a net gain to the economy. Edit: The total cost to the economy to send a single person per car is about 60c/mile if you include the cost of maintaining and expanding highways / increased congestion on existing highways. It costs to use busses, but the benefit is primarily from getting people out of private cars and high speed trains are much better at this.
- bjnortier_hn 16y ago
  "Several factors had combined to bring about this sorry state of affairs. Services and rates were tightly regulated. Companies were obliged to run passenger services that could not make a profit." Are you suggesting that rail companies should again be forced to offer unprofitable passenger services until again a "fifth of rail mileage was owned by bankrupt firms."? Why should passengers be a priority? The most economical use of the railways should be the priority.
lutorm 16y ago
I thought this article about electrifying railways in the US was an interesting perspective, too: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4301 http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4301
masterponomo 16y ago
There's also a major issue of right of way. Atlanta has freight lines running right through very built up parts of the city (including right outside my condo window here--I see 6 Norfolk-Southern tracks with at least 100 trains per day). We've already had controversy over the amount of property that would have to be taken through eminent domain, even when just adding passenger lines to the existing rail corridors. There's no realistic estimate yet, but it will be in the tens of billions. Billions spent to tear down buildings and build up rail, for no certain benefit. That's a tough sell. Markets talk. As the article said, when rail was deregulated, the business ditched passenger and emphasized freight. That's what is in demand. If government has to fund something, that's often a signal that there is not an organic market demand for it.

78 points by cwan 16y ago

Most of this article is pretty good, but it mostly isn't about any sort of relationship between high-speed rail and freight trains. That comes in only at the very end of the article, and is quite speculative. They admit that the current batch of high-speed rail lines being built, mainly California's, will run on new lines that won't interfere with freight. The Economist's worry seems to be about the more extensive proposed high-speed rail network that's currently on the drawing board, which is proposed to include extended portions on existing freight rails (at 110mph) to link together the purpose-built higher-speed segments. They seem to be thinking of plans like this one: http://www.fra.dot.gov/Pages/203.shtml http://www.fra.dot.gov/Pages/203.shtml But is that really even a medium-term worry? I'll be surprised if even California's line gets finished by 2020. I would be very surprised if this more extensive national HSR plan that's supposed to follow later gets anywhere anytime soon. The map linked above is the result of a process begun in 1991, which has not been turning into a high-speed-rail network at any particularly great rate of speed. It'll be a miracle if they settle on a final plan by 2020, much less fund it or actually start building anything. I'll eat my hat if that entire network is built in my lifetime!

Empact 16y ago
One reason to be a bit more optimistic is Texas (http://www.thsrtc.com/ http://www.thsrtc.com/). Their equivalent plan to California's is loads cheaper thanks to their more agreeable geography (plains, mostly). More importantly, the lighter touch of the state government means rather than do a full-on government build and operate (ala California/Amtrak), they're looking at private build & operations under a long-term lease, with the government providing liability limitations and eminent domain, in return for owning the infrastructure after the lease expires in some decades of operation. This means the builder is subject to market forces: they can only recoup their build costs within the lease window by getting to operations as quickly and efficiently as possible. The incentives are the opposite for government construction: the milk flows during construction, so there's a disincentive to ever finish, and when things go over budget, it almost always means more money, rather than anyone cutting their losses. To get a sense what a difference this makes, consider that the NYC subway system was built by competing private concerns under the long-term lease model (ala Texas), between 1905 and 1940. In 1940 the system was unified under government control (ala California), and basically the system was frozen in time, with no expansion happening in the 70 years since (see: http://www.diametunim.com/shashi/nyc_subways/ http://www.diametunim.com/shashi/nyc_subways/).
- _delirium 16y ago
  I do think Texas's plan is one of the most promising, but I suppose my guess is that it'll still take a long time, partly because it's been looking promising for a long time now: the first feasibility study was launched in the 1980s. The state actually awarded a contract to a private group to build high-speed rail in the Dallas-San Antonio-Houston triangle, under terms like those you discuss, in 1991, but it was killed, largely by Southwest Airlines lobbying, in 1994. I went to high school in Texas 1996-2000, and a new high-speed rail plan was being discussed that entire time too, but the talk never went anywhere. In the early 2000s, it was revived once more, this time as part of an ambitious Trans-Texas Corridor (which would have had freight rail, high-speed rail, car-only freeways, and truck-only freeways), but that died a few years later as well, partly due to a nativist backlash against its role as the "NAFTA superhighway". Now there's yet another HSR plan, separated back out from the road plans, which might work this time, but I probably wouldn't put any money on this being the year the 20+-year impasse is broken. Honestly I haven't seen any of that supposedly lighter-touch, actually-functioning Texas state government on this issue, just a multi-decade series of special interests and politicking resulting in no rails being built.
  - Empact 16y ago
    Fair enough, the special interest game is no fun[1]. But I'll take a bet on the stars aligning in Texas over California finding efficient building practices any day. In Texas, given all the immigration from other states, the prospect of the population doubling in a few decades and little place left to build freeways, I think there's a growing understanding among policymakers that higher-density transportation will be a necessity going forward. There's a long-term trend of immigration & congestion supporting the eventual adoption of a rail plan, it's just a matter of time. On the other side, I don't see any trends in California pointing towards sane governance, apart from the possibility of a constitutional convention (http://www.repaircalifornia.org/ http://www.repaircalifornia.org/), which is hardly a safe bet. So there's good reason to hope for Texas, I'd say, despite the history. [1] incidentally, I hear that to get the airlines on board, the new Texas HSR plan terminates at the airports specifically, while the earlier plan focused stops at city centers, which might have been better for TOD, but then this makes for inter-modality.

