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High-speed rail solution for chronic sky troubles

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Started 3 years ago by Brent
Latest reply from Daz

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Brent
Columbus
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http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-opree275702925may27,0,3126130.story
High-speed rail solution for chronic sky troubles
BY BRUCE REED AND PAUL WEINSTEIN JR | Bruce Reed is president of the Democratic Leadership Council. Paul Weinstein is chief operating officer of the Progressive Policy Institute and a visiting fellow at Johns Hopkins
May 27, 2008
If America's air travel system is any indication, the sky really is falling.
Flights have been canceled by the hundreds due to safety concerns. Four airlines have gone out of business since the end of March, in large part because of rising fuel costs. Six broad fare increases have gone into effect this year alone, along with new charges on everything from pillows to a first piece of checked luggage. And here in the New York metropolitan area, the nation's largest market, the delays have been so chronic that the federal government has imposed flight caps and installed a new "airport czar" to make sense of the mess.

Posted 3 years ago #
dredd

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Wouldn't it be cheaper to just invest in perfecting the plane? Finding alternative fuel sources? I never understand why we spend money replacing things when we have yet to perfect them. For $20 billion you could create electric "gas" stations all over the country and make a nation of electric cars a viable solution. You could figure out how to create electric planes. You could create hydrogen powered planes. Or a bunch of other things that re-use what already exists.

Posted 3 years ago #
Nerdspeed
Seattle, WA. (formerly Grandview)
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I agree w' above. Try resolving current issues with aircraft. -or try an alternative concept. A high speed blimp doesn't have nearly the fuel requirements of an airplane, requires no rails, can fly over prolonged periods at near bullet-train speeds. Here's a "proof of concept" video on youtube:
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Posted 3 years ago #
Nerdspeed
Seattle, WA. (formerly Grandview)
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you might want to ignore the guy talking though. argh.

Posted 3 years ago #
dredd

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It's not really a proof of concept as it is a toy. I'd need to see it actually transoprting cargo and such in a 1:1 ratio a full sized model would do. Seems like a neat concept though.

Posted 3 years ago #
Nerdspeed
Seattle, WA. (formerly Grandview)
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while that is more toy than anything, I don't need a proof-of-concept to convince me that building a bullet train would cost billions of dollars.

Posted 3 years ago #
Brant
Gahanna
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dredd wrote Wouldn't it be cheaper to just invest in perfecting the plane? Finding alternative fuel sources? I never understand why we spend money replacing things when we have yet to perfect them. For $20 billion you could create electric "gas" stations all over the country and make a nation of electric cars a viable solution. You could figure out how to create electric planes. You could create hydrogen powered planes. Or a bunch of other things that re-use what already exists.
To rephrase your question, why did we spend the money to replace a perfectly good railway system when we had yet to perfect it?
And to paraphrase Walker, why not do it all? Why not invest in alternative energy research AND upgrade a neglected railway system? Why can't we do both?

Posted 3 years ago #
shmack

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i do not agree with the above suggestions to resolve aircraft. the point here is not fuel efficiency, it's airspace. the nyc metropolitan area is known for being the world's most congested airspace with lga/jfk/newark all within a 20 mile radius. heathrow/gatwick is a close second. if airlines and government can reduce the number of empty commuter jets between boston/dc/philly and other points, it will free up airspace for long haul, transatlantic, transcontinental flights. u.s. air businesses suffer from a lot of similar problems with other subsidized industries: lack of development, complacency with development, dependence on government injections.
ohio is flat. i'd like high speed rail (5 hours) between here and nyc please. thanks.

Posted 3 years ago #
dredd

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Brant Jones wrote
dredd wrote Wouldn't it be cheaper to just invest in perfecting the plane? Finding alternative fuel sources? I never understand why we spend money replacing things when we have yet to perfect them. For $20 billion you could create electric "gas" stations all over the country and make a nation of electric cars a viable solution. You could figure out how to create electric planes. You could create hydrogen powered planes. Or a bunch of other things that re-use what already exists.
To rephrase your question, why did we spend the money to replace a perfectly good railway system when we had yet to perfect it?
And to paraphrase Walker, why not do it all? Why not invest in alternative energy research AND upgrade a neglected railway system? Why can't we do both?
Works for me. Personally I'd cut NASA's space exploration funding and focus them on this stuff.
And schmack, I think it's a matter of both. airspace generally isn't a problem in 99% of cities. And if it is, it's probably because of poor engineering and design. Maybe you invent a plane that can land and take off vertically as has been tried before. That would make things better, eh?

