Throw Edgar from the train!
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Isn't Sabin the one who suplexes trains?
Edgar (from the title) Sabin......
are we by any chance referencing my favorite game of all time?
Final Fantasy VI?
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And the guys riding the train are sponging off the rest of us.
Because highways aren't funded by the government?
Yes, that's true. But one of these wastes more money than the others.
And one kills more people than the other two combined.
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Because highways aren't funded by the government?
To be fair, most highway funding (at least at the federal level) comes from user taxes, aka on gasoline, and tolls.I actually tried (not super hard) to find statistics on this earlier in the thread because I was curious how the amount of general tax spent on roads compares to Amtrak, and how it compares if you take into account passenger miles, but I turned up mostly empty-handed.
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I actually tried (not super hard) to find statistics on this earlier in the thread because I was curious how the amount of general tax spent on roads compares to Amtrak, and how it compares if you take into account passenger miles, but I turned up mostly empty-handed.
It's quite awkward to extract this sort of information, especially as who actually funds what and how is kept deliberately obscure. It's also not funded by a single governmental entity, so tracing who pays for what is even harder than normal.
Mind you, I think you'll find that the biggest road-related subsidy is probably through under-taxing trucks. They do enormously more damage than cars do (it's proportional to something crazy like the 4th power of the axle weight) and in a fair system would therefore pay a proportionately large fraction of the cost of road upkeep. They don't. Massive (hidden) subsidy.
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To be fair, most highway funding (at least at the federal level) comes from user taxes, aka on gasoline, and tolls.
Googling "how much does the gas tax pay for roads" implies that that amount is no where close to covering the costs of the roads. Briefly looking at a couple (and the subtext in the search) noted anywhere from 1/3 to 62% (that one included sales tax on cars) of the costs were covered.
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Googling "how much does the gas tax pay for roads" implies that that amount is no where close to covering the costs of the roads. Briefly looking at a couple (and the subtext in the search) noted anywhere from 1/3 to 62% (that one included sales tax on cars) of the costs were covered.
Yep. You've also got problems with things like the fact that much of the actual cost is only borne occasionally, when things like new highways, bridges or tunnels need to be built. What ought to happen is that there's a fund set up so that such costs only bleed into the general budget slowly (through bond servicing, etc.) but politicians are not at all keen on the approach since that's a long-term one and the next election's only a little way off!
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Because highways aren't funded by the government?
Maybe where you live?
Here, they're mainly funded by a gasoline tax. Which isn't paid via any train ticket I've ever seen.
And one kills more people than the other two combined.
Yeah, and it's still better than trains. Preach it, brother!
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...under-taxing trucks....Massive (hidden) subsidy.
But we also reap the benefits of the cheaper transportation costs.
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And one kills more people than the other two combined.
And one gets people exactly where they want to be, much more often than the other two combined. So...
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You've also got problems with things like the fact that much of the actual cost is only borne occasionally, when things like new highways, bridges or tunnels need to be built. What ought to happen is that there's a fund set up so that such costs only bleed into the general budget slowly (through bond servicing, etc.) but politicians are not at all keen on the approach since that's a long-term one and the next election's only a little way off!
They do that. It's called issuing bonds. Which get paid off over the course of years. Same sort of thing that public funding of rail infrastructure does.
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Timeliness is something they've been hacking away at for a while -- but with how stressed the US rail network is overall, it's not a problem they can turn around and fix overnight. The capital is flowing, though...(one of the major transcontinental rail routes is getting double-tracked, piece by piece)
I thought I saw that BNSF had double-tracked LA-Chicago and was triple-tracking a big stretch ~Kansas-Chicago??
A thing to keep in mind while pondering all this - freight rail is servicing two primary markets that are
prettyvery different - and causes the railroads servicing those two markets to behave differently.- Relatively valuable stuff moving fast - e.g. LA-Chicago containerized traffic
- Relatively cheap stuff - e.g. coal, that doesn't need to move fast just (mostly) reliably.
Many of the the plausible cities to rope into a "National Passenger network", e.g. Atlanta, NC*, Richmond, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago-headed East, are linked to the NEC via railroads in the second category, so you end up with long stretches of the journey limited to 35-55mph.
*NC, obviously not a city, I mean all those cities close to each other there in the middle of NC
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It's called issuing bonds. Which get paid off over the course of years. Same sort of thing that public funding of rail infrastructure does.
