Posted on 06/11/2010 7:43:40 AM PDT by Willie Green
America has a “waiting problem.”
Think about the time you spend waiting in traffic jams… at the doctor/dentist’s office… at restaurants… at the gas station.
And how about the six months of your life spent waiting at traffic lights? Or the five years you’ll spend just waiting in lines at retail stores, the post office, DMV, etc. (Early buyers of Apple’s products likely spend far more.)
And according to Robert Poole, Director of Transportation Policy at the Reason Foundation, the average air traveler now spends two to three hours waiting at the airport. Granted, much of that is due to more rigorous security screening – time that is generally well spent – but air travel delays and traffic jams are only going to get worse, as more people take to the skies and roads.
In short, we wait an average of 45 to 62 minutes every single day. And that’s less time spent with family and friends, or doing other more productive, enjoyable activities.
Other countries have already recognized the problem and have addressed it for years. But the United States has failed miserably. So how can we improve our “waiting efficiency?” There’s a solution…
A Great Idea… Until Henry Ford Drove it Off the Rails
It’s called high-speed passenger rail.
I’ll get to the high-speed part in a moment. First, a quick overview of the U.S. rail service today.
Much of America’s freight still travels by rail. In fact, more than two billion tons plowed across the country in 2007 (the latest data available). It’s the transport mainstay for coal, lumber and other heavy industrial products and machinery.
Passenger rail service in the United States dates all the way back to 1830 when the “Best Friend of Charleston” – the first steam-powered train – traveled six miles with 141 passengers on board.
Boston, Baltimore and other major cities quickly established major railroads, due to the lack of river access to U.S. inland areas. And the idea of being able to travel, regardless of weather conditions – and at high speeds, too – was a big hit with most Americans.
As a result, passenger rail service soared…
But then Henry Ford came along and changed the playing field. When he introduced the mass-produced automobile in the following decade, rail travel fell by 18%.
And today?
700 Miles and a Tank of Gas Later…
Fast-forward to 2010…
You’d think that in today’s high-tech age, we could combine speed with efficiency and wouldn’t spend so long waiting. But that’s not the case. And with transportation, it’s an increasingly expensive wait for most Americans.
Take the average car, for instance. Fully loaded with five passengers, it gets about 100 passenger-miles-per-gallon (PMPG).
And according to the Department of Energy, the average passenger jet only gets about 36 PMPG. Of course, the trade-off there is speed.
But how about that speed/low-cost equation? Especially for regional travel? Europe and Asia already manage it. And we can here, too.
The answer lies in the method that squeezes out 700 PMPG.
You got it… high-speed trains. You can string their “cars” together and carry far more passengers than the average commercial jetliner. And these trains blast along at speeds of nearly 250 MPH.
So which company is behind this rapid rail transportation?
This Company Feels the Need… the Need for Speed
Take a quick jaunt around the globe and you’ll see this company’s trains in use all over the place…
The company we’re talking about is Siemens AG (NYSE: SI) – the largest manufacturer of high-speed trains in the world.
Its Valero high-speed train technology is the world’s most successful. Siemens currently has 160 trains in operation and hundreds more on order.
And for speed-hungry America, it’s the perfect fit…
“All Aboard!”
Siemens is pushing hard to get its Valero high-speed train technology widely adopted across the U.S. rail network. Interest is high, too. There are several high-speed rail projects in the works…
Critics argue that few people will ride the high-speed rails. But frankly, that’s a myopic view. They’re not counting on expensive gasoline, because cheap gas is a thing of the past.
As if further proof were needed, U.S. politicians simply need to look around the world to see what other countries are investing in transportation and energy infrastructure.
They need to roll up their sleeves and get the same things going here.
And while you wait, you might want to hop onboard the Siemens train and pick up a few shares.
Good investing,
David Fessler
The Northeast corridor is usually profitable and more so then any airline operating in the region. Infrastructure costs are bonded and I’m not up on the accounting practices.
It is a unique area given the large population centers close together which make rail travel the best travel option.
The Northeast corridor is the only part of Amtrak that would be bought by a private company and this has been tride a few times.
America has a “waiting problem.”
Think about the time you spend waiting in traffic jams… at the doctor/dentist’s office… at restaurants… at the gas station.
So I should ride a superfast train to get to these places sooner so I can wait there longer?
Here’s a little tidbit about Amtrak:
“Many trade union jobs were saved by the bailout, and Amtrak itself finances the pensions of most railroad employees, even if they had never worked for Amtrak directly or never worked in passenger railroad service.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak
And would posting the obvious train wreck in reply be as helpful to the discussion as your reply.