Posted 3 years ago #
johnwirtz
Evanston, IL
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dredd wrote
Brant Jones wrote
dredd wrote Wouldn't it be cheaper to just invest in perfecting the plane? Finding alternative fuel sources? I never understand why we spend money replacing things when we have yet to perfect them. For $20 billion you could create electric "gas" stations all over the country and make a nation of electric cars a viable solution. You could figure out how to create electric planes. You could create hydrogen powered planes. Or a bunch of other things that re-use what already exists.
To rephrase your question, why did we spend the money to replace a perfectly good railway system when we had yet to perfect it?
And to paraphrase Walker, why not do it all? Why not invest in alternative energy research AND upgrade a neglected railway system? Why can't we do both?
Works for me. Personally I'd cut NASA's space exploration funding and focus them on this stuff.
And schmack, I think it's a matter of both. airspace generally isn't a problem in 99% of cities. And if it is, it's probably because of poor engineering and design. Maybe you invent a plane that can land and take off vertically as has been tried before. That would make things better, eh?
It doesn't really matter if 99% of the cities are not congested. If one region causes delays, it ripples through the system. Anything going to or coming from NYC can get delayed. And I think O'Hare is actually the worst for delays, although weather may just as much to do with it as airspace.
I like the vertical landing concept. I have no idea how hard this would be to do or how much it could help.

Posted 3 years ago #
Rockmastermike
CORNspiracy HQ
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dredd wrote Wouldn't it be cheaper to just invest in perfecting the plane? Finding alternative fuel sources? I never understand why we spend money replacing things when we have yet to perfect them. For $20 billion you could create electric "gas" stations all over the country and make a nation of electric cars a viable solution. You could figure out how to create electric planes. You could create hydrogen powered planes. Or a bunch of other things that re-use what already exists.
because trains are a tried and proven method of moving truly massive amounts of material around with a small amount of energy used per unit of cargo mass. Trying to build an airplane that moves 10000 tons of cargo and passengers at an equivalent energy input that used for the same load by rail simply defies physics as we understand it. It's an economy of scale that does not translate to aircraft.
most of the methods you suggest are only energy storage ideas in any case. burning coal to make hydrogen at a loss and then oxydizing the hydrogen in a fuel cell at a loss or burning it in an engine at a greater loss is not a solution to much of anything.
Blimps are an interesting idea. I actually think we'll see some work along those lines. The problem is that Helium doesn't scale up as well as Hydrogen does for shear lifting force, so they will likely have to go back to H instead of He and find some way to deal with the hazard in a sane manner.
Someone earlier said "why did we spend billions replacing our existing rail infrastructure?" That is the question we should be asking ourselves. Other countries did *not* throw away that investment and thus rising fuel prices are having less of an effect on their freight infrastructures and thus on their economic well-being.
400 miles/gal/ton (diesel) is HARD to beat.

Posted 3 years ago #
Mercurius
First Avenue
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Rockmastermike wrote
dredd wrote Wouldn't it be cheaper to just invest in perfecting the plane? Finding alternative fuel sources? I never understand why we spend money replacing things when we have yet to perfect them. For $20 billion you could create electric "gas" stations all over the country and make a nation of electric cars a viable solution. You could figure out how to create electric planes. You could create hydrogen powered planes. Or a bunch of other things that re-use what already exists.
because trains are a tried and proven method of moving truly massive amounts of material around with a small amount of energy used per unit of cargo mass. Trying to build an airplane that moves 10000 tons of cargo and passengers at an equivalent energy input that used for the same load by rail simply defies physics as we understand it. It's an economy of scale that does not translate to aircraft.
most of the methods you suggest are only energy storage ideas in any case. burning coal to make hydrogen at a loss and then oxydizing the hydrogen in a fuel cell at a loss or burning it in an engine at a greater loss is not a solution to much of anything.
Blimps are an interesting idea. I actually think we'll see some work along those lines. The problem is that Helium doesn't scale up as well as Hydrogen does for shear lifting force, so they will likely have to go back to H instead of He and find some way to deal with the hazard in a sane manner.
Someone earlier said "why did we spend billions replacing our existing rail infrastructure?" That is the question we should be asking ourselves. Other countries did *not* throw away that investment and thus rising fuel prices are having less of an effect on their freight infrastructures and thus on their economic well-being.
400 miles/gal/ton (diesel) is HARD to beat.
Nope, a Barge gets 514 miles/gal/ton :lol: Maybe we should get the canals going :wink:

