Residents Push For Electric Trains says the Times Call.
“In the long run, I think electric will be cheaper,” said John Johnson, a model railroader from Longmont, echoing the sentiments of many of the 40 people at the Thursday night presentation.
What's with the model railroader reference? If a semi-truck driver thought diesel would be a better choice, would you list his occupation?
If you believe the concept of Peak Oil, which makes Global Warming look like a far-off nuisance, diesel trains have no chance of being affordable.
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4 comments:
Not being an oil economist, does anyone know how reliable it is to assume that production of a nonrenewable resource will follow a bell curve? Isn't a huge factor how quickly technologies come on line to either make recovery easier and/or replace oil as a fuel source?
It's prudent to think ahead. It's short-sighted to think that choices in the future are going to be limited to those we have today. The real issue is not electric versus diesel in this case. It's whether to use self-propelled vehicles or invest heavily in electricification infrastructure.
Practically speaking, I'm in favor of self-propelled locomotives if this NW corridor plan is to be brought to fruition. Maybe if ridership (far) exceeds projections and fuel costs change dramatically, then electrification could be investigated as a future improvement.
Or maybe locomotives will be developed that are powered by flywheels, with the flywheels spun up from electric sources while laying over in terminals. The sci-fi goes on from there, but it's better than letting monorails and subways become part of the mix because that's the only present frame of reference.
Electric made some sort of sense in high-frequency, dense corridors on the FasTracks plan. Electrification is not the mode of choice in most commuter rail settings, and never was rational to implement the Denver-Boulder-Longmont corridor.
You morons should head to Japan and ride a maglev train. Of course, they found the money to put it in, when their economy was in the shitter. Diesel smacks of the old west. Maybe we should use wood and water?
Anonymous, why the rage? Comments I've found: To run at the optimum speeds used in comparisons with conventional high speed rail, maglev right of way needs to be fairly level and as straight as possible.
To build such a right of way through modern developed communities would require massive demolition of existing structures, which is not economically feasible.
The Japanese rail system may well be the envy of the world, and I have experienced it. So, great, let's hear it for Japan.
As for maglev, the project we may be talking about is the airport train in Shanghai, China. There are no commercial maglev lines in Japan.
At the very least, the comparable section of FasTracks would be the DIA to downtown train, and that's putting aside almost any discussion of economics.
Diesel locomotives power commuter rail across the country, and diesel makes commuter rail economical where costs might otherwise be an insurmountable barrier. Even if the existing BNSF alignment met straight-running criteria for maglev, the upfront cost would be enormous.
I'm not at all opposed to better technologies, but I am certainly unable to discern whether the near-fetishism for one technology over another that has swept the FasTracks process along, it would seem, all lines makes any reference to economics or any desire to see the system built.
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