5 ms·

Economics too. Rail mostly already exists where it can sustain itself, the rest of the country is just not dense enough.

Ericson2314 5y ago
So an enlightened Fordist shipping conglomerate would try to densify urban cores, where it is most efficient to get people their cheap stuff.
ashtonkem 5y ago
No, it's because rail doesn't get the massive subsidies that roads do. Roads are artificially cheap to use, especially for trucking that does the majority of the damage and pay minimal road fees, while rail has to pay for itself. It is very hard for rail, passenger or freight, to compete with the largess of federal tax dollars for road usage. If road fees were matched to the actual cost of road maintenance, like they are with rail, a lot of freight would shift over to barge and train overnight. Simply put, railways are much more efficient between two fixed points than roads. They require much less fuel per ton, and they require much less labor, land, and capital equipment per person mile or ton mile. If the costs were properly priced in, consumers of various different types would strongly prefer rail for transit between fixed points (e.g. city to city). But currently the inefficiency of road usage is paid for by the federal government. The density argument is massively overstated. Ohio has roughly the same density as France 282/mi^2 vs. 269/mi^2, and it's not even our most dense state. The fact that states like Ohio don't have anywhere close to the rail network that France has is a consequence of political decisions, not economics or the built environment.
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  We are talking about freight rail here. Ohio already has more intrastate freight volume than France, and that’s only a small fraction of the remainder of inbound, outbound, or freight traffic passing through. It is France that would need to seriously shape up if it is to keep up with Ohio. Alas, it will not do so, because rail freight volumes in France have fallen by almost half over last 20 years, as France is moving away from rail to road freight. Don’t project differences between passenger rail systems to freight rail. It is by all means clear that US has the best freight rail system in the world.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    This is completely irrelevant to the point I was making: arguments about how America "isn't dense enough" for rail is ignoring the fact that America actually is quite dense ... where Americans actually live. Our tenth densest state is denser than a country famous for its usage of high speed rail for passenger transit. Any difference in infrastructure is down to political choices, not density.
- breckenedge 5y ago
  Thanks for the info. It seems that Ohio is an outlier in being the largest U.S. state without a publicly funded rail system [1], which is unfortunate. I concede that the rail system in Ohio suffers from a lack of funding that the road system enjoys. I blame the politicians. [1] http://allaboardohio.org/ http://allaboardohio.org/

Ericson2314 5y ago

So an enlightened Fordist shipping conglomerate would try to densify urban cores, where it is most efficient to get people their cheap stuff.

ashtonkem 5y ago

No, it's because rail doesn't get the massive subsidies that roads do. Roads are artificially cheap to use, especially for trucking that does the majority of the damage and pay minimal road fees, while rail has to pay for itself. It is very hard for rail, passenger or freight, to compete with the largess of federal tax dollars for road usage. If road fees were matched to the actual cost of road maintenance, like they are with rail, a lot of freight would shift over to barge and train overnight. Simply put, railways are much more efficient between two fixed points than roads. They require much less fuel per ton, and they require much less labor, land, and capital equipment per person mile or ton mile. If the costs were properly priced in, consumers of various different types would strongly prefer rail for transit between fixed points (e.g. city to city). But currently the inefficiency of road usage is paid for by the federal government. The density argument is massively overstated. Ohio has roughly the same density as France 282/mi^2 vs. 269/mi^2, and it's not even our most dense state. The fact that states like Ohio don't have anywhere close to the rail network that France has is a consequence of political decisions, not economics or the built environment.

xyzzyz 5y ago
We are talking about freight rail here. Ohio already has more intrastate freight volume than France, and that’s only a small fraction of the remainder of inbound, outbound, or freight traffic passing through. It is France that would need to seriously shape up if it is to keep up with Ohio. Alas, it will not do so, because rail freight volumes in France have fallen by almost half over last 20 years, as France is moving away from rail to road freight. Don’t project differences between passenger rail systems to freight rail. It is by all means clear that US has the best freight rail system in the world.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  This is completely irrelevant to the point I was making: arguments about how America "isn't dense enough" for rail is ignoring the fact that America actually is quite dense ... where Americans actually live. Our tenth densest state is denser than a country famous for its usage of high speed rail for passenger transit. Any difference in infrastructure is down to political choices, not density.
breckenedge 5y ago
Thanks for the info. It seems that Ohio is an outlier in being the largest U.S. state without a publicly funded rail system [1], which is unfortunate. I concede that the rail system in Ohio suffers from a lack of funding that the road system enjoys. I blame the politicians. [1] http://allaboardohio.org/ http://allaboardohio.org/