Trainspotting

The July 24, 2010 issue of The Economist has an excellent overview of the various issues associated with our proposed high-speed passenger train systems. The article, High-Speed Railroading, compares the railroading worlds of Europe and the United States. Europe, superior in high-speed passenger travel and lacking in freight transport, is the direct opposite of the United States. Our freight system is universally recognised in the industry as the best in the world - - with his $34 billion purchase of BNSF, Warren Buffett must feel the same. Our high-speed plans could actually hurt our superior freight system - - as the article states:

But the problem with America's plans for high-speed rail is not their modesty. It is that even this limited ambition risks messing up the successful freight railways. Their owners worry that the plans will demand expensive train-control technology that freight traffic could do without. They fear a reduction in the capacity available to freight. Most of all they fret that the spending of federal money on upgrading their tracks will lead the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), the industry watchdog, to impose tough conditions on them and, in effect, to reintroduce regulation of their operations. Attempts at re-regulation have been made in Congress in recent years, in response to rising freight rates. "The freight railroads feel they are under attack," says Don Phillips, a rail expert in Virgina.

This particular debate also demonstrates the collision of two different economic models - - one carbon based, the other geared toward a world of more efficient and sustainable transportation systems. In the context of freight traffic, coal is the biggest single cargo, accounting for 45% by volume and 23% by value. More than 70% of coal transport is by rail - - our addiction to low cost hydrocarbon fuels is spread among many different industries with a vested interest in the status quo. The fastest growing part of our freight system is intermodal traffic - - up from three million shipments in 1980 to 12.3 million in 2006. The forces of globalization require one consistent input - - that of efficient, available, and low-cost transportation and distribution networks.

It will be very interesting to see how all this finally is meshed together - - the world of slow moving freight trains, carrying the artifacts of an aging energy system combined with the goods of a globalized economy - - having to integrate and interface with the complicated world of fast passengers trains, in a world looking for new ways to transport society in a sustainable manner. The worlds of complex engineering, operations research, energy economics - - running into a wall of regulators, vested interests, and powerful political forces.