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No discussion of battery trucks can go very far without reaching the conclusion that more freight must travel by rail. That's a correct conclusion, but for the

No discussion of battery trucks can go very far without reaching the conclusion that more freight must travel by rail. That's a correct conclusion, but for the same reasons it has never carried the day in the US for 75 years, that transition will continue to not happen.

bumby 3y ago
I think you're right, but wouldn't this still necessitate freight to travel by truck from rail centers to population centers? That's how a lot of the system currently operates in the US, no?
- QuarterReptile 3y ago
  There should be no population center without a rail center. I don't deny that last-mile would still be on roads, but that's very different from the present state of affairs. My lazy googling suggests that 40% of freight movement is via rail in US. I can't find a full breakout, but the same site goes on to claim rail is only 1.7% of GHG, which means most of the rest is traveling by road, since waterborne freight is generally more efficient than rail.
  - bumby 3y ago
    You do know we’re not starting with a blank slate, so how do you close that gap? Forced migration?
amoshebb 3y ago
I've always dreamed of trolley-bus like wires strung along interstates paired with robotic self-attaching trolley-poles. In my head, semi-trucks (and maybe all cars?) only need 50-100 miles or so of range for low-speed (where batteries shine) warehouse/ports/downtown deliveries (or garage-charged commutes?). Almost every trip I've ever taken beyond ~20 miles included at least some portion on a highway. Electric interstates could allow NY to LA in one shot and pulling off the highway with 100 miles to make the round-trip to wherever a load needed to be dropped off. If attaching and detaching was automatic, there would be no need to electrify onramps or intersections or underpasses or anything expensive, just find the cheapest, straightest, easiest to electrify 80% of roads and slap up wires there.
- QuarterReptile 3y ago
  When you say trolley, are you suggesting auto-coupling rail? Or was that meant to be paved roads? If paved roads, then you're forgetting the enormous wear that heavy vehicles put on road surfaces (which would get much worse as labor costs were taken away as a downward pressure on road freight volume.) If rail, then I think you could see some version of that as a logical upgrade to a high-utilization rail network in a high-trust society with a strong safety culture. I see the US becoming lower-, not higher-, trust.
bluescrn 3y ago
We can't really build useful railways any more, though. Towns and cities are too large and too dense and too insanely expensive in terms of property prices to get new lines into or even close to. (This might be less of a problem for freight compared to moving people, but many lines are mixed freight/passenger use, aren't they?)
- QuarterReptile 3y ago
  You're explaining why we don't build useful rail. It seems like there's a really easy first place to look in every major city. Find the biggest interstate, discriminating also by straightness and grade, pick one direction, and start building rail. Divide the other side up into two directions. There are very few places that wouldn't be left with >2 lanes of freeway for each direction, even after halving the right of way. For the few exceptions, they'd have to think a little harder. In reality, such a series of actions could only exist in a society that got seriously focused on moving away from private auto, and that means density would increasingly be in style. As soon as the NIMBY floodgates came down, property prices would plummet in all but the smallest cores of desirable areas, since it would be readily apparent that you can't build all expensive areas to the level of intensity that justifies insane land values seen in sprawling cities. Again, we could, but I recognize that we don't. Let's just not say that we can't.
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    I actually think density would go out of style in that scenario. IF the time and cost of commuting were drastically reduced, many people would prefer a suburban lifestyle. This reminds me of many high GDP parts of Europe where there are towns of 500-1000 people every few km, connected by rail and busses.
    - QuarterReptile 3y ago
      I don't think the time of commuting seems to change much: people just re-equilibrate and reconfigure to use the newly saved time/distance. But, yes, you would expect to see significant clustering. Nonetheless, the most effective clustering since the advent of indoor plumbing is the cluster of clusters, the city, and I doubt that would change. The connectivity is just so much better than a lineal expansion of small towns along a corridor.

bumby 3y ago

I think you're right, but wouldn't this still necessitate freight to travel by truck from rail centers to population centers? That's how a lot of the system currently operates in the US, no?

QuarterReptile 3y ago
There should be no population center without a rail center. I don't deny that last-mile would still be on roads, but that's very different from the present state of affairs. My lazy googling suggests that 40% of freight movement is via rail in US. I can't find a full breakout, but the same site goes on to claim rail is only 1.7% of GHG, which means most of the rest is traveling by road, since waterborne freight is generally more efficient than rail.
- bumby 3y ago
  You do know we’re not starting with a blank slate, so how do you close that gap? Forced migration?

amoshebb 3y ago

I've always dreamed of trolley-bus like wires strung along interstates paired with robotic self-attaching trolley-poles. In my head, semi-trucks (and maybe all cars?) only need 50-100 miles or so of range for low-speed (where batteries shine) warehouse/ports/downtown deliveries (or garage-charged commutes?). Almost every trip I've ever taken beyond ~20 miles included at least some portion on a highway. Electric interstates could allow NY to LA in one shot and pulling off the highway with 100 miles to make the round-trip to wherever a load needed to be dropped off. If attaching and detaching was automatic, there would be no need to electrify onramps or intersections or underpasses or anything expensive, just find the cheapest, straightest, easiest to electrify 80% of roads and slap up wires there.

QuarterReptile 3y ago
When you say trolley, are you suggesting auto-coupling rail? Or was that meant to be paved roads? If paved roads, then you're forgetting the enormous wear that heavy vehicles put on road surfaces (which would get much worse as labor costs were taken away as a downward pressure on road freight volume.) If rail, then I think you could see some version of that as a logical upgrade to a high-utilization rail network in a high-trust society with a strong safety culture. I see the US becoming lower-, not higher-, trust.

bluescrn 3y ago

We can't really build useful railways any more, though. Towns and cities are too large and too dense and too insanely expensive in terms of property prices to get new lines into or even close to. (This might be less of a problem for freight compared to moving people, but many lines are mixed freight/passenger use, aren't they?)

QuarterReptile 3y ago
You're explaining why we don't build useful rail. It seems like there's a really easy first place to look in every major city. Find the biggest interstate, discriminating also by straightness and grade, pick one direction, and start building rail. Divide the other side up into two directions. There are very few places that wouldn't be left with >2 lanes of freeway for each direction, even after halving the right of way. For the few exceptions, they'd have to think a little harder. In reality, such a series of actions could only exist in a society that got seriously focused on moving away from private auto, and that means density would increasingly be in style. As soon as the NIMBY floodgates came down, property prices would plummet in all but the smallest cores of desirable areas, since it would be readily apparent that you can't build all expensive areas to the level of intensity that justifies insane land values seen in sprawling cities. Again, we could, but I recognize that we don't. Let's just not say that we can't.
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  I actually think density would go out of style in that scenario. IF the time and cost of commuting were drastically reduced, many people would prefer a suburban lifestyle. This reminds me of many high GDP parts of Europe where there are towns of 500-1000 people every few km, connected by rail and busses.
  - QuarterReptile 3y ago
    I don't think the time of commuting seems to change much: people just re-equilibrate and reconfigure to use the newly saved time/distance. But, yes, you would expect to see significant clustering. Nonetheless, the most effective clustering since the advent of indoor plumbing is the cluster of clusters, the city, and I doubt that would change. The connectivity is just so much better than a lineal expansion of small towns along a corridor.