lr 16y ago

If US rail freight is so great (which I do believe it is) then get the f*ing trucks off the interstate highways! Let's load up the rail system with the freight it was meant to serve. If not, then make way for the passenger trains, and the tractor trailers can have the roads, which they destroy with every wheel turn they take!

megablast 16y ago
This was mentioned in the article. A number of trucking companies are doing this, and just using trucks for move it around locally. This has increased congestion on the railroads, and the new passneger traffic will make this even worse. It really is worth reading the article, very informative. I remember reading some ridiculous statistic about how cheap it is to move a ton of cargo in the US before, now I have a few more details.
- lr 16y ago
  I did read the article. :-) And absent from it is the fact that the federal government gave the railroads the land in the first place. I love The Economist, but leave it to them to bemoan regulation, but leave out a simple and fundamental fact like that. The article even mentioned how new tracks are being put in for long distance passenger traffic -- which will not impact the freight trains -- but that local traffic has to be on freight lines, and this does impact freight because of freight's erratic schedule. But perhaps with more use freight will be less erratic. Perhaps the best solution is to move freight transfer stations (where rail freight moves to trucks) out from cities, and allow passenger service closer in. This does not help freight that has to go through the city in the first place. But, if we can move off of coal a little faster, then maybe we will have the capacity for increased freight and passenger rail service.
  - olefoo 16y ago
    You know that sounds like a job for some simulation software, especially if you could model things like adding intermodal terminals and adding links to the network constrained by the cost of right of way. Even better if you could figure out how to model the politics and market forces, if you could come up with something that helped railway executives make better decisions about the environment they operate in (apparently they lease rights of way back and forth, and the company running the train is not necessarily the one that owns a given stretch of track), you would have a saleable product.

Zak 16y ago

I feel compelled to point out that high-speed passenger rail isn't likely to be anywhere near as successful in the US as in Europe even if heavily subsidized. One problem is population density. The US is geographically twice the size of the EU, but has three fifths the population. Germany is the size of Montana, but has 90 million people. Typical travel distances are short, and the number of travelers on any given day is high. Fixed costs would be proportionally higher for a US service as a result. Local transport upon arrival is a big issue. Most European cities have public transportation systems that are effective enough for large portions of the population to not own cars. This is only true in a very small number of US cities (probably fewer than 5). For many people, any cost savings from taking a train instead of driving would be offset by the cost and inconvenience of securing transportation at the destination. A final issue is that very long distance train travel still takes a long time compared to air travel. Using a generous estimate of a 100mph average (remember, the trains have to make stops), a high-speed train would take 20 hours to get from LA to Chicago. I think few people would opt for that over a 3 hour flight even given a significant difference in price.

melling 16y ago
Rather than pointing out where it won't work, how about finding places where it will work. The northeast, for example, is densely populated and the major cities are close. The real problem is building straight tracks so trains can go 200mph. NYC to Philly - 95 miles NYC to Washington DC - 225 miles NYC to Boston - 220 miles Washington to Bostin - 420 miles
- mikecarlucci 16y ago
  Exactly. We have airplanes for cross country travel. The train technology that exists in other countries could make even Boston to Toronto doable.
  - riffic 16y ago
    People need to slow their fucking lives down. cross country travel by rail is much more enjoyable than flying, even if it takes 2-3 days. Give me wifi and a sleeper, and leave flying for those who haven't figured this out yet.

jsz0 16y ago

I don't think Americans should make yet another sacrifice to appease big business who would rather use rail capacity for freight instead of passenger traffic. For once the American citizens should be the priority here.

sigstoat 16y ago
so we should cause freight prices to go up (which will increase the cost of food, clothing, stuff that literally everybody needs and buys), so that travel prices go down? who has time and money to travel? not the poor. who buys food? everybody, including the poor.
confuzatron 16y ago
Is it in Americans' interests that more freight should go by road, at a higher cost, so some Americans can travel by train? It's not a simplistic 'big business bad, passenger trains good' argument.
- Retric 16y ago
  If it's 1 to 1 then yes. People cost a lot more to transport on roads than bulk freight so it’s a net gain to the economy. Edit: The total cost to the economy to send a single person per car is about 60c/mile if you include the cost of maintaining and expanding highways / increased congestion on existing highways. It costs to use busses, but the benefit is primarily from getting people out of private cars and high speed trains are much better at this.
bjnortier_hn 16y ago
"Several factors had combined to bring about this sorry state of affairs. Services and rates were tightly regulated. Companies were obliged to run passenger services that could not make a profit." Are you suggesting that rail companies should again be forced to offer unprofitable passenger services until again a "fifth of rail mileage was owned by bankrupt firms."? Why should passengers be a priority? The most economical use of the railways should be the priority.

lutorm 16y ago

I thought this article about electrifying railways in the US was an interesting perspective, too: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4301 http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4301

masterponomo 16y ago

There's also a major issue of right of way. Atlanta has freight lines running right through very built up parts of the city (including right outside my condo window here--I see 6 Norfolk-Southern tracks with at least 100 trains per day). We've already had controversy over the amount of property that would have to be taken through eminent domain, even when just adding passenger lines to the existing rail corridors. There's no realistic estimate yet, but it will be in the tens of billions. Billions spent to tear down buildings and build up rail, for no certain benefit. That's a tough sell. Markets talk. As the article said, when rail was deregulated, the business ditched passenger and emphasized freight. That's what is in demand. If government has to fund something, that's often a signal that there is not an organic market demand for it.