Thursday, November 4, 2010

Rail loses a bit in the election

AntiPlanner tells us the stats, and warns of of the risk of Republican socialist love for all things big government when many of its members still support antiquated 19th century rail technology.

Why have so many light rail systems been ripped out over the last 70 years?  Because neighborhoods change faster than we can reroute steel rail.  We build them once for the community of today, and five to 20 years later, that community has moved on to small cars, and the big people movers need to be rerouted.  You are stuck, and we have ripped these rail things out in eight or so cities across California.

Looking at long distance passenger rail
One of the paradoxes is that the great efficiency of long distance rail cargo helped push passenger traffic to the air.  Heavy rail cargo works and works much better without intermixing with passenger rail. Moving people on steel does not work, unless the route is exceptional.

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