>> No need, when we have 500mph airplanes.
> What's the average speed to the destination Ag?
Depends on distance. Usually, anything under 300 miles is a wash with
driving it.
The current Amtrak system is actually pretty reasonable, except it bypasses
many of the key locations along the way. In Iowa, the podunk town of
Creston is on the Amtrak route, but Des Moines is not. Burlington is
connected, but the Quad Cities is not. Cedar Rapids? Iowa City? Ames?
Nope. But towns of 6000 people are. But that's what happens when you lease
capacity on a freight/bulk rail system. Throughout most routes, Amtrak only
runs one train a day in each direction. In the high-density corridors they
run more, but most of them are not running at convenient times.
Omaha, Nebraska is a good example of this. The westbound train to Denver
comes through somewhere around 11 pm, and the eastbound is around 5 am. In
McCook, it's not uncommon for both east and wesbound trains to arrive at
the same time. In the middle of the night.
Talk about delays! Train service in the USA is horrible, when it comes to
delays. The California Zepher is a disaster in this regard--particularily
in the summer. You get heat restrictions in the mountains where the trains
can only travel about 10mph on the tracks because they've lost their
tension and the rails wave around like they were installed by a bunch of
drunks. Eastbound, out of Denver, is usually two hours delayed most days.
If they had any mechanical issues between California and Denver, it's more
like four hours delay.
To build a dedicated inter-city passenger rail system in the USA is cost
prohibitive. Not only would the taxpayer be on the hook for a hundred
million dollars a mile to build it, but the ongoing costs of
maintenance/repair is 10% a year. So, just between a couple of major 200
mile cities, we could build a new dedicated high-speed rail system for 20
billion dollars, which costs another 2 billion just to keep every year. The
operating cost of the trains themselves are variable based on passenger
counts, but just to cover the maintenance/repair costs, with no attempt to
even pay back a single bond, is $5.5 million a day. For argument sake, we
have 10,000 passengers a day going across that segment. We would have to
charge $550 a ticket JUST to cover maintenance/repair/upkeep on that line.
Figure that the operation of the train itself need another $100 to cover
the basics of fuel, staff, we're up to $650 a ticket. Let's say that the
entire project was funded with 20 year zero interest bonds. Add another
$275 to each ticket.
One nice thing about air-travel is that even though airports are expensive
to build, the typical passenger counts are high-enough keep the
per-passenger allotment down to the $50 per ticket range. Other
than funding the FAA, there are no tangible costs associated with drawing
airways on a map. The best part of this is that it is REAL customer demand,
which is variable and fickle, is covered by private enterprise with various
airlines competing for the passengers out of any particular location. Fuel
costs are higher than with High Speed Rail, and so are general operational
costs. But you don't have a massive infrasctructure build which is nothing
more than welfare for the users of it. While the costs associated with
air-travel are largely scaleable with demand, the costs associated with
passenger rail are fixed and always based on mathematical assumptions which
are never true.
The TSA "argument" is a short-sighted argument. It is only a matter of time
before rail service is equally as hampered as airline travel is today.
--
Ken Norton
ken@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.zone-10.com
--
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