An Old Coal Miner Looks at Transportation

by

Ted Crook

Conservatives love cars and trucks--especially anything bigger than a Subaru.  They point out, rightly, that human society will be very unpleasant without easy transportation.

Going places quickly is often fun.  I remember several instances of “fun” I have survived.   Nothing beats lying under a car in the snow, frozen wrench in hand, or the always exciting drama of riding with a drunk driver at high speed.

Progressives point out, rightly,  the realities of climate change and peak oil.  Some even drive their Subarus and Camrys  with guilty resignation.

The realities of climate change and peak oil are seldom fun.

I love trains: the romance of standing on the footplate, valve cutoff optimized, roaring across  desert spaces toward civilization.  Even the names conjure dreams: Denver and Rio Grande, Union Pacific, Califonia Zephyr, Orient Express, Super Chief,  Mallet, Mikado...

In 1800, one man could move a ton at 2 or 3 miles an hour with luck on a good day.  In 1850, two men could move a thousand tons at 30 miles an hour on a schedule.

That ten thousand fold change  was the creator of our modern world.

A cursory look at the internet (fueleconomy.gov for cars and trucks)  indicates that an electric train is at least twice as efficient as an electric car.

Here are three places where trains will always outdo cars:

Rolling Resistance:

There is almost nothing more frictionless than a carbon steel wheel on a carbon steel rail.

Besides being the best for friction, it is also completely recyclable.

Passenger loading:

In a train, the cars can be efficiently allocated.  Remove a car for fewer passengers, add a car for more.  The fill factor is easily controlled.

Most autos are run empty.  A car rated for half a ton often moves 150 pounds to its destination.

We call a car rated for 150 pounds an electric bicycle.

Wind:

Wind drag for a car or the front of a train are about the same.  The train, however, can be extended to a hundred cars without changing the the drag much.  This makes the train as much as a hundred times more efficient at high speeds.  Drag goes up about as the cube of the velocity, so it becomes the main problem at high speeds..

Other considerations:

Batteries and tires are the serious problems for cars and trucks.  Lithium cells--including the new darling, lithium-air--are inherently dangerous, since lithium explodes in water.   Other cells are too inefficient to give much range.  We all know too much about tires.

Trains never wander around lost.

While a good car can last twenty years ( and an electric might go thirty), a properly designed train can run for thousands of years.  The only parts needing routine replacement would be the rails, wheels, bearings and compost-able  upholstery .

Financing an  electric railroad system could be painless.  If gas drops a dollar a gallon, an imposed tax of fifty cents wouldn’t even be noticed.  Ten or twenty years of such a tax would build a two way  railroad over the center of the interstate highways.

There is no better gift we could give our great-great-great-great grandchildren than a nearly perfect railroad infrastructure.