4 ms·

Yeah, laying enormous amounts of wide, graded asphalt with proper drainage isn’t exactly cheap either.

by ericd 5y ago

throwawayboise 5y ago
I wasn't sure. Intuitively rail would seem to be cheaper, it looks like it should be a lot easier to lay a rail line than build a road. But rail lines need a lot more fill or bridging over low areas since heavy freight trains cannot climb grades of more than a few percent. On the other hand, rail switches and diamonds have got to be way less expensive than highway interchanges.
agumonkey 5y ago
I wonder if hyperloop/boring thing won't motivate realistic underground narrow freight trains. ps: obligatory history article https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/02/a-world-without.html https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/02/a-world-without.html
onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
IIUC - standard heavy rail lines are 3-4x more expensive to build than a lane of freeway. I guess no one is building one lane freeways, but I was still surprised by how much more expensive rail is.
- Symbiote 5y ago
  That makes it cheaper if you can use it: a railway track has 20 times the capacity of a freeway lane. (This is just the result of a basic Google search. It also says maintenance costs are "much less" for the railway.) There are probably economy-of-scale issue too (we build a lot more roads), and different expectations of road vs. rail safety (a rail accident with a few injuries has national media coverage for days, upgrades costing millions may be rolled out to prevent a repeat; every day several people die on roads, the infrastructure is rarely improved).
- ben-schaaf 5y ago
  At least for passenger lines the single track of heavy rail has a >30x higher route capacity than a single freeway lane (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_capacity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_capacity). So a fair comparison would be a single line of heavy rail to a 30+ lane freeway (one direction), making the rail about 1/10th the cost.
  - davidbanham 5y ago
    Assuming you’re referencing the graphic on that page, note that it’s discussing throughput of road vs rail in the city. Freeway is a very different kettle of fish.
m463 5y ago
But if it's a two-directional shared medium it might be more practical to use than a centrally controlled rail line. sort of like a shared packet network compared to a centrally managed circuit switched network

Yeah, laying enormous amounts of wide, graded asphalt with proper drainage isn’t exactly cheap either.

by ericd 5y ago

Yeah, laying enormous amounts of wide, graded asphalt with proper drainage isn’t exactly cheap either.

I wasn't sure. Intuitively rail would seem to be cheaper, it looks like it should be a lot easier to lay a rail line than build a road. But rail lines need a lot more fill or bridging over low areas since heavy freight trains cannot climb grades of more than a few percent. On the other hand, rail switches and diamonds have got to be way less expensive than highway interchanges.

agumonkey 5y ago

I wonder if hyperloop/boring thing won't motivate realistic underground narrow freight trains. ps: obligatory history article https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/02/a-world-without.html https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/02/a-world-without.html

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago

IIUC - standard heavy rail lines are 3-4x more expensive to build than a lane of freeway. I guess no one is building one lane freeways, but I was still surprised by how much more expensive rail is.

Symbiote 5y ago
That makes it cheaper if you can use it: a railway track has 20 times the capacity of a freeway lane. (This is just the result of a basic Google search. It also says maintenance costs are "much less" for the railway.) There are probably economy-of-scale issue too (we build a lot more roads), and different expectations of road vs. rail safety (a rail accident with a few injuries has national media coverage for days, upgrades costing millions may be rolled out to prevent a repeat; every day several people die on roads, the infrastructure is rarely improved).
ben-schaaf 5y ago
At least for passenger lines the single track of heavy rail has a >30x higher route capacity than a single freeway lane (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_capacity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_capacity). So a fair comparison would be a single line of heavy rail to a 30+ lane freeway (one direction), making the rail about 1/10th the cost.
- davidbanham 5y ago
  Assuming you’re referencing the graphic on that page, note that it’s discussing throughput of road vs rail in the city. Freeway is a very different kettle of fish.

m463 5y ago

But if it's a two-directional shared medium it might be more practical to use than a centrally controlled rail line. sort of like a shared packet network compared to a centrally managed circuit switched network