Posted 3 years ago #
brett

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We tried airships in the past. The reason you aren't flying to your next vacation destination in a giant blimp is because they had a tendency to crash in bad weather. One of them actually crashed in Ohio in 1925 when it encountered a thunderstorm.
Regardless, there are changes needed in the airline industry that will eventually mean fewer airlines, fewer flights and higher prices. There will always be a need and a place for air travel, but given the increasing demand for limited resources (including both fuel AND airspace) it would seem to be prudent to make an investment in alternative forms of travel.
California seems to be seriously considering high-speed trains. It remains to be seen if voters will actually approve it, but there is definitely support. People there realize that with road and air traffic congestion increasing as well as a growing population, alternative modes of transportation are needed.
Maybe it doesn't make sense yet to connect Columbus to the rest of country with high-speed rail, but there certainly areas like California and the Northeast Corridor where it would make a lot of sense. Those areas are never going to be able improve car and air travel enough to deal with the demand. Just try making the drive from LAX to downtown Los Angeles sometime, or along I-95 anywhere between Boston and Washington and you'll see what I mean.

Posted 3 years ago #
Rockmastermike
CORNspiracy HQ
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Mercurius wrote Nope, a Barge gets 514 miles/gal/ton :lol: Maybe we should get the canals going :wink:
an excellent idea where possible.
We still ship a huge amount of coal and other bulk products by barge around the lakes and up and down the ohio and miss rivers.
On the open lakes and oceans we can even use windpower. Some of the new computer controlled sail designs work stunningly well as ad-ons to cargo ships. I wish i could remember the article I read a few months ago about it.

Posted 3 years ago #
gramarye
In Exile
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The military has actually been working on heavy-lift cargo airships that would dwarf basically anything manmade that's ever gotten off the ground. They wouldn't be high-speed, but the energy-to-cargo-capacity ratio actually looks pretty attractive for missions that don't involve flying through combat zones (obviously, a gigantic, slow-moving blimp just screams "shoot me down" if there's anything with the range to hit it).
That's a tech that I think would have considerable civilian application down the line, for shipping bulk goods that don't need to be delivered overnight (i.e., most "standard shipping" items).

Posted 3 years ago #
Daz
Tweeting about some totally unimportant event
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dredd wrote Wouldn't it be cheaper to just invest in perfecting the plane? Finding alternative fuel sources? I never understand why we spend money replacing things when we have yet to perfect them. For $20 billion you could create electric "gas" stations all over the country and make a nation of electric cars a viable solution. You could figure out how to create electric planes. You could create hydrogen powered planes. Or a bunch of other things that re-use what already exists.
I think you greatly underestimate the cost of these things. It currently costs 275 million dollars (ok, so that's an average http://www.boeing.com/commercial/prices/) to purchase a commercial 747. You think for the price of ~73 of these bad boys that they could completely reinvent the wheel?
I mean, crap, if we're just focusing on freight alone, the Tesla roadster is the last electric car I saw with some oomph to it and it runs about 90 grand and can only drive 2 1/2 hours. What do you think R&D would run on creating an 18 wheeler with an 8 hour (minimum to make it efficient) driving capacity, not to mention production costs? Then add to that the extreme number of those "electric gas stations," where someone would have to sit and charge their vehicle, unless you could create a new technology where the extremely large batteries that go on cars could instantly draw the millions of amps necessary to recharge them without blowing out a power grid.
I promise the things you just suggested were more expensive, by a LONG shot than investing in a technology that already exists in Europe and Japan.

Posted 3 years ago #
Walker
The KLD / Downtown
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The big difference is that planes are not going to serve a smaller region like rail can. You don't take a plane from Columbus to Dayton or Columbus to Cleveland. Rail won't replace taking a plane from Columbus to Los Angeles. It will replace driving to Cincinnati.

Posted 3 years ago #
Rockmastermike
CORNspiracy HQ
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Daz wrote
I promise the things you just suggested were more expensive, by a LONG shot than investing in a technology that already exists in Europe and Japan.
And in the U.S. too. Dont forget Accela. It may not be much, but I was impressed back in March when I was on an Amtrak with my GPS clocking us at 120 mph when we were passed by one of their Accela trains like we were standing still.
Of course that was in NJ. It has to be FLAT for those kind of speeds to work. It would never happen across the hills of WV, but for a few select routes you could sure move a lot of people pretty fast and cheap to replace a LOT of short-haul flights.

Posted 3 years ago #
Daz
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I'm also a bit curious as to where they get the 20 billion dollar figure.
I mean, CA's big high speed railway system is looking to cost 40 in and of itself, and while it is huge, it only stretches from San Diego to San Francisco and through the central valley, hardly across America.

Posted 3 years ago #