The Coming Competitive Milieu

I have to agree with you for the short-term, Mr. Benton, but given the magnitude of the issue which I believe is likely to unfold in America over the next decade or more, a lot more may be possible than is currently believed.

The reluctance to mix high-speed rail with a conventional freight-tansport system which is govenred by a strong incentive toward (1) bigger vehicles, (2) fewer through routes, with minimal grades and (3) fewer participants, has its roots in two deadly accidents: the Chase (Md) Amtrak wreck on the Amtrak-owned Northeast Corridor, and a particularly gory 1972 wweck on Illinois Central's Chicago commuter operation, when a set of new lightweight cars was telescoped by a heavyweight MU (Multiple Unit) car

I expect that resistance to continue, but several alternate routes for freight are available, and there is also the possibility of shared trackage on a day/night basis and, if the pressure grows intense enough, re-using some abandoned rights-of-way. It's also worth noting that a similar conflict is building on the highways, where autos continue to shrink and tractor-trailers (which will not be as easily converted to alternative fuel), contine to grow.

Finally, some of the readers may want to follow the "One For the Lawyers" thread currently developing on the Amtrak forum. We may be on the verge of a reorientation of surface, and particularly rail transportation, drawing upon the experience of the reorientation of the information and communication industries whch began thrity years ago. Should that get underway, just about everything is on the table.

"Beyond this Place There Be Dragons."
(inscription on some ancient maps.)

Thomas I wrote: Booking 2 month in advanced for 2 persons for a 5-day-trip:

Train: [...] = 319 EUR
Plane: [...] =549 EUR

That calculation is a bit tilted towards your favourite of course.
If you book 3 months in advance instead of 2 months, you can take advantage of a number of deals by budget airlines (like RyanAir), which would likely take the total cost to fly to under 100 Euro per Person.
Don't see why a taxi to Frankfurt/Mannheim respectively is necessary btw - dunno where you live, but we got a pretty good public transport system in exactly that area after all.

I could go from my doorstep in the same German region as you to Beijing by train, only switching trains three times (transferring in Mannheim, and moving from one station to another in Moscow). Would still both cost me - a slight bit - more, and take about 8 days for the journey - so i'd rather opt for air travel.

Not trying to defend air travel there - but that's the competition DB, SNCF, EuroStar and so on face.

David Benton wrote:clearly one would fly form Germany to bejing , unles you wanted to take the train as part of the holiday

Of course, although rail travel could be more competitive there in the future by lower prices in comparison to air travel, and some aggressive marketing.
Although there are also some talks - primarily with Japanese companies involved - to make the entire Transsib "competitive" through transforming it into a high-speed line, primarily for freight, over the next two decades.

The primary competition is happening inside Europe. National flights are already tackled in e.g. France and Germany, with air travel there pretty much restricted to a couple of budget airlines (in Germany), and some business carriers with small to medium aircraft, primarily on routes out of Berlin.
Currently the focus in development is on the short-flight international air travel. Eurostar pretty successfully took a good share away from the shorter connections between London and the continent, while DB and SNCF jointly attacked the South/Central Germany to Paris connections.

Recent postings to this thread seem to have overlooked the existence of the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) Railway, developed in the 1970's by the Soviet Union as an anticipated fallback resource in the event of a Sino-Soviet conflict, a more likely scenario in those times.

Here's a link, from an unanticipated source:

http://www.ukraine-observer.com/articles/184/105

Given the existence of two rotues, both within the same borders, the continued political instability of the Middle East, and the current unused capacity, the BAM would seem a more logical candiate for a Europe-Far East land bridge.

David Benton wrote:i remember when teh bam was been built , around about the time i was travelling the world . it was a obvious route to want to ride , but in the end i never made it to China or russia .
it may finally be a profitable route if high speed freight does become viable over longer distances . not too sure about the political stability of the regions it passes through though .

However, there is still a long term plan to link Iran to Pakistan and across India. The change of gauge is a nuisance. Sea travel will also be affected by the rise in oil prices.

David Benton wrote:Sea freight uses the least amount of energy of all modes . mainly because of its slow speed . i would expect sea freight to prosper as well .
ithink rail will be picking up high value freight form air and rail , rather than bulk stuff from sea .

Sea transport generates a large amount of carbon dioxide - more than aviation - and is rapidly increasing.

David Benton wrote:as a whole it may , but per unit of freight moved , i thought it was pretty low . no doubt theres room for alot of improvement .

The absolute amount being emitted is importasnt.

Just as an aside, remember that experimentation with nuclear-powered cargo vessels was under way as early as the 1960's. The only one I can refer to by memory is the American NS Savannah. The project eventually was abandoned, not because of technological feasibility, but for economic reasons. I'm not aware of any other such projects, but there may have been a few outside the U S.

With regard to the carbon tax/global warming issue it should be understood that it is simply an effort to impose, by legislative and bureaucratic fiat, what a substanital, but far from unaninmous portion of the population views as desirable policy, but to date, that segment is confined only to the mature industrialized economies; the developing world, with an even larger population, is excluded for obviously political reasons.

a final thought:

As evidenced by the llink below, a series of volcanic eruptions in the early years of the Nineteenth Century, climaxed by that of Tambora in the East Indes, precipitatated a short, but intense period of "global cooling". There is also some evidence that the severe winter of 1980/81 was linked in part to the eruption of Mt. St. Helens,

http://www.dandantheweatherman.com/Bere ... ummer.html

This phenomenon, with its implications for the fragile global food supply, makes a much stronger case for very serious meteorological research than does the "global warming" argument, which many of a more conservative orientation will continue to view as a disguised attempt at income resiistribution.

Climate change is real, and the finiteness of energy resources which are both non-renewable and necessary for any number of other uses argues further in favor of a co-ordinated long-term approach. But the current campaign is a hard sell precisely because it is, in the minds of much of the American electorate, liked with an entirely different agenda.