About Trains
For the past couple of decades, whenever oil prices spiked, I wondered if this would be good news for railroads. Trains in Europe are still very much a thing, and I’ve traveled by train in England, France, Germany and Spain. There are rail connections from Providence to Boston and to New York City. Of particular interest to me, though, is the economics freight rail vs semi tractor trailers. It seems to me that freight trains should be a more efficient use of petroleum, albeit trucks can travel to more places.
Last fall, I noticed a bunch of trees that had been chopped down next to what I had assumed were disused railroad tracks near the Ten Mile River Bikeway where I walk every other day. A few days later, I saw a half dozen freight cars pulled by a Providence & Worcester locomotive pass by. This morning, I saw a short set of freight cars pulled Providence & Worcester engine headed Northeast, and thirty minutes later, the same train was traveling the other direction. I don’t know if this is new or just that the schedule overlaps with my current walking schedule.
There’s a history of train songs in the American folk tradition. Probably the most familiar is Steve Goodman’s “City of New Orleans,” made famous by Arlo Guthrie. Johnny Cash is alleged to have called “City of New Orleans” the “best damn train song ever written.”
Steve Goodman sings City of New Orleans
Europe did have great passenger service. But freight service by rail was not that widely used.
Passenger service in countries like France has largely suffered the same fate as in the US. The only decent intercity train in France is the TGV, which serves mostly large city centers. In England passenger service was privatized, which led to fragmentation and generally poorer service.
Yes, trains are more economical for people…as long as the people are not too widely dispersed, in which case the automobile becomes the only practical solution. Shopping has on the one hand become more concentrated (e-commerce, malls and big box stores), which is more efficient until you realize that people and delivery vans have to wander way out and serve a widely dispersed population.
Real shipping economies can be realized with a reversal of population dispersion from suburbia and exurbia to more concentration…and it ain’t gonna happen given the American dream of a single family home on a nice plot of land.
The US has an excellent rail system. It’s just that it’s a freight railroad system. In terms of ton miles, railroads transport 40% of US freight as opposed to only 6% in Europe. Our rail freight rates are maybe half what they are in Germany. Those mile long trains running hundreds of miles with one or two operators on board are immensely efficient.
In contrast, the US has wretched passenger service compared to Europe. The best is Amtrak’s northeast corridor and the Michigan east-west corridor, both where the passenger railroad owns the tracks. Heavy freight trains and even modestly high speed rail require different tracking strategies.
That Providence & Worcester line may have something to do with maintaining the railroad’s legal rights with regards to the right of way. There’s a lot of arcane railroad law out there.
Interestingly, the train called The City of New Orleans first ran in 1947, well after the golden age of railroads. Amtrak almost shut it down, but it was one hell of a song, so it was still running when I last checked. The Grateful Dead’s Casey Jones was another great railroad song from 1970, but I doubt it will ever be an Amtrak anthem. Were there as many railroad songs from the late 19th century or early 20th?
Kaleburg:
Completely Correct. The train system has not died, It is not as fast as it could be in which case it would attract more people. Figure ~200 mph run from NYC to Chicago on a high speed rail. It is doable. I know they boast of 300 mph trains in China, The ones I road in were ~ 225 mph. No clickety-Clack and smooth running.
There were many more passenger trains sixty+ years ago. My dad and I rode one from Chicago to Buffalo.
Thank you for the comment.
The Rock Island Line (about a freight train rather than a passenger train and set in the same general region as The City of New Orleans) ranks up there with Arlo’s version, esp. this performance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9mP32GcuV4
by Stan Freberg.
I just noticed that Cash also performed the Rock Island Line,
https://youtu.be/MTu0hllW-Zg
so it’s not that he was unfamiliar with this song when he made his statement about The City of New Orleans. I can only surmises that he had not heard Freberg’s version of TRIL.
LOL!