I believe trains have a place. For long distance city to city, they can move people or freight economically, if time isn’t a significant cost.
I have traveled in Europe, East Coast, once in central US and several times in Alaska by train. They met my needs on those travels because I wasn’t in a hurry and mostly because I wanted to enjoy the view. For those reasons, once in your life you should travel the Glacier Express from St. Moritz to Zermatt. Fantastic views with hundreds of tunnels and bridges.
But to pretend that a train replaces the function of a personal car is just foolish.
I’m not advocating for funding of the railroads.
I’m advocating for de-funding of the federal highway system. Let the free market decide what roads to build and fund.
I remember driving to my uncles house in Baltimore from Boston during Carter’s gas crisis. It must have taken us 18 hours. Traffic going thru New York was a parking lot. When we hit the New Jersey turnpike all the gas stations would only allow you to buy 1 gallon of gas. We had to stop about every 12 miles for gas. Paid a ton in tolls.
The next year we took the train. I had a big comfortable seat. I ate breakfast in the diner car. A slept for an hour or two and read a book. Relaxing as we passed all those cars in stuck in traffic. Made it to his house door to door less than 8 hours. On the way home we had a sleeper. I had a steak dinner on the train, my dad and mom enjoyed a couple of beers. Woke up the next morning and got home feeling relaxed and refreshed.
Yeah you’re right. You can’t compare train travel to the auto.
“Bombardier Bi-level coaches aren’t used on high speed trains, are they?”
If I’m not mistaken, those are the type of coaches used on the GO Train I took to and from Toronto last night. OK for a relatively short ride, but not the sort of place I’d want to spend several hours. I suppose they could be outfitted differently, however.
I think rail is great, in the right applications. GO train to downtown Toronto, hooks up with the TTC subway (subways are great!) and buses - beats the heck out of driving downtown in rush hour, driving around in the city, and looking for (expensive) parking.
OTOH, I took VIA rail from Toronto to Montreal a couple of weekends ago. Trip took like 6 1/2 hours and the accommodations were barely any better than on a plane - which would have been cheaper and only taken an hour to get there - maybe an 1 1/2 hours if I flew a regional turboprop out of the Toronto Island airport, which I could also connect to by transit. My girlfriend wanted to take the train, though, and I had ridden one any distance myself in a long time, so it was still somewhat enjoyable. That’s probably the most heavily traveled medium-distance route in Canada (about 400 miles) and it still doesn’t have enough passenger traffic to make high speed rail on dedicated tracks economically viable. Of course, high speed trains could make that trip much faster, but that would require dedicated passenger rail tracks (and maybe new right of ways) which would cost a fortune, even without electrification.
Those railroads do get partial grants from time to time to upgrade signal systems or repair bridges but nothing on the scale of the billions the federal highway system receives.
OK, what federal subsidies do you think Norfolk Southern receives?
I think trains are great too. So much so that model railroading is a hobby of mine. And I am not opposed to some public spending on rail lines. In as much as we do not have a purely free market, and never had, the same kind of spending done for the National Highway System and airports would be acceptable to me if it makes sense. However, all these high speed rail projects are boondoggles from start to finish.
And they haven’t carried passengers for almost forty years so why are you even bringing it up?
You said show a railroad that makes money. I agree with you on highspeed rail by the way. Way too much money for not a whole lot time save. Regular speed rail like we had 50 years ago is all we need and it would be a whole lot cheaper.
For infrastructure improvements. Here’s one article:
The Shellpot Bridge Replacement isn’t the Feds but rather a State DOT project:
http://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/publications/freightfinancing/sect3.htm
At least we agree on your latter point, except that even many of the light rail projects, like the ones in Los Angeles, are a waste of money.
The Federal Highway System cost more and more each year, the older the bridges get and the more expansion that is added on. Right now the highway fund covers about 80%. That will only get worse or gas taxes will have to be increased. Oil is going to get more expensive as well.
The Federal Highway system is in the same place the railroads were in 50 years ago. If it was a private company it would be asking for bankruptcy protection just the same.
Yes they do, because their existing roadbeds and other infrastructure are perfectly adequate for 50 MPH freight traffic.
If you tried to bump those speeds up to 80 MPH+ for passengers, the costs go up by an order of magnitude or more.
No thanks, I’ll keep driving a Carrera.....
If you tried to bump those speeds up to 80 MPH+ for passengers, the costs go up by an order of magnitude or more.”
Same can be said about the interstate highway system. Try driving long distances on backroads.
I would agree that any payments by a government entity for railroad infrastructure inprovements which are intended for the commercial benefit of the railroad (as opposed, say, to safty of the public at intersections) are subsidies and should be prohibited.
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