Unfortunately, this funding mechanism has been perverted such that the bonds are almost never-ever-ever paid off. Rather, low interest rates encourage simply rolling over the bonds into new ones every few years. However, when interest rates rise...
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What ought to happen is that there's a fund set up so that such costs only bleed into the general budget slowly (through bond servicing, etc.)
Like the Eisenhower Interstate System Highway Trust Fund?@dkf said:but politicians are not at all keen on the approach since that's a long-term one and the next election's only a little way off!
Like the politicians that drained almost the entire fund into the general budget and filled it with now-unserviceable IOUs instead?
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I thought I saw that BNSF had double-tracked LA-Chicago and was triple-tracking a big stretch ~Kansas-Chicago??
@tarunik is this part true?
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I thought I saw that BNSF had double-tracked LA-Chicago and was triple-tracking a big stretch ~Kansas-Chicago??
Actually, I was referring to the other western Class I double-tracking the Sunset route down in the southwest. AIUI, BNSF is working on upgrading parallel routes instead of doing heavy double-tracking...
A thing to keep in mind while pondering all this - freight rail is servicing two primary markets that are [s]pretty[/s] very different - and causes the railroads servicing those two markets to behave differently.
- Relatively valuable stuff moving fast - e.g. LA-Chicago containerized traffic
- Relatively cheap stuff - e.g. coal, that doesn't need to move fast just (mostly) reliably.
QFT.Many of the the plausible cities to rope into a "National Passenger network", e.g. Atlanta, NC*, Richmond, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago-headed East, are linked to the NEC via railroads in the second category, so you end up with long stretches of the journey limited to 35-55mph.
I'm not an expert on the eastern Class I route networks, unfortunately, so I'd have to look further into that...
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Unfortunately, this funding mechanism has been perverted such that the bonds are almost never-ever-ever paid off.
Sure. Public accounting is a major WTF. But that's what we have. I'm not sure what @dkf thinks happens that those costs go don't get spread out over a big horizon.
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And one kills more people than the other two combined.
Cars don't kill people. Stupid/inattentive/drunk drivers kill people.
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I'm not an expert on the eastern Class I route networks, unfortunately, so I'd have to look further into that...
To be perfectly fair - it's a lot better North-South than East-West. Mountains! CSX manages some decent service between Florida and NYC for fruit express...
OTOH the Howard St. tunnel fire in Baltimore (10? years ago) highlighted that there's just the one mainline on the East Coast and it has some big bottlenecks.
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To be perfectly fair - it's a lot better North-South than East-West. Mountains! CSX manages some decent service between Florida and NYC for fruit express...
Indeed -- crossing the Appalachians is a bigger pain in the rump that you'd think.
Oddly enough, the Rockies aren't a barrier to fast freight for the most part, thanks to Sherman Hill...
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But we also reap the benefits of the cheaper transportation costs.
SOCIALIST!!11!!1! wharrgarbl
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Cars don't kill people. Stupid/inattentive/drunk drivers kill people.
You mean all the stupid/inattentive/drunk drivers you meet on trains, planes, trolleybuses?
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Sherman Hill
AAaaargh! Being sidetracked by Wikipedia is a barrier to keeping up with TDWTF…
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I have been schooled at measuring unit snobbery. I wish I could give more than one like.
You could flag him for pendantry, like I did.
Dammit, Swype, I'm going to have to put that word in the dictionary.
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And I get a "badge of shame" for not knowing this. Thanks
You sound like the resident fox.
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his excessive use of significant digits on the other hand.... that is unforgiveable
Maybe he was channeling Data from that early episode I can't find on mobile.
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the poor sap who gets eaten by the Bug and used as a disguise in Men In Black.
Ah, the "Egger" suit, as she mangled the pronunciation.
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You could flag him for pendantry, like I did.
I did that, belatedly, also gave him a like.
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You sound like the resident fox.
I was rather annoyed at the time, because I didn't and don't think I deserved it. And as I said elsewhere, I have a bit more sympathy for said fox than I did a few days ago. That won't stop me from flagging the fox or anyone else I think really deserves it, but I may be a little less eager in borderline cases.
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Scruples, embarrassment, and whatnot are a barrier to Pokémoning badgers.
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You mean all the stupid/inattentive/drunk drivers you meet on trains, planes, trolleybuses?
