America's Railroads, made in China?

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They sold the right of way on the line that runs close by my house. They auctioned off parcels to the highest bid. Not like they can't just take it back through eminent domain.

There was some talk of creating a trail. NY usually has their head stuffed somewhere it is hard to see from.
 
They basically did the very same thing when the Erie rail road ceased operation .Salvaged the rails,ties ,hardware .Sold the ballast and sold the land .Fact I bought 300 tons of ballast stone for a buck a ton .

That ballast was figured at two tons per foot on each track,double tracks .The ballast actualy paid the bill for what the salvage company paid for the whole mess .I think the land which was about 125 -150 feet wide was sold for around $4,000 per half mile .

Some areas have made bike paths and nature trails from adandoned right of way .
 
I wonder how big a part, automobile manufacturer lobbyists played in the downfall of the American Rail system?

They would seem to be the only ones having anything to gain from it.

And oil companies, of course.
 
I'm sure they played a large part .

Now this I do know because I got it right from the source .My buddys dad Joe was a big muckaty muck at GM before he made a bad move politically within the company .GM and Firestone tire were the ones that actually caused many large metro areas to abandon street cars in favor of diesel powered busses .GM of course made Detroit diesel engines .

Joe was full of stories about the role GM played in a lot of things .Gone now but not forgotten .
 
On that Stig there was much more than that .They rented a box car for a period of time,say a month .It might take a week to send freight from where I live to Toledo Ohio which is only 80 miles . Then the damned car might get stuck on a siding and it would take another week to get it moved so they could unload it .

That's just one example of many about the demise of the rail service .

On the other hand Walmart can off load frieght ,send it by rail to a distrubution center and have in on the shelves of their stores any place in the US within 4 days of when it arrived from the Pacific rim . .
 
Out of curiosity I priced a comparison of Amtrak vs. flying Southwest Airline from LA to NY. If you left took the train leaving Tuesday Aug 2nd, it'd cost you $456 just to GET TO new york and you wouldn't get there until Friday afternoon.

If I flew SW and departed at the same time, it would be $630 ROUNDTRIP, I could have Wed & Thur to hang out in NY, then I'd leave Friday and get back to LA before you even arrived in NY.

So for passenger travel, why would you even bother taking the train? It is not even worth it unless you have no place to be, have plenty of $ to putz around with, and enjoy the romanticism of seeing the countryside and what-not.

Am I missing something? Why are these guys in business?
 
Because oil prices haven't risen enough to make air travel too expensive.
Give it another 20 years.

There has been talk of setting up a high speed train system in Europe, to take over from the short-hop planes.
Whether it'll ever come to more than talk will remain to be seen.

But in Denmark, we've seen transportation of goods go from small coastal freight boats and rail to trucking.
Now that fuel prices are getting so high, the railroad is gaining popularity again.
Suddenly cheap is more important than fast.

I think we'll see the railroads come back, maybe even with steam trains.
There was some German engineers that found out that with modern steam tecnology ( turbines instead of piston power) steam trains would be the most energy efficient.

I can't remember exactly how, but I think instead of the diesel to elctricity converter train engines used today, they would use steam to electricity engines.
Supposedly there is a lesser energy loss using steam. ( Ed would probably know!).
 
The electric traction motors used on either turbine electric or diesel electric are just in essence a transmission of sorts .By regulating both the shunt and series fields they have infinate numbers of power settings .Any motive power such as diesel ,gasoline, steam will run more efficently cost wise if set a predetermined speed and tuned for that speed .So you get the combination of a power source ran at economic speeds and an electric traction motor it adds up to a very efficient system .

My guess though if they wanted to go high tech it would be DC servo motors instead of compound wound traction motors .
 
I just priced amtrak from Fl to pa, then SW airlines from Fl to Pa. Amtrak, 1060.00 for me and my kids, 36 hour trip. SW, 2100.00 for me and my kids, 6-8 hour trip. Both round trips.
 
Perhaps train travel is better suited for shorter trips?

But wait- for a thousand bucks you could rent a car, drive up, pay for gas and have a lot of $ left over.
 
Again, only because the price of petrol is so cheap. I love taking the train. I can read, drink beer, party, sleep, and many other fun things you cant do whilst driving.
 
Which is why I miss all the ferryboats that used to tie this country together.

Taking the ferry was such a nice break from driving, now one just zips through a tunnel or over a bridge.

We loose a lot of good stuff in the name of efficiency.
 
Speed Stig, not always efficiency. Moving things by canal barge (or water in general) is extremely efficient, but you dont see many trade canal boats over here anymore.
 
A well developed train system here, I use the rails on and off. The Tokyo subway system is vast. I hate when it is standing room only, which is often, and some old person gets on and nobody offers their seat. It seems more frequent nowadays. There are seats reserved for the elderly and disabled, but they are down at the end of the car, and young people might be occupying them. Too much staring at the cell phones is one cause.
 
This is utter bullshit -
Sweden also became conscious of its dependency on fossil fuels early on, after the oil shocks of the 70s. "The country switched in the 80s to direct electric heating and in recent years increasingly uses heat pumps, which uses two-thirds less electricity to heat. People were also helped with subsidies to substitute," says Johansson.
Click to expand...
 
Nothing like the steam locos. Aside from the few still running to carry tourists, one blows through town every year or so on a ceremonial run. You can sure hear it coming and going, and lots of smoke. Some old yard has a crew that maintains those.
 
It's quite possible. China is currently going through that stage of advancement where everything of any possible nostalgic value has to be eliminated. The big picture of Chairman Mao in Tinnamon square might be the last thing to go. Possibly replaced by a picture of a pushbutton washing machine.
 
Although the Steam locomotives were super cool I think they were high maintenance and the safety of the boilers are always a problem.
 
I saw a program on the yard that maintains the steam engines over here. The guys working on them seemed to really like the task, as well as the people whose job it is to drive them. Like a kid with that big whistle they have.

There is an old one in a small park like area nearby. You can go up in the cab and also climb into the boiler from the front. All kinds of gauges and levers, it's very cool. It must have been hot in that cab, though.
 
Remember Travel town at Griffith Park Jay? I used to climb all over those engines as a kid. Fun times!
1268291275.jpg
 
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