You forgot sidewalks.
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@accalia typos again!
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SOCIALIST!!11!!1! wharrgarbl
Turrble.
It also occurred to me what a silly comment this was:
@boomzilla said:
And the guys riding the train are sponging off the rest of us.
Because highways aren't funded by the government?As discussed previously, the poster child for US passenger trains barely covers its own operating costs, let alone capital costs. The actual rails and stuff (i.e., the analogy to the roads) is only a part of that. Cars and trucks and all of their operating costs are paid by the people using them.
Fuck you, passenger rail.
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Considering you were one fo the early and most vocal "pendantry" users I am disappoint.
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Considering you were one fo the early and most vocal "pendantry" users I am disappoint.
true, but i do so hate being predictabel.
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As discussed previously, the poster child for US passenger trains barely covers its own operating costs, let alone capital costs. The actual rails and stuff (i.e., the analogy to the roads) is only a part of that. Cars and trucks and all of their operating costs are paid by the people using them.
Is there a fully-functional passenger rail system on this planet that is completely (or even heavily) privately funded? I'd like to know, so I can see what Amtrak is really doing wrong ;)
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Is there a fully-functional passenger rail system on this planet that is completely (or even heavily) privately funded?
I have no idea. If there isn't, does that make them worse or worst ideas?
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Is there a fully-functional passenger rail system on this planet that is completely (or even heavily) privately funded?
The monorail at Disneyworld, probably....
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The monorail at Disneyworld, probably....
Just wait until Disney builds their own nuclear reactor, because they can do so legally.
Disney Could Go Nuclear If They Wanted To – 02:02
— Tom Scott
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I kind of like the rather incredulous way he points out that they are a city and thus have the privileges thereof. "Ohh, they can use eminent domain." Just like every other city.
Also, "they can just up and build a nuclear reactor" doesn't factor in all the Federal permits they'd require. What they can do is merely provide local approval in a way most towns presumably wouldn't due to NIMBYs and BANANAs.
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Also, "they can just up and build a nuclear reactor" doesn't factor in all the Federal permits they'd require.
I cannot find a link to it anymore (perhaps it expired or was allowed to lapse?), but I had previously read that they had all the permits, etc. that they needed. They had just never done it. 30 seconds of Googling turns up nothing, and that is all the effort I am going to look in to a moo point.
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I cannot find a link to it anymore (perhaps it expired or was allowed to lapse?), but I had previously read that they had all the permits, etc. that they needed. They had just never done it
If they had done it way back in the 50s or whatever, I'm sure they could have. I'm equally sure that, starting from scratch, they probably couldn't actually do it today. I bet any permits they had have lapsed/expired by now.
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Is there a fully-functional passenger rail system on this planet that is completely (or even heavily) privately funded?
It depends on exactly what you mean. In terms of passenger rail operations, there most certainly are some (some of the passenger rail operators in the UK pay more money to the government for the privilege of running trains than they receive in subsidies). Rail vehicle owners do well too, as you'd expect as they're really banking subsidiaries. However, that excludes the costs of the rail lines themselves; we did try privatising the rail lines, and it sucked. (It still sucks in government hands, but it costs less overall AIUI.) Rail lines are pretty capital-intensive, and you're in the unfortunate position of needing quite a lot of spending in that area due to a few decades of underinvestment. :( You're definitely not unique in that regard.
In a lot of places, though it would be possible to run the rail (or at least parts of it) at a profit, governments choose not to. Instead, they subsidise the ticket price so as to increase the number of passengers, in order to boost their economy without having to invest heavily in increasing road capacity. (A lot of the EU has land prices like most of the US wouldn't believe; road building is not considered to be a cheap option.) Does that mean that the rail route is inherently non-viable for passenger traffic? It's impossible to tell on the figures; too many non-linear interactions and feedback loops to extrapolate either.
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Does that mean that the rail route is inherently non-viable for passenger traffic? It's impossible to tell on the figures; too many non-linear interactions and feedback loops to extrapolate either.
If you mean, "No, it is not economically viable", just say it.
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If you mean, "No, it is not economically viable", just say it.
No, what they're saying is that they are getting more passengers moved more efficiently in their eyes by spending EUR X on a rail route (improvements, subsidies) than they do by spending that same EUR X on improvements to the road alternative.
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No whoosh, just massive amounts of sarcasm. :-P
Whoosh